Each year, the United States gives away billions in foreign aid ($47 billion). A large chunk of this aid goes to African countries, namely Ethiopia, Yemen, Nigeria and Egypt besides Afghanistan. Same is the case with the United Kingdom, with just another addition of Pakistan and South Sudan. Each year, the UN and its bodies also allocate billions of dollars for the development of these nations. There is a thread of similarity that runs among all these countries that receive aid, with the exception of Pakistan - they are one of the poorest nations of the world and are generally failed states.
Defining a Failed State
A failed state is broadly defined as one having a weak and unstable government, wherein the incumbent government is unable to exercise any power in the country. The administration is weak and often contains huge gaps, filled in by corruption and vacancies of positions. The justice systems are usually weak and unable to execute much power, besides being rigged. These countries might be torn by a civil war, or might be recovering from one. They have weak systems of healthcare and often rely heavily on foreign aid, with high infant mortality rates and low levels of life expectancy. The poverty levels are high along with failed systems of welfare, and an alarmingly low trust in the government to do anything substantial.
Such places prove to be a fertile ground for terrorism and civil war. Human rights abuses are common to find, with no proper system of justice deliverance and no proper reformation of criminals. There seems to be an imminent friction between the people dating back to a few years or a decades old conflict left unresolved. With limited access to better means of livelihood, citizens leave in huge numbers seeking refuge in Europe and elsewhere, trying to escape their home country in whatever manner, threatening the security of neighbouring nations. Having an unstable and weak economy, this makes them susceptible to weak labour laws, bad trade deals, leading to exploitation of their people and extremely bad working conditions.
Given all these reasons, the West feels obligated to contribute to them in money and medical aid in huge numbers, but does that money really do anything?
Here’s a critical analysis of the efforts by the West to fix them and whether or not they have been successful.
The Plan
In simple words, the plan is to put money into institutions that will help lift people up from the very low. This looks like providing funding for local roads and basic infrastructure like houses for the poor and hospital buildings. Huge part of the money is also put into healthcare - acquiring essential drugs, critical medical equipment and vaccines for babies. In countries with volatile climate conditions - prone to natural calamities like floods, drought or landslides - the idea is to build relief systems in place that can be accessed and distributed equitably among all.
Critical areas of work are defined by identifying stakeholders, then setting a lists of tasks to be done along with money to be assigned to each project and later measuring the efficacy or success rate by using methods of monitoring - like how many children now attend school, how many have access to healthcare, whether or not people were sufficiently provided for in a natural disaster, etc. Political will and effective administration is expected to be followed after such generous help.
But reality tells us otherwise. It has been years (beginning in the late 20th century) piling resources into these countries, but they are still at the lower rungs of development and highest in poverty.
Challenges
The problem is not individualistic, it is institutional and structural. You can build all the roads you want, but there needs to be an administration that looks after them - making sure they are clean, filling any potholes and keeping them maintained. Fill up all hospitals with essential medicines and set up UN clinics in rural areas but if there exists no proper electricity connection to store these meds, or local security issues which threaten the safety of doctors and nurses, all these efforts seem like they are going down the drain.
However, this is not to say that whatever work the West has done or the amount of resources, time and energy they have put in are all in vain. Some areas have seen vaccination drives become successful and women having basic prenatal healthcare, but the bare minimum is not enough.
The real challenge is in the structure and corruption in the administrative institutions. There are issues of security, ethnic tensions and inherent prejudices disallowing women to participate and represent in politics. They have unstable or newly formed governments seeking legitimacy from the people it serves, and lack of education of huge masses of population making law and order difficult. Because of these complex and often entangled difficulties, tax collection is generally low making the national treasury depleted in revenue thereby limiting their abilities.
Maybe the way the West has been handling such a problem is only surface level, and not long term. The problem lies not in a lack of resources now, rather in ensuring that these resources meet the most vulnerable and in an equitable manner.
The solution we should talk more about
The plan should not be to use big monetary guns to make things better. The plan instead, should be to make these countries sustainable by themselves. They should be less dependent on foreign aid and more on the will of their politicians and the power they exercise. The reason behind pouring in money for so long is not that the people are still sick, rather that not everyone has access to basic necessities like sanitation or can afford two square meals a day. This is because the government is unable to allocate resources for them or even if they have done that, the resources have not reached the ones who need it because of the corrupt bureaucrats which eat them up in the path.
Besides ensuring that there are enough food grains available, the West should work with the people and the incumbent government to gain legitimacy and win faith in their ability to do something. Free and fair elections must be facilitated, long term sustainability plans must be discussed with the local leaders and we must work hand in hand with them to ensure the smooth execution of these plans. We must work on the ground for longer and more close terms with the local populace and leaders to not just understand their problems better, but also to attest to the legitimacy of an external actor on their grounds. We must work with them to make sure that a proper judicial system exists, which is independent of any political stains, and make it work within the ambit of the local societies.
The problem is not insolvable, we need only to make our approach more local and close than surface level. A long term solution which wins back faith and legitimacy while building relationships is the only viable answer to all our problems and we must focus on getting that right.
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