The problem with aid

What a fascinating experience it's been here today, although I must say that we're pretty bemused by certain things.

On the one hand, there are some extremely committed people here who are devoting their lives to fighting poverty. Malawi is one of the world's poorest countries, with the majority of its 12 million people living on less than a dollar a day. It's in desperate need of development.

On the other hand, it seems that the international development system has some serious failures here. Millions of pounds of aid from governments, international organisations and charities have led to a culture of dependence that is endemic. Countless local NGOs have sprung up that are entirely dependent on this outside aid. Any sense of entrepreneurship is hard to find, and the country numbers barely 2,500 operating registered businesses, according to an international official we met today.

But most shocking of all is the culture of 'seating allowances' that the international NGOs, international donor agencies and foreign governments have set up. It goes like this: there are so many international development organisations here competing that they've started paying people to attend their trainings and workshops, so that they can then report back to their overseas headquarters that so many people came to their training session.

Initially, this was meant as a form of compensation to take account for the fact that attendees were possibly giving up valuable work time in order to attend trainings. Instead, it has led to an increase in dependency and a decrease in commitment verging on corruption: people turn up who have no interest whatsoever in the training and just come to collect the cash.

It totally beats the point. Why bother running a training in agricultural techniques, capacity building or literacy if you're going to pay people to attend it?

Even worse is that agencies now pay government officials in order to meet with them. So a government official may make $100 just for turning up to a meeting with an international agency. So there's no incentive to do any work apart from attend as many meetings as you can! How can we then blame African governments for being corrupt when our agencies actively encourage it?

Suffice to say that there's no way we're going down this route. We've met a number of other NGOs that refuse to play game, and we're one of them. If that means fewer people turn up to our microsolar trainings, then so be it - at least we'll be sure that those who do turn up are committed!

Nick