Transforming Development: Foreign Aid for a Changing World

Jeanne Fay teaches community practice and social policy at the Maritime
School of Social Work. She is also teaches poverty law and
anti-oppressive practice at Dalhousie Legal Aid Service. She has been an
anti-poverty activist and advocate in both the Unit

Foreign aid needs transforming. None of the G7 heads of state chose to
attend the U.N. World Food Summit this past June, which left leaders of
developing countries who did attend wondering out loud about the
commitment of rich nations to end hunger. U.S. aid to sub-Saharan Africa
is so low (less than .001 percent of national income) as to be
comparable, Hendrik Hertzberg writes in The New Yorker, to someone
making six figures “flipping a quarter to a homeless person every
week.” In the early 1990s, according to the editor of this collection
of essays, Canada seemed to be following suit: federal budgets for
foreign aid had been reduced by 20 percent in three years. Dire
predictions about the demise of humanitarian aid have followed.

The crossroads at which development finds itself in 2000 provides the
context for Transforming Development. Either the United States (and
others) will send foreign aid down the road of ever-shrinking budgets
and crass political/economic self-interest or foreign aid will be
transformed to promote the “idea of a global civic consciousness,”
which, the authors argue, is essential to temper the excesses of the
“globalization juggernaut.”

The essays are grounded in the Canadian experience. The first two
essays examine Canadian foreign aid’s “divergent impulses”
(Morrison) and “competing rationales” (Pratt). Part 2 questions
structural adjustment programs and the effect of international ownership
and conditionality on developing countries. Part 3 looks at the roles of
state aid, private capital, and NGOs in the future of development
assistance. Part 4 raises surprisingly positive points about the impact
of globalization, while Part 5 argues that social justice is a key
component of economic development. In Part 6, the transformative
capabilities and limitations of participatory practice are discussed.
The final section examines the pros and cons of emergency food and
information technology aid.

In his conclusion, Freedman makes a passionate plea for humanitarian
internationalism and social justice: “Communities, like nations,
produce more when the social conditions are right.” To create these
conditions, ground rules that promote equality, justice, and collective
action are needed. Moreover, Freedman writes, “economic stability is a
mirage unless there is some institutional provision for keeping the
excesses of poverty and other social injustices from generating
political chaos.” Listen up, WTO and IMF.