The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill And So Little Good [Paperback]

How come $2.3 trillion dollars of Western aid has been spent in the last 50 years mostly in Africa, my native continent, and yet millions of children still die of preventable diseases like dysentery, cholera and malaria? Why have the vast amounts of aid money and Western good intentions not been able to lift Africa out of back-breaking poverty? William Easterly's argument, in this fascinating book, is that Western aid has failed because of the traditional approach that it has taken to tackling Third World poverty: planning and bureaucracy.

According to Mr Easterly, Western aid in the form on the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the IMF) is the most recent reincarnation of the White Man's Burden, a phrase which was immortalized by Kipling. The basic argument of the White Man's Burden in the 19th century was that Western Europe spread Christianity, commerce and civilization to the coloured, benighted races of the world (of course for the benefit of the Africans and Asians).

Mr Easterly, a former World Bank Economist, writes that the command-and-control bureaucrats of the aid establishment, whom he dubs as Planners, cannot understand the complexities of getting aid to the desperate poor because:
- There is no accountability for service delivery, as the poor cannot do this by voting.
- Planners' thinking is dominated by grandiose, non-specific plans such as ending poverty and the Millennium Development Goals
- Planners think that they already have the answers. Hence, they tend to be patronizing and have a ready-made answer for every poor country; structural adjustment, free markets and privatization

The author then contrasts the failure of the Planners with Searchers, whom he defines as people who work at the local level seeking incremental economic change for the poor by constantly experimenting with new ideas on the ground. He provides interesting accounts of aid projects, done by Searchers; Westerners and Africans, which were modest in scope but brought significant benefits to the poor. My favourite example was from India. By making a contribution of $5,000, Western donors built a toilet block for teenage girls in a rural school. This dramatically cut the drop-out rate for the girls because, as it turns out, they (the girls) had been dropping out "in droves because of the embarrassment that they felt once they started menstruating and had no private facilities".

He brilliantly shows that Western-style market societies cannot be planned "top-down" (contrary to the goals of the Planners). Markets in the developed West are the result of complex social and political institutions/norms that have taken thousands of years to evolve. Since free market opportunities in the West and The Rest depend on "bottom-up choices" which the planners don't begin to understand, Planners are doomed to fail in creating markets in the Third World.
Though the subject of the book is a serious one, the tome is spiced with witty accounts of the histories of various Third World countries: Western support for UNITA in Angola, the Contras in Nicaragua and in Haiti. On page after page, Easterly provides grim evidence of the failure of the World Bank, the IMF and Western military intervention to bring about desired social change. More often than not, it has led to much harm as in the above-mentioned countries. The message: Economic success in the tropics cannot be planned from an office in Washington DC. Instead, as has happened in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China and India, it must be homegrown. Certainly Western aid still has a role to play but the Planners in the World Bank and IMF would do well to be more humble in their ambitions and seek to incrementally the improve lives of individuals in the poor countries.

Sometimes, Mr Easterly's analysis is quite dry. For example, he presents information showing that people in (rich) Denmark are more trustful of each other than people in (poor) The Philippines are. However, he erroneously concludes that wealth is a determinant of trust in a society. Could it be that Danes are more trustful of each other because theirs is a more ethnically homogenous and equal society than The Philippines? Could a breakdown in social institutions in The Philippines be the cause of mistrust, say more than wealth?

The distinction between Planners and Searchers struck me as being too simplistic. It is hard to believe that everyone who works for the World Bank and IMF falls neatly into the "Planner" category. Surely, the truth is more complex than the author presents it. However, since the crude distinction works well in contrasting the traditional approach to aid, I'll not fault the author for this.

Finally, the author presents some ideas for getting aid to work:

- Make aid agencies individually accountable for individual, feasible areas that help poor people improve their lives
- Give aid agencies the opportunity to experiment and search for what works
- Abandon the utopian blueprint to fix the Third World's complex problems. Instead focus on getting specific, incremental improvement in people's lives in fields such as health, sanitation and food security. Broad-brush plans for delivering market economies, `Making Poverty History" or establishing the rule of law, laudable as they are, are going to fail

In the concluding chapter, the author makes a most poignant point: "Aid won't make poverty history...only the self reliant efforts of poor people and poor societies themselves can end poverty, borrowing ideas and institutions from the West when it suits them to do so". It is a message with which I concur and one that I, as a Nigerian, have taken to heart. I recommend White Man's Burden for making such a timely point.

At the World Economic Forum in 2007, author William Easterly gave the audience some distressing news: The $2.3 trillion in aid sent to Africa since the 1950s had done nothing to increase Africa's GDP. It had been largely a waste of money. Bill Gates, who was sitting next to Easterly that day, admonished the author for focusing on narrowly economic benchmarks: "You don't eat GDP," Gates said petulantly. Easterly's riposte came a few days later in The Wall Street Journal, where he chided the world's richest college dropout for missing "the economics class that listed the components of GDP, such as food." Readers who enjoy such debates will love this acerbic, clearheaded book. Easterly, a former World Bank economist who is fervently committed to global prosperity, demolishes the myths that prop up ineffective efforts to help developing nations. He points his wrecking-ball at photo-op celebrities and utopian economists who feel that big plans and big aid budgets will eventually build big economies (the last 50 years of contrary evidence notwithstanding). Ah, you say, at least they are trying to do something good, while many others simply watch the impoverished world's agony in dismay. Instead, the author argues, only alternative, pinpointed aid tactics can succeed, but only if they use local knowledge and implementation. We recommend this to anyone interested in economic development and emerging markets, and to lovers of intelligent polemic on issues that matter.

I bought this book fully expecting to disagree with almost everything the author said, but feeling that to have an open mind I should read it.

The title I found hugely embarrasing especially as I spend most of my time reading in public places where large proportions of the people are not white.

Easterly despite having spent a good time of his career earning money from the World Bank actually spends most of the time explaining how foreign aid policy has failed to work over the last 50 years largely due to the desire to have a 'Big Plan' and the arrogance of foreigners (from predominantly white nations) in their interventions in the rest of the world.

I actually found myself agreeing with more of this book than I thought I would and certainly most of it was easy but interesting to read. I think some of the explanations and criticisms were too clear cut but I could see that often trying to comply with a Big Plan does indeed distract from the more important task of finding ways to improve lives.

Two things about the book really annoyed me. One was the constant reference to Planners v Searchers which was much along the lines of here come the 'baddies' in the black clothes called 'Planners' and against them are the good, little people trying to bring light in their white clothes 'Searchers'.

Secondly was the use of statistics. I think if you have a good grasp of statistical analysis then you would be disappointed with the frequent lack of referencing of the data or only referencing secondary sources. If you are not statistically biased then trying to read and re-read the descriptions of the analysis - 'adjusting for reverse causality' is difficult because you are left unconvinced as to whether the conclusions presented have a strong basis.

However even saying this I felt there were many interesting points to consider in this book, generally it was written in an easy style all be it a little too frivolous at times. For anyone interested in development, aid or foreign policy this is a MUST READ book.