Should ODA Be Discontinued?

Global Social Justice

(Word Count – 1,075 words)

Justin Frewen 15/Jan/2010

Despite donor country pledges in 1970 to spend 0.7% of GNP on overseas development
assistance (ODA), this target is still proving elusive 40 years later. Now, as the chills of a
global economic crisis whirl around us, ODA is actually being reduced and the possibility
of this target being achieved anytime in the near future appears ever more remote.

However, many would argue that in this current global recession we should be
concentrating on taking care of those who have fallen on hard times closer to home.
Others deny the existence of any moral obligation for those living in distant lands.
Meanwhile, a considerable number of analysts reject the whole rationale of aid. They
claim it is the wrong mechanism to tackle the plight of those suffering from extreme
poverty, hunger and other ills. Instead, inter-state trading structures and frameworks
should be improved to enable ‘developing’ countries participate more effectively in the
global marketplace.

What is beyond dispute is the fact that poverty continues to be a critical global concern.
Approximately half of the world’s population of 6 billion live on less than US$2.50 a day
with 1.2 billion living on under US$1. Furthermore, despite significant reductions in child
mortality, 8.8 million children under five died in 2008. At the same time, inequality
continues to increase exponentially. By 2005, 76.6% of total private consumption
worldwide was accounted for by the wealthiest 20% with the poorest 20% enjoying a
mere 1.5%.

Given the persistence of such poverty, despite the expenditure of US$2.5 trillion over the
past 50 years, surely it is time to accept that ODA does not work? Moreover, as we
struggle through a crippling recession, should available funds not be focussed on
alleviating the economic woes of our own citizens? Does charity after all not begin at
home?

To respond to these issues, albeit in reverse order, we must consider the following
questions. Firstly, the ethical one as to whether the lives of those in faraway regions
should be considered less important than those of our fellow citizens? Secondly, if our
response is even a conditional ‘no’, is ODA the correct manner in which to proceed?

The Australian philosopher, Peter Singer, strongly maintains the absence of any ethical
justification for favouring those close to us when in doing so we expend resources that
could provide equivalent or greater succour to a superior number of people elsewhere.
Other commentators feel this is too high a standard to set and as such unrealistic for
practical purposes, irrespective of the validity of Singer’s ethical arguments. In this
respect, Thomas Pogge is less demanding when he stresses that people in affluent states
surely have some ethical responsibility for alleviating the suffering of others, particularly
given its low relative cost.

Perhaps the British moral philosopher Ted Honderich best illustrates our ethical
responsibility when he talks about the ‘half-lives’ suffered by those living in the poorest
nations. While people in ‘developed’ countries enjoy an average lifespan of some 72
years, a person in Malawi has just over 30 years to look forward to. Moreover, their half-
lives are more likely to be plagued by ill health. For Honderich, the conclusion is clear.
We have a moral responsibility to “try to save people from bad lives.”

However, though this may be the case, is aid the best means to fulfil our moral
obligations? After all, poverty is still widespread despite vast expenditure on ODA.
Furthermore, while China has significantly reduced its incidence of poverty, was this not
due to its increased participation in the world marketplace rather than international aid?
 Should ODA Be Discontinued?
Global Social Justice
(Word Count – 1,075 words)

Justin Frewen 15/Jan/2010

Therefore, in order to tackle global poverty, should we concentrate on increasing trading

opportunities and removing obstacles to free trade to facilitate the participation of less
economically developed countries in the global marketplace instead of investing in
wasteful and even potentially corrupt physical infrastructures projects in ‘developing’
countries?

For Mike Moore, ex-head of the WTO, the answer is clear. Increased trade benefits
‘developing’ countries.

Seven years ago, we introduced at Doha what was to be a "development round". All
trade rounds are. President Kennedy, who introduced the Tokyo round, famously said:
'This will lift all boats and help developing countries like Japan.' Case made, I would
have thought.

However, many would argue the problem faced by ‘developing’ countries is not their lack
of integration to the world market but rather their incorporation under highly
unfavourable terms.

The economist Ha-Joon Chang claims the primary obstacle to economic growth in
developing nations is the way in which today’s wealthy states, despite having applied
interventionist economic policies during their rise, now prevent ‘developing’ states from
adopting similar measures. The development geographer Richard Peet also contends that
despite a vast opening up to trade, ‘developing’ countries have seen no significant
increase in their overall income.

Moreover, the minimalist trickle-down rationale that operates on the principle, as the
economist John Kenneth Galbraith once cogently, if indelicately, put it, that ‘if you feed a
horse with enough oats some will pass through to the road for the sparrows’, looks ever
more suspect. As Jan Pietersee observes, the discrepancies in income and wealth are
now vast to the point of being grotesque and are without historical precedent or
conceivable justification, occurring as they have done in an explosion of wealth over the
same period.

Most worryingly of all it is clear that the current economic crisis is disproportionately
impacting upon the most impoverished. As the World Bank’s 2009 Global Monitoring
Report reveals, the current international recession has contributed largely to reversing
progress in reducing the number of chronically hungry people, with a rise from 850
million in 2007 to 960 million in 2008.

So, where does this leave those fated to endure the half-lives depicted by Honderich?
Are they to be cast aside in their misery, their torments relieved only by the tenuous
hope that at some indeterminate moment in the future improved international trading
opportunities might, might, via some ‘invisible hand’, deliver them from their debilitating
circumstances?

While questions may justifiably be raised as to the optimal means of ODA disbursement,
the effectiveness of particular development programmes, the problem of possible
corruption in recipient countries and the role improved trading conditions might play in
helping ‘developing’ countries reduce their poverty rates, it would be ethically
indefensible to engage in indiscriminate ODA cutbacks that will result in an increased
loss of life or rise in the number of half-lives amongst the poorest and most defenceless
people on our planet.