Goal John O'Shea rogue charity maniac not saint.

I imagine he means either the official Irish Aid usage, which is to change 'modalities' from general budget support whereby Irish aid is channelled through ministries and bureaucracies with certain conditions (the favoured mode among the OECD aid group) to area-based programmes (say, water collection and irrigation in Ethiopia) or sector-wide approaches (such as funding specific programmes/projects overseen by the Ugandan ministry of education), or funding Irish and local NGOs to deliver services (which is how things are being seen now).

In reality Irish Aid uses all these modalities anyway because some work better in one context and not in another. And it retains some political leverage over Southern governments.

Or he could just mean giving Goal and all the virtuous, untainted Irish NGOs the money.

DadaKopf wrote: »

Contrast that with a solidarity model that portrays the global poor as active participants, who every day struggle to improve themselves against the odds, accepting our responsibility in much of this, and you have a very different approach to things. Yes, show the reality of global socal injustice - good and bad, but don't demean people. We should treat every human being with dignity (it's what we all strive for), and that includes how we go about improving the lives of people we affect, but cannot put a face to.

The developing world is alive with exciting, innovative ideas and movements to help them help themselves. We should act in solidarity with them by supporting their efforts, not expecting them to support ours.

The problem comes when we have to decide which of these efforts to support. We must make a choice and in doing so we impose our political views on someone else's country. What you think is worthy of support may not be the same as what I think and both of us may be wrong in what is best for the country.

SkepticOne wrote:

The problem comes when we have to decide which of these efforts to support. We must make a choice and in doing so we impose our political views on someone else's country. What you think is worthy of support may not be the same as what I think and both of us may be wrong in what is best for the country.

The decision is made on the basis of impact. Impact is broadly defined as those types of action that reduce poverty in the short, medium and long terms. Development is extremely complex, something John O'Shea just doesn't understand. There isn't even agreement about what 'development' means, nor should there be.

The trend in international development co-operation, as set out in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectivness, which all DAC donors are signed up to, places 'partnership' beween donor and recipient country as one of the key planks. In theory, the developing country decides its own developmental priorities in a Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS), which forms the 'contractual' basis on which donors provide aid. Donors themselves often have contradictory interests in providing aid, depending on the country in question, and the theoretical aim is also have donor practices harmonised.

But the political reality of all this is that developing countries have very little say in what their developmental priorities are. The World Bank imposes the PRS regime, the World Bank is dominated by the USA and Europe, so it ensures that the contents of PRS strategies cohere with their priorities, not those of the recipient country. In the case of Tanzania, their PRS was actually largely written and signed in Washington DC; though the PRS system promises to hold 'stakeholder consultations' with local people, local NGOs and civil servants, these were merely window-dressing. What counts is whether rich countries are protecting their strategic interests. Ireland, as a medium-sized donor and an economically dwarfish country, has little power or interest in this regard but also does little to change this situation. Our insistence on 'good governance' as a condition and objective for aid is constructively ambiguous (Irish Aid has not come out clearly to say what it considers 'good governance') - we don't seriously challenge the nature of this policy or the development co-operation regime which is, in effect, designed to further crowbar open developing countries to exploitation and to make them in our image.

And this can be fixed by giving all the Irish aid to John O'Shea?

I'm not so sure he understands the complexity of global politics as it affects developing countries.

We can't avoid the fact that in aid we impose our political view on those we think we are helping.

That's exactly what I tried to demonstrate in my post. Power. It's something O'Shea doesn't give a toss about. Him white, them black. White man's burden, all that. As I said, development is a rightfully contested term. Personally, I consider it 'tradition' - in this case, it's the 'West' imposing 'Western' traditions on other peoples.

Obviously. But we're OK with it as long as we're doing the imposing, eh? What if others were to impose 'traditions' on us? This is the sneaking suspicion I have that's underlying much of the anti-China sentiment around these Olympic games.

However, it should be said that, while it's a compromised set of documents, the UN human rights conventions do still give some kind of global mandate. It's established and utilised by most UN member states.

But, in fairness, this thread is about John O'Shea. I agree with you, but that's why I've been bringing points back to him.

There is absolutely no point in sending money to a corrupt government.

We better hand back the EU funds then. And stop imposing our culture of corruption on vulnerable developing countries.

DadaKopf wrote: »

We better hand back the EU funds then. And stop imposing our culture of corruption on vulnerable developing countries.

Well I think we are now net contributors to the EU now, but I would question whether our receipt of funds over the last few decades has been a wholly positive thing for us.

In terms of Ireland exporting corruption through ill-advised aid to corrupt governments, yes, to the extent that it happens I am against it.

Sand wrote: »

Aid money is not "free". It has been given with the express understanding that it will be used for the development and betterment of human beings in the developing world.

Call it colonisation if you like, but people providing aid funding do have a right to ensure - through whatever means are considered workable - to ensure that the money goes to the intended recipients.

So please, stop with the browbeating and "How dare *you* question *us*!!!! You insignificant worms!!! Who do you neo-imperialists thing you are?!?! We are the international charity industry, you give us the ****ing money, then you sit down, shut up and dont asking any ****ing questions about where the moneys going. And youll be ****ing grateful too!!!"

Oh and the "whataboutery" on corruption is amazing. Remember, absolute figures guys, absolute figures to hide context.

John O'Shea gets a lot of hatred and spite directed towards him because he happens to stand up and question the dogma of "Lets give lots of money to the 3rd world to assuage our post-colonial guilt complex and hope everything works out okay!!!" The dogma which ironically enough increases 3rd world dependance on handouts and is colonialism by another name.

John O'Shea gets a lot of hatred and spite directed towards him because he happens to stand up and question the dogma of "Lets give lots of money to the 3rd world to assuage our post-colonial guilt complex and hope everything works out okay!!!" The dogma which ironically enough increases 3rd world dependance on handouts and is colonialism by another name.

I reckon JOS justifiably raises the corruption issue while at the same time promoting the post-colonial guilt, dependence charity model which he claims to condemn.

And aid, as used by the powerful donors is an instrument of foreign policy. The interests and how they are expressed are systemic and essential to the capitalist international political economy. Aid, as a policy instrument in this system, contributes to the continued exploitation of people in developing countries exactly because official aid is an instrument of this exploitative system.

JOS believes that treating the symptoms is enough. He may think corruption is a prime cause. Corruption, while a cause, is also a symptom of the global capitalist system of exploitation. If the system worked to well (i.e. Africa is the most economically liberalised continent, behind it is Latin America), it'd be a system of perfectly beneficent free trade. But this isn't how things work.

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