textbook part 5

Question 1

Evaluating development aid:

Answer 1

Huge amounts of development aid have been extended by developed countries over the last 50 years.
The obvious question to ask is: have receiver countries fully benefited from this aid?
Unfortunately, there is little data available on which to base a reliable answer to this question. In addition, as indicated in Section 13.1, there is no universal acid test to tell us whether or not the aid has literally paid dividends.

Question 2

The following are five highly generalised verdicts on development aid.

Answer 2

• The outcomes of development aid have not matched the inputs.
• Three factors might go some way to explaining this discrepancy:
• the inappropriateness of some forms of aid
  the siphoning of funds by corruption
  a lack of sound governance and, related to this, the civil and political unrest that has characterised the recent histories of too many developing countries.
• In the earlier years of development aid there was an emphasis on economic development and on prestige projects, which meant that there was little trickle-down of benefits to the most needy people.
• In more recent times, development aid has been directed more at a grass-roots level and focused on education, skills training and healthcare. The verdict on such aid is altogether more positive.
• There is a school of thought that argues that no matter what form development aid takes, it encourages developing countries to become dependent on donor countries.
• Over the years there has been much debate about the relative merits of bilateral and multilateral aid. The jury is still out on this one.

Question 3

The Ebola outbreak

Answer 3

• The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported in March 2014 and rapidly became the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976.
• The epidemic that swept across the region in 2014-15 killed five times more than all other known Ebola outbreaks combined (Figure 13.3).
• Eighteen months on from the first confirmed case, recorded on 23 March 2014, nearly 12,000 people had been reported as having died from the disease in six countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Mali and the USA (one aid worker).
• The bulk of the deaths were in the first three countries.
• Six months after the first confirmed case, and with the spread of the disease apparently out of control, the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) was set up.
• Its purpose was to lead and co-ordinate the international responses of NGOs such as MSF.

Question 4

Other tasks assigned to UNMEER included:

Answer 4

• locating and monitoring everyone who had come into contact with an Ebola patient
• overseeing the safe burial of Ebola victims
• establishing and equipping treatment centres for the safe treatment of the sick
• organising the transport of medical supplies and personnel
• accessing adequate food supplies in a situation of decreasing food production, rising food prices and closed national borders.

Thanks to the combined efforts of UNMEER, the governments of the Ebola-stricken countries and a number of NGOs, there was a sharp fall in the number of new cases of Ebola during the first half of 2015.
It was beginning to look as if the epidemic was under control.
However, it soon became clear that the decline in new cases had stalled, particularly in Sierra Leone.

Question 5

The following factors were allowing the virus to continue to spread:

Answer 5

Fear of reporting to the authorities that a family member or friend might have contracted or died from Ebola.
Fatigue with the 24/7 task of carefully following the necessary stringent precautions.
Denial by a hardcore of the population who were strongly resistant to the idea that they needed to change their behaviour.

The region was finally declared Ebola-free in January 2016.
UNMEER is the first ever mission deployed by the UN to tackle a huge health security challenge.
It has since been admitted that its creation came rather late in the day, however, and that action needs to be taken much sooner in any similar future emergencies.
It is clear that such outbreaks will continue until ways are found to totally eradicate the disease.
It will involve the commitment and co-operation of governments as well as the efforts of medical research scientists to come up with a vaccine.
It bodes well if this sort of co-operation continues and possibly expands into a much broader concern about other aspects of human development.

Question 6

Contrasting outcomes

Answer 6

Whether emergency aid should be considered as an integral part of development aid is debatable.
Certainly, even in the opening decades of the twenty-first century, the world has been confronted by some major natural disasters.
The aid response to the Haiti earthquake of 2010 was examined in Chapter 12 (see page 209).
The evaluation was not altogether positive. Did the aid response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa four years later do any better?

Question 7

Trends in economic inequalities

Answer 7

• One of the widespread concerns about development aid has been its broad impact.
• Has it widened or narrowed the gap between the receiving country’s rich and poor?
• It has been suggested that top-down aid has tended to increase the polarisation, while bottom-up aid has done rather more for the poor in terms of access to basic services (safe water and proper sewage disposal), primary education and healthcare.

Question 8

Table 13.2 shows some of the small amount of data there are about the changing distributions of income within countries:

Answer 8

• It uses the Gini index or coefficient: a decrease in the Gini index for any country indicates a move towards a more even distribution of income.
• The countries in the table were chosen because they happened to be developing countries where suitable data were available.
• The table shows that just over half the sample of fifteen countries showed a decline in the Gini index and, therefore, a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor.
• To put the values in this table into perspective, in 2010 the UK’s Gini index was 34.8.
• Time sets of data about life expectancy and health are more readily available than that required for calculating Gini indices.
• Because of this they are frequently used in monitoring the impacts of development aid, particularly among the poor.
• In the case of Botswana, however, such indicators need to be treated with caution.

Question 9

Skills focus: Gini coefficient or index

Answer 9

• The Gini index is a statistical measure that can be used to assess the extent to which the distribution of income among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution.
• A Lorenz curve plots the cumulative percentages of total income received against the cumulative number of recipients, starting with the poorest individual or household.
• The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenz curve and a hypothetical line of absolute equality.
• This is expressed as a percentage of the maximum area under the line.
• Thus, a Gini index of 0 represents perfect equality while an index of 100 implies perfect inequality.
• Use of the Gini coefficient is limited by the lack of income data for those countries in which we are particularly interested, i.e. the least developed countries receiving development aid.

Question 10

Emergency aid:

Answer 10

Rapid assistance given by organisations or governments to people in immediate distress following natural or man-made disasters.
The aim is to relieve suffering and the aid includes such things as food and water, temporary housing and medical help.

Question 11

Ebola:

Answer 11

A highly contagious and fatal disease spread through contact with body fluids infected by a filovirus. Its symptoms are fever and severe internal bleeding.
The host species of the virus has not been confirmed but fruit bats and primates have been implicated.

Question 12

The unusual case of Botswana:

Answer 12

By African standards, Botswana is a beacon of hope. It is:
relatively prosperous
politically stable
fairly free of corruption
reasonably respectful of human rights.
But Table 13.2 (page 223) clearly shows a very uneven distribution of income - a wide gap between rich and poor.

Question 13

Aid and development in Botswana

Answer 13

• Botswana is a sparsely populated, arid and landlocked country with large areas of wilderness.
• At independence in 1966, it was one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of just US$70 a year.
• In the first few years of independence about 60 per cent of government expenditure came from international aid.
• Agriculture (mostly cattle farming for beef production) accounted for 40 per cent of GDP.
• Since 1966, however, Botswana has maintained one of the world’s highest economic growth rates.
• Through fiscal discipline and sound government, Botswana has transformed itself into a middle-income country with a per capita income of around US$7500.
• The exploitation of one resource - diamonds - has underlain most of this remarkable economic development.
• Botswana is the world’s largest producer of diamonds (Figure 13.5).
• Diamonds account for a third of GDP and about three-quarters of its exports (by value).
• Upmarket tourism, financial services, subsistence farming and cattle rearing are other significant sectors of the economy.
• An expected levelling off in diamond production within the next 20 years overshadows the country’s long-term prospects.
• A comparison of Botswana’s HDI with those of other African countries of similar size speaks for itself (Figure 13.6).
• It would be even more impressive were it not for a low scoring on life expectancy.
• Despite its economic success, it might seem strange that Botswana still receives overseas aid.
• In financial terms this accounts for only three per cent of GDP, and much of it is to do with Botswana’s number one health problem: HIV/AIDS.

Question 14

Health in Botswana

Answer 14

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Botswana is the second highest in the world and threatens the country’s impressive economic gains.
The UN estimates more than one in three adults in Botswana is currently infected with HIV or has developed AIDS.
The disease has orphaned many thousands of children and has dramatically cut life expectancy.
However, with overseas aid, Botswana now has in place one of the most advanced treatment programmes.
Thanks to the economic growth, the government can afford to make anti-retroviral drugs readily available.

Question 15

Human rights:
Botswana has the reputation of speaking out against human rights abuses in Africa. Often it is the only regional voice to do so. However, not everything in its own backyard is rosy. For example:

Answer 15

The same political party has been in power for over 40 years. State control of the media makes it difficult for opposition parties to campaign in elections on an equal footing.
Botswana retains the death penalty, which it exercises in cases of murder, treason and assassination.
It continues to criminalise homosexuality and discriminate against it in the workforce.
The government is accused of dispossessing the indigenous Bushmen from their lands and traditional water supplies in the Kalahari Desert, mainly because of the vast diamond fields, but also in order to create large game reserves for the benefit of tourists.
Expressions of cultural diversity are not encouraged.

• As with so many countries, Botswana’s record on human rights has its blemishes.
• But at least the country does have a stable, fairly democratic government that has invested some of the diamond profits in public goods and infrastructure.

Question 16

Superpower objectives:

Answer 16

Superpowers are defined by great economic wealth, military strength, reliable access to resources and a dominant ideology
But no superpower can afford to rest on its laurels.
It needs to be constantly scheming to reinforce or enhance its global status.

Question 17

More specifically, a superpower needs to be constantly securing:

Answer 17

strategic locations
future supplies of resources (food, energy, minerals and water)
alliances (economic, political and military) with other countries
technological advances
a global sphere of influence.

Question 18

Aid can be used to

Answer 18

• pave the way to achieving most of these objectives.
• Aid can open doors and can create a sort of halo effect that donor countries are able to exploit for their own ends.
• Aid is rarely offered without strings attached.
• In short, any superpower that neglects to extend aid to less-developed countries does so at its peril.
• The USA has done much to create the image of a magnanimous and benevolent power - a sort of philanthropic fatherly figure providing support to all those in need.
• But most can see through that image and spot its real motives, namely to stay a superpower and outmanoeuvre its rivals.
• But what about one of those emerging superpower rivals, China?
• The interesting thing is that, unlike the USA, China does not seem to have felt the need to set up any sort of larger military alliance.
• We can only speculate about the reasons.
• Is it simply because China is such a giant of a country?

Question 19

Costs of military interventions

Answer 19

It makes for sober reading, especially when the political outcomes are considered along with the immense human costs.
The outcomes have mainly been negative.
It needs to be stressed that accurate data about civilian deaths and displacement are simply not available
. But there are best estimates made by neutral IGOs and NGOs.
If anything, these estimates are thought to err on the side of understatement.

Question 20

military intervention outcome examples

Answer 20

Question 21

Syrian suffering

Answer 21

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated in 2014 that 10.8 million of Syria’s 22 million population had either been killed or displaced from their homes by the conflict.
Millions were in need of humanitarian assistance.
The UN has predicted that by the end of 201.6 there could be as many as 4.3 million Syrian refugees living outside the country.
The responsibility for most of this huge human cost - deaths, internal displacements and refugees - has to be laid at the door of President Assad and his determination to hold on to power.
Most of this human cost is the outcome of armed Arab fighting armed Arab, with little or no heed paid to innocent civilians who happen to be in between.

Question 22

To add to the complexity of diverse rebel groups struggling to overthrow President Assad’s regime, the scenario has become even more complicated by:

Answer 22

Russia’s intervention in support of the Assad regime and against the rebel groups
the USA and its allies mounting air strikes aimed first at degrading IS and then dislodging Assad’s regime.

It is certain that all three ‘complications’ will add to the civilian death toll, cause more internal displacement of Syrians and persuade still more to become refugees and seek asylum, not so much in neighbouring Arab states but rather in Europe.
Such an escape involves a truly hazardous journey that has already claimed the lives of thousands as they have tried to cross the Aegean to reach the sanctuary of Greece.
It is significant that few Syrians are seeking asylum in Russia.

Question 23

The Arab Winter

Answer 23

The Arab Spring of 2011 was a time of great euphoria as seemingly spontaneous public uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt overthrew their corrupt leaders and undemocratic governments.
Western governments were not directly involved and simply applauded from the sidelines.
Sadly, in the wake of the Spring has come the Arab Winter. Parts of North Africa are now beginning to be plagued by Islamist terrorists, particularly those related to IS (Figure 13.9).
The sad truth is that the removal of autocratic leaders and regimes with little respect for human rights did lead to some short-term gains, but it also created political destabilisation, civil wars and the appearance of regimes with even worse human rights records.
Underlying some of this unrest is the deep-rooted animosity between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
How to neutralise this animosity is the challenge. Is it a challenge just for the Arabs or for the whole global community? Some might ask where the UN is in all of this? Should it be taking more of a lead?

The sad fact is that if we look at the military interventions of the last 25 years, the successes have been few and far between.
Some would argue that the positive effects of mitigating potential mass-killings and genocide do not outweigh the long-term negative effects of destabilising the Middle East and North Africa.
Perhaps this is because the military interventions have not been long enough to achieve reconciliation between warring groups and the reconstruction of countries that have been badly damaged, both physically and politically.

Question 24

The record of non-military interventions

Answer 24

Brought into focus here are the interventions by the UN under the heading of peacekeeping.
According to the UN: ‘Peacekeeping has proven to be one of the most effective tools available to the UN to assist host countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace.’

Question 25

UN peacekeeping is guided by three basic principles:

Answer 25

consent of all parties in the conflict
impartiality
non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate.

Question 26

The UN is able to

Answer 26

draw on troops and police from around the world to provide its peacekeeping forces.
Civilians are also integrated into those forces. So the costs of peacekeeping are shared by UN member states.

Question 27

UN peacekeeping began in

Answer 27

1948 when military observers were deployed to monitor the armistice between the newly created Israel and its Arab neighbours.
Since then, 69 peacekeeping operations have been deployed, 56 of them since 1988.
Since the end of the Cold War at the end of the 1980s, the nature of UN peacekeeping has changed from inter-state conflicts to intra-state conflicts and civil wars.

Question 28

UN peacekeepers are now asked to

Answer 28

undertake a wide variety of complex tasks, from disarmament and reintegration of former combatants, to helping to build sound governance and monitoring human rights.
Countries that have been the scene of UN peacekeeping operations include Angola, Mozambique and Namibia in Africa; Cambodia in Asia; El Salvador in Central America; and Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in Europe.
As of 2015, there were sixteen different peacekeeping operations
Four of those operations are in the Middle East; nine of them in Africa. Let’s look at one of the latter, the Ivory Coast.
Tribal rivalries have been a common source of conflict over much of Africa.
Such conflict has not been helped by the failure of European powers to recognise tribal borders when drawing up their colonial boundaries.
But conflict has other roots, such as political and religious differences, as well as the recurring desire of some groups to hijack sources of economic prosperity for themselves.

Question 29

UN peacekeeping has certainly struggled in its

Answer 29

69 missions to resolve conflicts and improve human rights.
The brutal reality is that peacekeepers cannot be everywhere all the time.
Furthermore, remember that the UN can only take action where and when all partie: to a dispute say ‘yes’.
Improving development has not been in the UN peacekeeping mandate.
Rather, its task has been to put in place the right sort of governance needed for successful development.

Question 30

Ivory Coast - a need for permanent peacekeepers?

Answer 30

The Ivory Coast (West Africa) gained its independence from French colonial rule in 1960.
For 30 years it was hailed as a model of political stability.
It had a sound economy based on the production of cocoa and coffee, and handling the maritime trade of the landlocked West African countries of Mali and Burkina Faso.

Question 31

UN - Ivory Coast

Answer 31

In 1999 an attempt was made to overthrow the government.
Three years later civil war broke out, rooted in the religious differences between the Muslims in the north and the Christians in the south.
With no end to the conflict in sight, it was agreed that UN peacekeepers should be dispatched to try to bring about reconciliation between the two factions.
A sort of peace was eventually restored in 2007, but not for long
A presidential election in 2010 ended up with the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo (a Christian), narrowly losing out to his long-time rival Alassane Ouattara (a Muslim).
Gbagbo refused to step down and a short but violent and bloody civil war ensued

Question 32

In 2011 a new UN peacekeeping force was again charged with the tasks of:

Answer 32

protecting civilians
bringing about the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of the two warring factions
monitoring and promoting human rights.

With the help of French troops, Gbagbo and his wife were arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court at The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity.
However, a Human Rights Watch report (2015) was highly critical of how little had been done in dealing with the aftermath of the 2010/11 crisis, particularly human rights abuses.
It does not say much for all the efforts of the 7,000 UN peacekeepers still in the country.
Ivory Coast exemplifies that political stability and a respect for human rights are often little more than a very thin veneer.
It is all too easily broken by deep-rooted cultural differences.

Question 33

Costs of non-intervention
Faced with threats to human well-being and human rights, the global community has three options:

Answer 33

Turn a blind eye and do nothing
Make a limited military intervention to deal with the short-term threat and encourage local people to take matters into their own hands at the earliest possible opportunity.
Make an extended military intervention that includes the longer-term tasks of reconciliation and reconstruction.

The first option does not find favour today.
We are now beginning to realise the huge risks associated with turning a blind eye. The spreading scourge of IS is a salutary reminder of the dangers of doing nothing (Figure 13.12, page 230).
Clearly, this particular situation calls for the third option. History tells us that too many military interventions have belonged to the second option.
Hopefully we have learned the lesson that, while such interventions might bring short-term relief, more often than not they create longer-term costs.
There are, however, major issues facing us today that also require intervention, but not of a military kind.
The issues include eradicating poverty, advancing social development and, indeed, progressing many of those rights contained in the UDHR.
The appropriate interventions here are either economic or aid-related.
One major issue not covered by such interventions is the need for greater care of the environment.
Lack of global action here threatens the very survival of the human race and possibly heralds a world where human rights will no longer matter or be relevant.