NGO Another Way (Stichting Bakens Verzet), 1018 AM Amsterdam, Netherlands.

 

Edition 04: 26 April, 2011

 

01. E-course : Diploma in Integrated Development (Dip. Int. Dev)

 

Quarter 1.

 

 

SECTION A : DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS.

 

 

Study value : 04 points out of 18.

Indicative study time: 112 hours out of 504.

 

Study points are awarded only after the consolidated exam for Section A : Development Problems has been passed.

 


 

First block : Poverty and quality of life.

 

Study value : 02 points out of 18.

Indicative study time: 57 hours out of 504.

 

Study points are awarded only after the consolidated exam for Section A : Development Problems has been passed.

 


 

First block : Poverty and quality of life.

 

First Block : Section 1. Analysis of the causes of poverty. [26.50 hours]

First Block : Section 2. Services needed for a good quality of life.

First Block : Exam. [ 4 hours each attempt]

 


 

Block 1 of Section 1. Analysis of the causes of poverty. [26.50 hours]

 

Part 1 : Introduction to the causes of poverty.[06.50 hours]

 

01. Definition of poverty.

02. Some factors linked with poverty.

03. Debts and subsidies.

04. Financial leakage : food and water industries.

05. Financial leakage : energy.

06. Financial leakage : means of communication.

07. Financial leakage : health and education.

08. Financial leakage : theft of resources.

09. Financial leakage : corruption.

10. The industry of poverty.

 


 

Part 1 : Introduction to the causes of poverty.[06.50 hours]

 

10. The industry of poverty. (At least 30 minutes)

 

Look at the following slide :

 

10. Financial leakage: development aid.

 

In his book Lords of Poverty, [McMillan, London 1989. ISBN 0 7493 0503 7], Graham Hancock gave a well-documented description of the development aid of the time.

 

In the years following publication of the book aid institutions in donor nations claim to have improved their services and approaches to development aid. They claim, for example, they no longer apply the principle of tied aid  where goods and services of the donor nation are preferentially supplied by the donor country itself.

 

A new, often profit making, industry.

 

Development aid operations provide work, both through «official » organisations such as those linked with the United Nations, and through the tens of thousands of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) interested in development issues. Few reliable statistics on their operations are available.

 

1. Research.

 

Make a list of local and foreign development organisations active in your country. How many people work for them ? How many of those working for them are foreigners ?

 

2. Research.

 

Make a list of local and foreign development organisation active in your chosen area. How many people work for them ? How many of those working for them are foreigners ?

 

3. Research.

 

Make a list of development projects in your project area How many people work for them ? How many of those working for them are foreigners ?

 

Foreign aid  : a very wide definition.

 

Donor nations have a tendency to define the term “foreign aid” according to their own needs. Aid may, by way of example, include the supply of arms, the training of soldiers and policemen, debt-cancellation, or feasibility studies.

 

Consider the following factors:

 

Political competition (for example, the Cold War).

Competition for the control of raw materials (for example, Coltan in R.D Congo).

Projects considered too large for local operators to handle (for example, large dams and motorways).

Protection of the economic interests of the donor country.

Influence of past or present colonialism.

 

4. Opinion.

 

Make a list of the factors influencing development aid in your chosen area (if there are no projects there, then answer the question for your country).

 

Where does the money available for development actually go?

 

Consider aid projects financed by industrialised countries currently under execution in your chosen area. If there are no projects there, then answer the question for your country.

 

Try to get information on their budgets.

 

5. Research.

 

Make an analysis of the budget amounts payable abroad (expatriates salaries; purchase of imported materials; studies carried out abroad; audits; follow-up visits etc) and of the part which is payable “locally”.

 

Experts, expatriates, everywhere.

 

Hancock  Graham, in Lords of Poverty, McMillan, London 1989, writes at  p. 114 :.

 

“[The «guiders and managers »] have become so pervasive that Africa, for example, has more expatriates living in it today than it ever did during the era of colonisation and settlement :[5] there are an estimated 80.000 foreign “experts” working on development projects in the world’s poorest continent [6]. To this substantial total must be added the legions of short-stay visitors – agency staff on project appraisal missions, VIPs from donor countries, consultants conducting feasibility studies, and, of course, researchers. During the 1970s, when Tanzania’s  ujamaa villages were at their most fashionable as examples of successful grassroots development, there were occasions when some villages had more researchers than villagers. [7]

 

The resources cited by Hancock are :

 

(5) Famine : A Man-Made Disaster, Report for the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Pan Books, London and Sydney, 1985.

(6) E.S.Ayensu, Aid to Africa, paper presenter to the World Commission on Environment and Development, third meeting, Oslo, Norway, 21-8 June 1985.

(7) Johan Galtung, An  Anthropology of the United Nations System, in David Pitt and Thomas G. Weiss (eds) The Nature of United Nations Bureaucracies, Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1986. 

 

6. Opinion.

 

Are Graham Hancock’s observations applicable today in your project area ?( If there are no projects there, then answer the question for your country).

"Of the more than 1,500 U.S. contracts doled out [ in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake there] , worth 267 million dollars, only 20, worth 4.3 million dollars, have gone to Haitian firms," Dupuy wrote. "The rest have gone to U.S. firms, which almost exclusively use U.S. suppliers.

“He added, "although these foreign contractors employ Haitians, mostly on a cash-for-work basis, the bulk of the money and profits are reinvested in the United States………...The dual strategy of urban sweatshops and laissez-faire agriculture, which subordinated Haiti in the 1980s, is now it's reconstruction plan.

Source : D’Almeida K., Martelly - Clinton Seal Deal for Next Wave of Disaster Capitalism in Haiti, Inter-press Service North America, Washington, 21 April, 2011, citing Alex Dupuy, Professor of Sociology, Wesleyan University.

 

Vaccination Campaigns.

 

Read the notes you made on vaccinations and the role played by pharmaceuticals multinationals in 07. Financial leakage : health and education.

 

7. Research.

 

Which vaccination campaigns have been carried out in your project area?

What was the role played by foreign aid in the form of personnel and products?

What was the rate of infection of the sicknesses in question before and after the vaccinations?

 

Help – I’m hungry!

 

Read the article How America is Betraying the Hungry Children of Africa, by Alex Renton, Observer, 27 May  2007.

 

8. Opinion.

 

Write a review of the article

 

Now read the article  “Miami Rice” : The Business of Disaster in Haiti  by Beverley Bell and Tory Field, CommonDreams.org, Portland (Maine), December 10, 2010.

 

 



 First  block : Poverty and quality of life.


Index : Diploma in Integrated Development  (Dip.Int.Dev)

 List of key words.

 List of references.

  Course chart.


 Courses available.

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