UN's Response to Failure of Foreign Aid

So I am still researching on my essay. Yes, been spending reading week well, reading. And William Easterly once again never fails to amuse me with his seemingly common sense sarcasm.

But whilst its funny and makes sense, its an argumentative strategy that ignores many other counter arguments.

Nevertheless, for entertainment purposes, here is what he says about the UN responding to the continuing failed global aid plans:

"So what is the response to failure of the aid
plans? Let me give you three possible choices for
the way the U.N. could have responded, and then
I’ll ask you, with your knowledge of current events
and your knowledge of economics, to tell me
which ones of these choices were actually selected
by the U.N.

• Possible response (a): The U.N. could hold
somebody in the U.N. accountable for the fail-
ure and create incentives in the future to get
results through such accountability.

• Possible response (b): Ask donors for more
money to follow the same plan over again—to
do the exact same thing that just failed over
again.


• And response (c): Just have Jeff Sachs make an MTV video with Angelina Jolie.

Of course, I don’t have to tell you. What actually
happened was (b) and (c); (a) still has never hap-
pened. In fact, it never even seemed to occur to the
U.N. that (a) was a possible response when they
were writing their gloomy reports about how the
aid plan was failing. They never seemed to notice
the irony of writing about the failure of their own
program. For them, it’s just a fund-raising vehicle
to talk about failure. "


And here is that MTV of Jeff Sachs and Angelina Jolie.

the passionate economist who attempts to eradicate poverty by 2025...


and erm...the lady who also believes the same thing. Just with less clothes. But guess its tough work enough to work up a sweat.

ps. For those who don't know, Jeff Sachs is the famous economist and author who is, in my professor's words, the travelling partner of Bono, but also a key proponent of the Millenium Development Goals, who believes global poverty can be eradicated by 2025. Click here for more info on him. I'm sure you know Angelina Jolie.

To be fair, the 8 Millenium Development Goals are tangible ways the yous-and-Is can attempt to do our part in helping the less fortunate. And if what Jeff Sachs propounds is true, that it is do-able during our lifetime to eradicate poverty, why not let's give it a shot?



Uncle T