I recently heard about a country that had severe nutrition issues. The United States told Malawi's government that seed and fertilizer subsidies would hurt the island's economy. To meet the nutritional needs of the residents, the US government began providing surplus food, as did many nonprofit organizations. This went on for many years. The malnutrition and severe poverty continued even with the food donations. A new political leader decided to ignore US advice and instituted the subsidies. His reasoning was that if subsidies were good enough for US farmers, they were good enough for his farmers. As a result, Malawi is now producing enough food for its residents' needs with enough left over for export.
My first thought after hearing about this story is that it sounds like a nonprofit urban legend but my next question was: Does philanthropy increase poverty by creating a disincentive for economic development? Are we unintentionally hurting the communities that we intend to help? What do you think?
Correction: Thanks to Nick for finding the original New York Times article this much repeated and adjusted story came from.
Monday, December 10, 2007
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2 comments:
Good question. In the situation you describe, I see the food donations as charity, not philanthropy. The role of international philanthropy, which I believe focuses on systems/social change, would be to fund sustainable solutions to the island's problem - not just send a food Band-Aid. That being said, the most effective/humane solution to the island's problems would involve a nuanced combination of both charity and philanthropy.
While I think that international charity, without an eye toward sustainable solutions, may lead to more harm than help, I don't think that the more evolved efforts of international philanthropy - which involves engaging affected communities - inherently cause harm. Thanks for raising this issue.
(Side note, Paul Collier's recent article "Poverty Reduction in Africa" - search at www.pnas.org - is a thought-provoking read.)
I think your question about whether or not philanthropy can discourage economic development is good one. It's also the same question a lot of people might ask about welfare, and other government entitlement programs. It has certainly been said many times that reliance on welfare discourages people's personal incentive to develop themselves economically.
I think that many people think that the state does not go far enough to help alleviate poverty, and that philanthropy's role is in many cases to step in and help where government will not. In many countries with more socialized welfare systems, there is no tax incentive for charitable contributions, and individual tax rates are much higher. In America, we keep the tax rates on the richest citizens relatively low, and expect them to compensate for the government's inability to alleviate poverty by their own philanthropy. It's in many ways a sad situation, but I think it is reflected on a macro level in the approach of so called "developed" countries take towards the developing world.
Finally, I believe you are talking about Malawi, which I don't think is an island.
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