Let them eat ice cream

Phil Smoke quotes Food for the Hungry as saying:

Experts say to provide water, basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world would cost about $20 billion … the same amount Americans spend each year on ice cream!

This early in the morning, I’m having trouble stirring myself up to the kind of indignant scorn that a statistic of this nature deserves. Statistics are always used to move you to do something. In the case of Food for the Hungry, what do you think their hoped-for result is?

Here are some possibilities:

1. Americans should stop eating ice cream.
2. Everyone in the world should be able to eat ice cream.
3. We should redistribute the Americans’ wasted money and thus eliminate all the world’s problems.
4. Instead of stuffing our fat faces with poisonous ice cream we should give the money to Food for the Hungry and that will help the world’s needy people.

As much as I recognize that consumerism is out of control in the U.S., handing over our cash to the developing world will not solve the problem. Instead, dumping cash on the Third World not only replicates the consumerism and materialism of the West, it also creates a culture of corruption and dependence. Those who are conduits of the cash pouring in from the outside corrupt themselves and those around them by diverting well-intentioned gifts for personal gain. And end recipients of “aid” are crippled by dependence which stifles initiative and encourages defeatism.

Listen to James Shikwati:

development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need.

HT: Russell Page

Shikwati’s comments are so good that I highly encourage you to click the above paragraph and read the full interview. His perspective will shock you because 1. We have been conditioned by the media to only see scenes of desperation in the developing world and 2. Because a lot of people are feeding at the development trough and don’t want you to know where your funds are really going.

By now you might be catching a whiff of hypocrisy. Am I not a product of the development machine? And aren’t I being exceedingly hypocritical by raising funds for the Nyungwe Bible translation?

Let me explain it this way. I see a distinction between three major types of aid:

1. Responding to a crisis

Reconstruction of post-war Germany is an example. So is the response to Hurricane Katrina or the Asian tsunami. When we see someone in imminent danger we should do everything within our power to help them. But usually the immediate need is addressed, the crisis passes, and individuals are able to care for themselves independently.

2. Creating dependency

Creating dependency almost always begins as responding to a crisis. A donor or change agent shows up on the scene, identifies a need (real or imaginary) and begins to pour resources into resolving that crisis. But the problem is that the crisis is never resolved. Basic needs are met by the outside agency without creating the possibility of local sustainability. If the agency steps out, the problem returns to dominate those who were being “helped.”

3. Creating opportunity

A third type of aid involves creating opportunity. Independence and sustainability are in place. But an outside agency steps in to improve the life of local people in some way. The Mozambican government has done this through awareness campaigns about the nutritional value of sweet potato, for example. Educators show up in a community and raise awareness about something that can improve lives. The Igreja de Cristo Unida Menonita does this by selling treadle pumps at attainable prices that improve crop yields. And I think the Nyungwe Bible translation project is an example of creating opportunity. Translation, review, distribution and use of the Scriptures is facilitated by Mozambicans themselves. Outside agencies provide training, consulting and funding, but the Nyungwe Bible is being translated by the Nyungwe people for the Nyungwe people.

Believe me when I tell you that we often fail in our attempts to create opportunity. It is very easy to create dependency and foster corruption. The needs are in one sense staggering, but as James Shikwati goes on to say, “Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars.”

This holiday season you will have many opportunities to contribute toward aid programs of different kinds. It’s worth asking, “Am I responding to a crisis, creating dependency or creating opportunity?”

I’d like to hear from you on this topic. Are my three types of aid an accurate way of looking at aid programs? How do you decide which appeals for donations are valid?

Go ahead and enjoy your ice cream. And while you do think about what kinds of development projects you can get involved with that will either respond to a crisis or create opportunity.