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George Roter, Engineers Without BordersEngineers Without Borders/The Globe and Mail

Some say billions of dollars. Others trillions. Regardless of who's right, however, the amount of foreign aid that has been invested in Africa over the last 50 years is staggering - especially considering the impact it seems to have made.

Life expectancy is actually falling in several African countries. Many others still have a majority of their population living on less than $1 a day. Several African economies are moribund. And democracy, as current events in northern Africa illustrate, is often a veneer hiding a corrupt regime receiving healthy inflows of foreign aid.

As part of our Leading Thinkers series, George Roter, co-founder and co-CEO of Engineers Without Borders took questions on failure in aid, in an earlier discussion.

Here is a transcript of that discussion:

Hi everyone. I'm Tim Querengesser, an editor with The Globe and Mail. We're just getting ready for a live discussion with George Roter, CEO of Engineers Without Borders, where we'll be discussing failure in foreign aid. Submit your questions for Mr. Roter in the box below.

George Roter: Hey Tim, looking forward to the discussion.

[Comment From Alannah DelahuntyAlannah Delahunty: ]/b> Can the average person, in the development field or outside of it, lobby the Canadian government for more accountability and transparency of foreign aid in Canada and why CIDA seems to be such a mysterious entity?

George Roter: I'm at my desk and excited to get going.

Tim Querengesser: Okay George. Alannah has a question there. Let's start with that one.

George Roter: Thanks for the first question Alannah. I think this is very relevant given recent CIDA events in the news.

[Comment From Rusty Redfield Rusty Redfield : ]/b> I think I agree with Mr. Roter that there has been a massive failure with respect to what foreign aid is supposed to do. How would he define success?

George Roter: First, when we think about accountability and transparency, it's important to keep our eyes on the purpose -- effectiveness. There are two actions for the average person: 1) Taking time to learn more about what our government is doing right now ... spend some time on the CIDA website, get an understanding of their Project Browser, learn about development, talk to friends about this, get involved in groups that facilitate these conversations.

George Roter: 2) Get in touch with your local Member of Parliament, and have that intelligent conversation with them. Let her know what you like and don't and the questions you'd want asked. That has great influence because they talk to their colleagues.

George Roter: CIDA = Canadian International Development Agency. It is the agency/organization in the Canadian government that is in charge of disbursing roughly $3.5billion each year in taxpayer funds. www.acdi-cida.gc.ca ... I encourage people to browse their work.

Tim Querengesser: George, this is an advance question e-mailed earlier:

History has been very clear that a better economy leads to better health of the population. How can the developed world direct aid money to infrastructure in the less developed world instead of despots bank accounts?

-Rob

George Roter: They generally spend funds in 3 ways: 1) Through contributions/agreements with 3rd party organizations (like Engineers Without Borders or Oxfam), 2) Directly through partnerships with poor countries like Ghana, Tanzania, etc ... and 3) Through contributions to multi-lateral agencies like the World Bank.

[Comment From Jim Jim : ]/b> Mr Roter, reading quickly through the 2010 Failure Report, I'm struck by how technocratic everthing sounds, even while people attempt to address grassroots problems.

George Roter: Let me unpack that question from Rob. First, I would agree that economic growth leads to greater health and opportunity for citizens. And indeed you are right to point out that infrastructure and physical capital is important in driving this growth -- if you don't have roads, then you can't move goods to markets. However, where we have seen less investment is in the human capital within these countries -- for example, in skills and training for the local governments that are going to manage those road-building projects, and maintain them. This human capital investment is generally much less exciting and harder to measure the success of, but critical.

George Roter: Jim, thank you for that feedback. I'm going to follow-up and read it with that in mind. As a more general response: With Engineers Without Borders, we do have a bit of a technocratic approach on the surface (we have a lot of engineers afterall, though not exclusively). However, the core of our development approach involves putting the ultimate users, or our partners, and their behaviours as a primary consideration. There are many water pumps we've seen in Africa that have failed for lack of proper incentives that connect with people's habits locally.

[Comment From evanPwalsh evanPwalsh : ]/b> How do we get aid and aid failures on the public agenda when the average citizen is so unengaged?

George Roter: evanPwalsh: First, I'd like to make the distinction between failure at the macro level and failure at the micro level. At the macro level, aid is not failing, or certainly not outright. Take Tanzania as an example, especially of Canadian aid -- primary enrollment in 2000 was around 55%, in 2007 it was nearing 90%, a lot of that linked to an investment by Canadian taxpayers. However, at the micro level, we know that aid can improve and that its important to understand and appreciate the value of failures -- or iterations on ideas -- in order to get better results. For example, to increase the quality of education that those kids in school now have, or even more micro, how each school's performance is being tracked by local government. I actually think that by talking about aid at this, much more tangible level, Canadians can be interested.

[Comment From Matt Matt : ]/b> With Geneva on the Doha round ending without the outcomes intended, how should Canada continue with their aid commitments? Also, why in your opinion is tied-aid not a front burner issue for most Canadians?

George Roter: Matt: On tied-aid, this Conservative government, with Bev Oda as CIDA Minister, committed to untying aid in Sept 2008 -- they aim to do this by 2012-2013. Our calculation is that this will increase effectiveness by the equivalent of adding $150m of new taxpayer dollars to our aid budget. As citizens who know about this, we will need to make this issue relevant to other citizens next year -- through events, op-eds in local papers, even conversations at the hockey rink -- to keep this government, and a new one if that transpires, to this commitment. The Doha Round is a disappointment, but actually interesting that there was an assertion of power by the global south in international negotiations, perhaps for the first time -- this is exciting as it relates to the effectiveness of aid in general, since a more equal relationship between donor and recipient country is required for enhanced learning that leads to better results.

[Comment From Andrew Duff Andrew Duff : ]/b> What do you think are the top three challenges in Africa that are holding nations back?

George Roter: Andrew: First, Africa is really really big so this is challenging. 1) I think that local leaders in those countries aren't being invested in enough, 2) There isn't enough investment -- in aid, but more importantly in business -- from countries with capital (perhaps China excepted), 3) Western countries need to have policies and interactions that remove barriers for African country's growth (e.g. distorting trade subsidies on cotton in the USA).

[Comment From GerryL GerryL : ]/b> My real question is, do you think all (most) foreign aid has wound up in the pockets of tin-pot dictaters, Kadaffi et al.

George Roter: GerryL: In the past 15years in Sub-Saharan Africa, definitely not. There is very strong financial accountability that removes the likelihood of this happening. There are 27 democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa now, compared with just 3 or 4 in 1989.

George Roter: And those democracies get the vast majority of aid funds.

[Comment From Seenitfirsthand Seenitfirsthand : ]/b> From what I have seen having just been in Africa, people there need availability of microloans to make things happen for them. They appear to be born entrepreneurs. Giving money to govt is not good, they are too corrupt. A lot of people think they are doing so much good by sending money and aid but it does not appear to get to where its needed after it gets 'filtered' through the hands of govt.

Tim Querengesser: An interesting comment, George. Perhaps you could relect on this given what many see as the impetus for what's happening right now in northern Africa -- a frustrated man with a fruit cart setting himself on fire in protest of government intrusion in his business?

George Roter: Seenitfirsthand: Welcome back! First, I think that effective government services are critical -- think about your life here in Canada, and how you would drive around, have your kids get an education, visit the hospital, etc without effective government. Now it can be better, here and in sub-Saharan African countries, but those services are critical to invest in, and apply that same entrepreneurial zeal in trying new approaches, failing, iterating, etc. Regarding micro-loans: certainly. But we've also seen the needs for loans a bit larger too -- loans of $1,000 to $10,000 to allow those entrepreneurs to actually buy equipment and make more substantial investments in their businesses. These "meso-loans" are much less available than micro-loans.

[Comment From Juliana Juliana : ]/b> what do you think of the "cash-on-delivery" aid system, where aid is administered only when certain results have been achieved (e.g. $20 for every child who completes primary school).

George Roter: Tim, regarding Northern Africa: I'm not an expert, but what I think we're seeing is what I would call a desire of people who have been marginalized for a long time to have the freedom of opportunity and choice. I believe this is one of the major "selfish" reasons to continue figuring out how to make aid more effective.

George Roter: Juliana: Cash on Delivery Aid that's being championed by the amazing Center for Global Development (www.cgdev.org) is a very interesting idea. It hasn't yet been tested in practice (from my knowledge) -- which presents a great opportunity for Canada/CIDA to take the lead on a new idea for getting results in development. Let's get out in front, be creative, and be the first country to invest in this new idea.

Tim Querengesser: George, EWB released its 2010 Failure Report recently. Why talk about failure so openly? And, do you think the foreign aid industry is reluctant to talk about its failures?

George Roter: Tim: In fact, it's because the aid "industry" is reluctant to talk openly about failure -- and to build in effective methods for learning -- that we release a yearly failure report and share it with all our donors. As in any "industry" you have experts and organizations with livelihoods they want to protect, and talking about failure seems to threaten that. It also creates a culture that stifles new ideas, testing and trialing, and adaptability that we've seen are critical to successful development. For example, our work in Malawi to help local government there manage rural water infrastructure has got through at least 4 major iterations (read: failure!) to get to the point where we're getting results that we think are scalable. But if EWB were funded with traditional sources (rather than individual engineers and business leaders who want to see us push new ideas), we would likely would have been forced to try to scale one of the less successful iterations.

Tim Querengesser: Here's an e-mailed question. A long one, but interesting:

Mr. Roter: I've been working in Tanzania for around 10 months as a volunteer with a faith-based organization. We have repeatedly gone to CIDA for funding for various initiatives such as maternal health care worker training and accommodations for AIDS-affected families. Both are projects that will have a direct, immediate impact. CIDA's answer is that all donor countries in 2005 signed an accord and agreed it would be best to give the lion's share of aid to the government to ensure capacity building.

I think Canada gives Tanzania about $100 million, but I defy anyone to see where this money has had an impact.

Do you think it is possible to change our giving regime to provide more dollars to organizations which will ensure people benefit and not just the politicians? It may mean CIDA staff in various countries will have to do more work rather than cutting just one cheque to a government.

-Ron

George Roter: Ron: I appreciate your frustration -- our staff and volunteers have experienced the same ones over the years with people/governments not investing in ideas we saw were working. With EWB, what we're hoping CIDA will do more is to think about its aid investments as a portfolio, with different types of investments. Investing in governments is incredibly important (my previous example from Tanzania with primary enrollment is a great example) because they are ultimately necessary for a growing economy over the long-term, not outside NGOs. But there also needs to be investment in local civil society that can hold government to account and deliver some services better. There also needs to be investment in organizations that are going to try new approaches -- that may even fail. Right now, we're not sure that this portfolio investment approach is being taken strategically. And part of the reason we're not sure is because there's not enough publicly available information to make a judgement -- which is why we're asking the Canadian government to sign on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative.

George Roter: http://www.aidtransparency.net/ ... International Aid Transparency Initiative

Tim Querengesser: Okay, we're already over our time. One last question, George.

In Ghana people can afford to purchase a bag of frozen chicken parts imported from Europe but not cereal grains grown in their own country.

Is there a problem with the lens of western AID that is narrowing our view of what needs to be done? Why is there such unwillingness to accept that the current global food system is broken and desperately needs structural change to get to long term sustainable solutions?

Sheila Petzold USC Canada

George Roter: Sheila: To be honest, there are a lot of powerful forces at play in the global food system. The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/03/future_food) recently ran a feature on this and concluded that these forces resisting structural change are so great that it might be wiser to invest in increasing yields and local production. A smart response from Oxfam's Duncan Green disagreed http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/ ... the answer is probably that both are needed, and Canadians need to demand progress on both from our government. And this comes back to the effectiveness of what we do as a country -- if citizens demand this from our government, I'm confident that our government's policies will improve. But coming back to the topic of today's discussion, Canadian's also need to realize, and be alright with, the fact that making this kind of progress will require failing along the way. Failure breeds success.

Tim Querengesser: Well, that concludes our hour. Thanks to our readers for their questions. And thanks for your responses, George.

George Roter: Thank you to all, and I encourage everyone to read more about these issues and applaud the Globe and Mail for spending time and space diving into them so intelligently.

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