The Folly Of International Development - Pulling The Plug On Doing Good

Fitchley (Fitch) Bingham wanted a good ride and found it as an international development consultant, economic advisor to Third World countries mired in poverty, poor health, and destitution.  He had no particular service motive - the fate of the world's disadvantaged was a result of cultural legacy. venal kleptocracies, mismanaged governance, and blighted Big Man rule - and so he chose his profession for the adventure, romance, and pleasures it afforded.

His beat was Africa, sent by various United Nations, American, and Western European aid agencies, to do good - i.e., to oversee the implementation of the generous grants given in return for political loyalty, oil, gas, and rare earth elements. 

The countries themselves had no interest whatsoever in actually implementing the programs financed by foreign donors, and siphoned off most of it to offshore bank accounts in Aruba and Grenada.  Fitch understood the game, and how totin' privileges were at the heart of development financing.  Aid agencies looked the other way as monies disappeared, ground was broken but nothing built, salaries for no shows continued on the books, and cheerful support for democracy by the worst offenders of it resonated in Western capitals. 

Alphonse M'bele was perhaps the worst of the worst - a shamelessly corrupt tyrant of a small but not insignificant African nation which because it sat upon billions in mineral wealth was the sweetheart of every nation with gift money to spend.  M'bele knew he could do no wrong, built five-star hotels and sponsored Michelin-rated restaurants, welcomed foreign dignitaries to formal state dinners at his palace, and took every dime and either spent it on Lambos and Ferraris, homes in Rimini and St. Tropez, or sent it to safe financial havens.

 

M'bele led a good life and Fitch was the beneficiary of his largesse.  The two men were peas in a pod, both sybarites, souls living the good life in what had been called 'a shithole with oil'.  Fitch was privy to the best and worst of M'bele's rule.  He enjoyed the pleasures of his harems, filled with tawny Fulani women, high cheekboned, elegantly tall, stately Nigerians, and Zanzibarian queens; and saw what power entailed.  The forest gulags, swamp cages, and underground torture cells were a hard sell, but given the rampages of Genghis Khan, the slaughters of the Crusades, the barbarism of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, nothing extraordinary.  History has no moral gatekeeper. 

His American friends and family were impressed with his commitment to the world's poor.  While they defended aggrieved wives, sued landlords, and cared for the marginally ill, Fitch braved malaria, kidnapping, assault, and devastating brain fevers to help.  Little did they know that his life in M'bele's capital was a round of assignations, sumptuous dinners, and gin fizzes by the pool.  Of course he filled out the proper forms for his Western handlers, reports on performance, progress, and to-do needs, and quarterly reviews of loan repayments or promises thereof; but knew that it was no more than whistlin' Dixie. 

His job was to keep development money flowing into M'bele's coffers, his access to his harem unobstructed, and life after hours as happy and as uncomplicated as possible. 

One of the good things about dictators, a colleague once wrote, was that they kept order.  Port-au-Prince under the Duvaliers was an idyll - the best French restaurants, lively clubs and bars, an easy camaraderie, and little danger; and life under M'bele was no different.  

Now, Fitch was no different than any number of aid workers who knew about Papa Doc's brutality, inhuman prisons, and summary executions; but felt that doing good would be at least an anodyne to such misbehavior.  Dinner at the five-star Petionville Cote Cour, Cote Jardin restaurant while Haitians were beaten to a pulp in Baby Doc's dungeons was quite acceptable. No one ever expected an American aid worker to suffer like a slave. 

 

A colleague of Fitch's, cut from a different cloth and obsessed with a moral conscience, objected when his non-profit company increased their support to Burma under the authoritarian, punitive regime of the colonels.  Even at a time when minorities were being rounded up and imprisoned, and when the army was consolidating military rule, the company kept pouring in 'humanitarian' resources.  Fitch saw this as a self-serving, shameless support to a dictatorship which could use the foreign assistance as window dressing for its compassion and concern.  The same was true in the Horn of Africa where regime after regime brutalized its people, took generous Western aid, and siphoned it into arms and materiel. 

American development assistance does more for the doers of good than the recipients.  It feels good to 'make a difference' even though no difference is made.  Helping others is a higher order of moral action, and one must persist despite the orneriness of beneficiary governments.  Thousands of young Americans have spent years in Africa's shitholes under the impression that their contribution is acknowledged and used wisely while not one red cent is spent where it was intended. 

So given this endemic corruption, the fallacy of third party assistance, and the overwhelming lessons of history, Fitch had no problem whatsoever spending luxuriant nights on tropical beaches with President M'bele's consorts. 

All good things must come to an end, mused Fitch as he read new President Donald Trump's executive order to stop funding American foreign aid, to shutter federal offices responsible for it, and to end an era of feel-good waste and intellectual fraud.  

For a moment, he wondered what he would do next, but his fortunate dual citizenship with an EU country, bought as insurance and a passport to continued work in the Third World, would serve him well.  Although the EU was far less idealistic than the Americans when it came to foreign assistance, its liberal governments could not bring themselves to pull the plug.  He would remain employed, well paid and well taken care of. 

Personal histories aside, the Trump orders are the right thing to do.  If corrupt governments like M'bele's are forced to borrow on international capital markets, they will do so carefully.  Diversion and misuse of loan monies would surely lead to cancellation and denial of future financial consideration.  The Trump edicts are the first step towards this policy.  M'bele and his fellow African big men will grouse, whine, and complain, but the end to the folly of the old system if surprising was not unexpected. 

M'bele saw the handwriting on the wall, cashed in his chips, and decamped to his villa in San Remo along with half of his African harem.  He would live well, with no regrets, sorry to see America come to its senses, but happy in his well-earned retirement.