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Sobering Reality
From Bill Easterly's, Can the West Save Africa.
Hat tip to for the link and table to Hit and Run.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on September 28, 2009 at 03:49 PM | Permalink
Comments
Easterly's point is worth repeating:
All of the above seem to forget that technology does not implement itself. Technical knowledge needs people to implement it—people who have the right incentives to solve all of the glitches and unexpected problems that happen when you apply a new technology, people who make sure that all the right inputs get to the right places at the right time, and local people who are motivated to use the new technology. The field that addresses all these incentives is called economics.
The plight of Africa isn't because we haven't known what to do technologically. It's implementation and incentives.
Posted by: John Thacker at Sep 28, 2009 3:51:16 PM
Comments on Bill Easterly's blog seem very defensive about the role of political science etc. as against economics in "solving Africa".
Posted by: Millian at Sep 28, 2009 4:26:49 PM
You thought mankind would become less rapacious and greedy between 1938 and 2005? That's a touch naive.
Posted by: u. saldin at Sep 28, 2009 4:27:53 PM
Its rather funny, last week I saw a TEDtalk about a kid in Africa who had kitbashed a windmill together from junk parts and a bicycle light generator to charge his cell phone and some lights. Soon he had a line of people waiting outside his door to charge their cellphones.
The implementation is almost trivial. And he is being hailed as some kind of hero, which is good. All he had done was read some of the books in the library and did what was in them. Old books, too. None of this stuff is new, or hard or couldn't have been done be hundreds or millions of other people.
What more incentives do they need since light and communications are so easy and basic? What kind of crazy, perverse misincentives are going on over there that basic problems haven't been successfully solved for 70 years!?!?
Posted by: Balun S at Sep 28, 2009 4:39:07 PM
"What kind of crazy, perverse misincentives are going on over there that basic problems haven't been successfully solved for 70 years!?!?"
"from all according to their ability and to all according to their need"
or
"kill the host to feed the parasites"
Posted by: Gabe at Sep 28, 2009 4:59:29 PM
A good read on the problems of Western Development in Africa can be found in an article by George B.N. Ayittey in The American Interest at
URL: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=548
Posted by: Morris Coats at Sep 28, 2009 5:00:26 PM
A very sad, and very inconvenient truth: the environmentalists' war on DDT has killed many millions of African children via malaria. And that is a very unpleasant way to go.
But I am sure there is a czar in DC who owes his job to the forces that made that happen, and good for him. No doubt he will help us with the impending Overly Soft Toilet Paper Crisis.
Posted by: Jim at Sep 28, 2009 5:09:02 PM
Sobering reality....or back to basics?
Posted by: Martin Bishop at Sep 28, 2009 5:09:27 PM
What kind of crazy, perverse misincentives are going on over there that basic problems haven't been successfully solved for 70 years!?!?
Indeed!
To ask is to answer the question.
Tragic. Tragic indeed.
Michael
Nutrition and Physical Regeneration
Posted by: Michael at Sep 28, 2009 5:14:22 PM
I feel obliged to point out that the West has, in general, not really been trying very hard to 'save' Africa, so the idea that we gave the 'technical' approach the best darn shot we could but it just didn't work out is somewhat comical. What's more, there actually have been some fairly remarkable advances in living standards in the last 50 years, and giving more in aid and taking less in debt service has improved things further more recently. Easterly seems to be working himself into the strange position of playing down apparently effective policies so that he can keep wringing his hands about bad government.
Posted by: Not The Same Jim at Sep 28, 2009 5:59:48 PM
Not the Same Jim wrote a series of things that he was "obliged to point out" that I feel obliged to refute.
Jim, you're wrong across the board. "(T)here actually have been some fairly remarkable advances in living standards in the last 50 years..." No, clearly you haven't seen statistics from the WHO, the UN, the EU Relief consortia or any health policy data for the last decade. Life expectancy has been declining in Africa. HIV/AIDS and unrest has led to a decrease in every health or living standard index in the past 24 years.
"...and giving more in aid and taking less in debt service has improved things further more recently." This is absolutely wrong. Whether in Central or Southern or the Horn this is completely counter to the evidence. In every region the states taking less aid are higher achievers.
There is a growing backlash against aid that props up anti-democratic regimes and debt relief programs that seem to be fertilizer for genocide. Andrew Mwenda speaks with a more credible view on the ground than Bono. Fredrik Erixon's studies, using UN and other public data, provided more evidence.
Posted by: The Other Eric at Sep 28, 2009 7:35:36 PM
My favorite part of the study is a quote from Adam Smith:
"a famous quote from Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments:
The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder."
Rather than "...wringing his hands about bad government." Easterly is simply observing that the West's approach to helping Africa has been to allow "The man of system" to foist his "beautiful" plan on the people of Africa and the results have not been beautiful. Why not let Africans help themselves no matter how difficult that might be.
It is interesting to note how applicable Adam Smiths quote is to our own situation here in the USA. I wonder how much improvement in our own well-being we've sacrificed to "the man of system"?
Posted by: Efinancial at Sep 28, 2009 7:49:32 PM
It was making progress until about 1917 or possibly 1945.
Posted by: josh at Sep 28, 2009 8:20:32 PM
One of the more insightful accounts on this topic comes from Anthony Daniels (pen name Theodore Dalrymple):
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_2_oh_to_be.html
It isn't politically correct, but it isn't trying to be politically incorrect either, and it rings true with much of what is readily observable. It points to embedded social norms as the primary obstacle to development.
Posted by: srp at Sep 28, 2009 9:22:00 PM
The vitamin A example seems disingenuous to me. Easterly says that the coverage in Africa is 80%. What was it in 1960? Maybe it's also disingenuous for UNMP to put it on their list of "quick wins," since pushing it higher will be much more difficult, but that's not the list Easterly is complaining about. Moreover, as suggested by Easterly's ellipsis, that list has it in a mere parenthetical, paired with zinc, which is a 2004 idea. Any micronutrient that can be used like vitamin A can piggyback on its already built supply channel and our knowledge of its real costs. I don't know any such examples, but zinc is intended to piggyback on the existing ORT supply channels (it's another diarrhea treatment). It really is a quick win.
Posted by: Douglas Knight at Sep 28, 2009 9:24:05 PM
srp, thanks for that link to Dalrymple's article, I strongly reccommend it to others interested in Africa or to post-colonial countries elsewhere.
Posted by: Genghis Cunn at Sep 28, 2009 10:01:30 PM
Why do economists talk about "human capital" yet fail to take the idea seriously?
What is the average IQ in Africa?
What can be done to raise it?
Is there a correlation between GDP and a population's average IQ?
Do we know the direction of causation?
Move along... nothing to see here.
Posted by: D at Sep 28, 2009 11:54:13 PM
Of course, we encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid. But in general, welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs.
-Thomas Sankara
Posted by: MC at Sep 29, 2009 12:44:47 AM
still no all things that bad. There are few African countries which move forward ( like Botswana ), there are problems there too, still if every sub Sahara country was on par - there will be much fewer worry.
what can help?
better transportation ( as good transportation lacks in Africa ). I think that a progress in airships with projects like http://www.airshipzprize.org/
better communications ( yes there are quite a bit of cell phones in Africa already, but better coverage ( including access to 'useful' knowledge ) would be of a help.
So how west could help?
Build those airships, make airborne based communication platforms, covering large areas with communication capabilities, create easy to use 'wikipedia' like knowledge bases ( accessible by those communication means ) for population.
Just the same way the west could help other countries in latin america, russia and former USSR.
it is just that west should get more risk taking in entrepreneurship.
How to make people in west to be more interested? Maybe to create a game, where by means of better transportation, better communications they could 'grow' the world.
I really think that main problem is a lack of real interest to push new ways to solve problems more aggressively.
the progress will go somehow as at least Botswana went a little better than in 1938, so others will follow some day.
but it would be better if right directions are pursued to either solution or to finding that they do not work ( then applying next possible solution ).
Posted by: Sergey Kurdakov at Sep 29, 2009 1:09:10 AM
It seems like we have a lot of boreholes over here that we could send their way for a few months. And they may even be nicer people when they returned.
Posted by: Andrew at Sep 29, 2009 2:56:05 AM
Eric,
Maybe you should read Charles Kenny's book on development, mentioned on this blog a few times and summarised by Felix Salmon here: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/06/15/the-success-of-development/ . Short version - things are better than you think. Yes, AIDS has taken a very big toll on some countries, but in many other respects - infant mortality is a good example - there have been, *as I said* very big improvements, often funded almost entirely by aid. Aside from health, literacy and education have seen some very big improvements too. See also the book 'Millions Saved' from the Center for Global Development.
While we're on the subject of AIDS, though, it is actually one of those cases, like malaria, where the West for a long time made very little effort to help and then, when it started investing large amount of money, started seeing some very good results.
Regarding the effect of aid on growth, you declare that it's entirely negative, but seem to have forgotten to provide any evidence, apart from a tautology. Allow me to help - read this research, also from the CGD: http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/2744
Posted by: Not The Same Jim at Sep 29, 2009 3:29:12 AM
"We also find a significant negative relationship between debt repayments and growth."
ruh-roh
Nice link Not the Same Jim. I was about to say that people probably give money to those the worst off. This would skew results downward. I hadn't thought of emergency aid being in that equation, but my instincts were about right (praise ideology!).
So, what we may need is a government who can identify good things that just need to get over the hump rather than looking for lost causes. This is another problem. We've been pouring money into the banks (and car companies) that the government regulates (and yes, the Fed has responsibility for the crisis). So, funding lost causes seems to be the modus operandi. Apparently the bureaucrats too often try to catch a falling knife. My tautology is that there is probably a right and effective way to provide aid by identifying the highest returns, and our government will resist it.
The next question is how often is the aid better spent elsewhere than leaving it here? The best aid might be to send something like nails, screws, nuts and bolts from China. They are cheap. They aren't good for much other than building stuff with indigenous materials. Noone outside will buy them and enrich the tyrants. They probably won't be used for extortion as much as food aid.
Posted by: Andrew at Sep 29, 2009 6:02:04 AM
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,866343,00.html
Time magazine has a very illuminating piece on Africa. Of course, it's from 1955.
Posted by: josh at Sep 29, 2009 8:03:44 AM
So, Africans were handed the solutions to their problems over 70 years ago and chose not to use the solutions. I don't see why it's worth helping them, their like drug addicts, they can only heal themselves if they want to be healed.
Posted by: Dingo at Sep 29, 2009 9:54:06 AM
So, Africans were handed the solutions to their problems over 70 years ago and chose not to use the solutions. I don't see why it's worth helping them, they're like drug addicts, they can only heal themselves if they want to be healed.
Posted by: Dingo at Sep 29, 2009 9:54:37 AM
