Bezüglich der Entwicklungshilfe sehe ich immer düsterer. Ein Afrika-Reisebuch, über das ich bald noch ein bisschen schreiben werde (Dark Star Safari von Paul Theraux) hat da auch interessante Anregungen. Es scheint mir ziemlich klar, dass die großen Projekte, die mit wenig lokaler Beteiligung und viel Technik (und damit letztlich Arbeit) aus dem Geberland durchgeführt werden, nicht funktionieren. Und ich befürchte zunehmend, dass selbst kleine Projekte wie die von Action 5, die ausschließlich auf lokale Initiative und unter lokaler Leitung zustande kommen, zu einer Kultur der Abhängigkeit beitragen. Denn in Kombination sind auch sie ein steter Strom von Geld ins Land, der Teil eines neuen, kuriosen Gleichgewichtes geworden ist. Abgesehen von verhältnismäßig kleinen Regierungsprojekten hat das meiste, was sich hier in Kagondo tut, ein kleines „Projekt“ und einen westlichen Geber im Hintergrund, angefangen von Schulmaterial und den von Action 5 organisierten und gemeinsam mit der deutschen Botschaft finanzierten Wassertanks für die Primärschulen über das Krankenhaus bis hin zum neuen Dach für die Kirche. Und das scheint mir auch der erste Gedanken zu sein, wenn irgendwo irgendwas fehlt — an wen können wir ein „proposal“ schicken. Das setzt sich das dann so fort, dass die meisten Leute hier wenn sie was brauchen als erstes an Justus denken, der in Doppelfunktion als Ratsmitglied und Action 5-Leiter als die lokale Geldverteilung wahrgenommen wird, und darunter auch sichtlich zu leiden hat. Es war faszinierend und ein bisschen erschreckend zu beobachten, wie die Bittsteller sich aneinanderreihen (er hat mir anvertraut, dass er eine Liste führt, die ich aber bisher versäumt habe mir mal zeigen zu lassen). Denn diese besondere Art von Überzeugungskraft, die sich vielleicht noch besser spüren lässt, wenn man die Sprache kaum versteht, kenne ich aus Europa von — Alkoholikern. Und das ist irgendwie meine Metapher geworden für das Verhältnis von afrikanischem Leben und westlichem Geld. Jenseits dieser psychologischen Seite ist eine andere Sorge von mir, dass nach Regierungsposten NGO-Arbeit die attraktivste Anstellung ist, und für einen ja irgendwie irgendwann nötigen produzierenden Sektor nicht viel qualifiziertes Personal übrig bleibt. Dass das nicht reine Präferenz ist (wenn auch teilweise) sondern auch mit Schwierigkeiten, für kleinere Unternehmen (jenseits des Mini-Entrepreneuriats am unteren Ende der Gesellschaft) Kapital zu beschaffen, ist ein anderes Thema, auf das ich in einem praktischen Beitrag eingehen werde, und was mir gerade als Entwicklungsprojekt und Ergänzung zu Action 5 im Kopf herumschwirrt.

Jedenfalls scheint die Gesellschaft ökonomisch zwischen Subsistenz und einer wachsenden Abhängigkeit von industriellen Produkten, die aber nicht im Land hergestellt werden festzuhängen. Und ähnlich sieht es interessanterweise auch mit dem Beziehungsleben aus, das mich auch (sofern in Gesprächen und Außenbeobachtung zu beurteilen) gründlich erschreckt hat. Auch hier gilt für mich jedenfalls: Es sagt schon was, wenn fast jeder mit dem man sich unterhält sagt, dass es schlimm sei, Männer wie Frauen. In einem Satz ist mein Gefühl, dass auch hier die traditionellen Rollen nicht mehr funktionieren (z.B. arbeiten Frauen zunehmend), aber es auch noch kein stabiles neues Modell gibt. Im Gespräch mit den Schülern über Leben und Zukunft höre ich diesbezüglich von den Jungs: Ja, ich will heiraten, aber es ist schwierig (heißt hier: teuer, und meint nicht nur das immer noch übliche Brautgeld). Von den Mädels: Ja, schon, aber erst nach dem College (ist die Hoffnung, in der Realität natürlich früher). Von den Männern höre ich Beschwerden, dass man sich auf die Treue der Frauen nicht verlassen kann, dass sie oft noch anderes „business“ haben (ich glaube die Begriffswahl sagt hier viel), und überhaupt man oft von ihnen ausgenutzt wird, ihnen die Ausbildung finanziert und dann verlassen wird. Außerdem behalten sie ihr Geld für sich, wenn sie selbst was verdienen in der Ehe, geben es für ihren eigenen Luxus und Vergnügen (Frisur, Kleidung, Handy) aus. Umgekehrt sehe ich die Frauen in einer halb-devoten Rolle: Wenn man zusammensitzt, es kommt ein Mann dazu und ist kein Platz frei, geht die Frau zur Seite, sitzt am Boden etc. Und selbstverständlich haben auch die arbeitenden Frauen noch volle Verantwortung für Haushalt, Kochen und Kinder. Es scheint für einige der Kolleginnen ein ziemlich perfektes Modell, dass sie mit Kindern (konkret junge Frauen mit meist einem Kleinkind) alleine hier leben, der Mann einige Reisestunden weg, und wird dann in den Ferien mal besucht. Und mir klingelt immer noch die wie aus der Pistole geschossene Antwort von einer Kollegin im Ohr, auf meine Bemerkung „ihr heiratet früh“, halb lachend halb ernst: „Ja, wir sind arm!“

Meine etwas philosophischere Einschätzung ist, dass hier die meisten Frauen eines echten Sinns und weitgehend der Selbstbestimmung in ihrem Leben beraubt sind, und sich deshalb einem (relativen) Konsumismus hingeben. Und dass in vielen Ehen die kulturellen Muster und Vorgaben gegeneinander ausgespielt werden, in einer Art passiv-aggressivem kalten Krieg: „Es muss was zu Essen auf dem Tisch stehen, und Putzen und Waschen gehen mich nichts an“ — „Du hast für mich und die Kinder aufzukommen, unsere Ausgaben sind Deine Sache“. Es ist für mich auch keine Überraschung, dass für die so zu Hausangestellten gewordenen Frauen die Gefahr real ist, dass andere Frauen aufregender sind, und Eifersucht ein großes Problem ist. Mehr überraschend und schockierend war zu hören, wie nahe vor-eheliche Beziehungen und Prostitution sich sind: Es scheint die Norm zu sein, dass der Mann besonders zum Anlass des Sex Geschenke und Zuwendungen springen lässt, durchaus auch Bargeld (evtl. euphemisiert als „für die Fahrt“). Auch das für mich ein Ausdruck der relativen Macht– und Perspektivenlosigkeit der Frauen in der Gesellschaft. Es gibt sogar ein eigenes Wort in Kiswahili für einen älteren Mann, der sich mit Geld und Geschenken sexuellen Zugang zu einer jungen Frau, oft sogar einer Schülerin, verschafft: Fataki. Und es gibt Artikel in Jugendmagazinen und Beiträge im Fernsehen dagegen. Umgekehrt bekommen natürlich auch die Männer nicht das, was sie sich wünschen: Eine echte Beziehung, die auch emotionalen Gehalt hat, und auf die man sich verlassen kann (Und: Ja, Männer wünschen sich das, dort wie hier). Was für mich illustriert, was ich zunehmend für eine Art Naturgesetz des Feminismus halte: Unterdrückung auf der einen Seite führt zu Unglück auf beiden Seiten. Was natürlich nicht impliziert, dass das Unglück gleich tief ist. Und auch die Frage nach den idealisierten guten alten Zeiten offen lässt, die ja auch schon sehr asymmetrisch waren. Die Lösungsansätze sind jedenfalls verblüffend: Ich kann von einem jungen Mann, der selbst auf der Uni war, hören, dass eine Frau nicht zu gebildet (verbildet?) sein sollte. Ein anderer Mann erklärt, er hoffe auf eine Weiße, die seien ehrlich. Ich denke mir innerlich: Du wirst die Augen rollen, „bwana“ (Herr). Spannenderweise gibt es ja mindestens künstlerisch-anekdotische Berichte von westlichen Frauen, die sich in eine traditionelle afrikanische Ehe begeben. Aber selbst wenn sich da jemand tatsächlich entscheidet, seine Selbstbestimmung aufzugeben, ist das ja dann eine (selbstbestimmte?) Entscheidung, ganz andere Sache als in diese Unfreiheit geboren zu sein.

Auch der nächste wichtige Aspekt des Lebens neben materieller Versorgung und „Liebes“beziehung, die Freundschaften und nachbarschaftliche Beziehungen, scheint mir unter einem Schatten des ökonomischen Drucks zu liegen. Wer etwas mehr hat als die anderen hat jedenfalls keinen Mangel an Freunden und Gästen, und hier fand ich an dem Afrika-Klischee viel Wahres: wer seinen Kopf etwas rausstreckt, an dem wird von allen Seiten gezerrt, und Freundschaften zu pflegen wird zu einem großen Ausgabenposten. Dem man sich übrigens nicht entziehen kann — es scheint mir keinen sozial akzeptierten Weg zu geben, einen potenziellen „Gast“ abzuweisen. Wer lange genug bei Dir zu Hause sitzt muss zum Abendessen eingeladen werden, was auch zu einem kleinen Machtkampf werden kann, der das Abendessen tief in die Nacht hinein verzögert. Dass ständig Herden von Nachbarskindern zum Fernschauen, Spielzeug benutzen und für kleine Zwischenmahlzeiten im Haus sind ist dann auch selbstverständlich. Habe das auch selber erlebt: ein paar von den kleinen „mandazi“, frittierte Kuchen, fürs Samstagsfrühstück gekauft (Sonntag ist wegen Kirche um 7:30 hier wenig gemütlich), und dann noch etwas gewartet, weil ich gerne mit dem Gastbruder frühstücken wollte. Ruck zuck sah ich mich hungrig-gierigen Blicken ausgesetzt, und hatte am Ende 2 von meinen 8 Kuchen übrig. Das hat natürlich was von einer traditionellen Sozialversicherung, aber in dem Fall sind die Abgaben (prozentual) deutlich höher als in Deutschland.

Auch die üblichen langwierigen Begrüßungen auf der Straße haben was sehr schönes und entspannendes, wenn man entspannt ist. Ich kenne einige Leute, die wenn sie wo hin müssen auf einem Hinterweg das Dorf verlassen, weil einfach an jemandem, den man kennt, vorbeizufahren geht nicht. Ich glaube auch hier treffen ein Alltag, der zunehmend manchmal einen Termin mit Uhrzeit vorsieht, und eine Tradition von langsam fließendem Leben aufeinander und verursachen innerliche Reibung. Spannend finde ich auch die Zusammenkünfte anlässlich der (häufigen…) Beerdigungen. Das „Wohnzimmer“ der traditionellen Hütte wird mit frischem Gras bestreut, und eine Menge Leute sitzen da zusammen. Und sitzen. Ich fand das nach anfänglicher Irritation eigentlich sehr angenehm, eine schweigende Gemeinschaft, die ein gutes Gefühl von Halt gibt. Gleichzeitig scheinen mir auch außerhalb von Beerdigungen Zusammentreffen oft zentral darin zu bestehen, dass man zusammen ist. Und es kann auch echt schwer sein, ein Gespräch zu führen, weil so häufig jemand kommt und geht, und ständig Handys klingeln. An die man auch immer dran geht, wie mir scheint in der Überzeugung, dass das dem Zusammensein keinen Abbruch tut.

Bleibt noch das Thema Religion, das mich auch seit ich hier bin immer wieder beschäftig. In mir selbst spüre ich ein starkes Widerstreben gegen die demütigenden Rituale (wieder und wieder endlos auf die Holzbank knien) ebenso wie gegen den sozialen Druck — es scheint jeder zu bemerken und zu kommentieren, ob man in der Kirche war. Da ist es das Kleinste, dass die Spenden in kleinen Umschlägen mit Namen abgegeben werden, und nach Monat und Jahr Summen gebildet werden — wir haben ja auch eine Kirchensteuer, und ein Priester muss leben. Und absurdes christliches (oder muss ich sagen: katholisches) Gedankengut trägt sicher viel zu den Probleme hier bei, von Safer Sex über die Eheprobleme bis hin zur Homophobie, die auch unter gebildeten Menschen erschreckend hoch ist — und religiös begründet wird. Alles in allem hat mich das in meinem Agnostizismus radikalisiert, und in der Überzeugung dass kein Weg daran vorbei führt dass Menschen verdammt noch mal selber nachdenken (und diskutieren) was richtig und falsch ist.

Andererseits erlebe ich die alten Priester hier im Dorf als Leuchttürme der Bildung und Menschlichkeit, und war sogar dazu angeregt, meine Gedanken zum Zölibat neu zu durchdenken (in die Richtung, dass es eine machtvolle Wirkung im Leben haben kann, besonders wenn die Alternative Ehen wie hier sind, aber bin immer noch überzeugt dass es als generelle Verpflichtung überwiegend Leid und Probleme verursacht). Und die meisten Individuen und Gruppen, die sich hier für’s Gemeinwohl einsetzen, haben einen stark religiösen Hintergrund. Und teilen dann ihren eigenen Wohlstand in einem Ausmaß, der selbst die hartgesottensten Philanthropen im Westen beschämen muss. Wobei da sicher auch die Gedankenfigur einen Beitrag leistet, die mir ebenfalls mehrmals begegnet ist: „Wenn ich sehe, dass mein Nachbar den ganzen Tag nichts isst, oder sein Kind wegen 10 Euro fehlendem Schulgeld von der Schule geworfen wird, wie kann ich dann …“ Und der Nachbar ist da eben kein metaphorischer Nachbar oder „Nächster“, sondern wohnt wirklich nebenan, während das Elend von Europa aus bequem weit weg ist.

Dann wieder andererseits ist natürlich da die ketzerische Frage, inwiefern das christliche Geben vor Ort ähnliche strukturelle Probleme hat wie die Entwicklungshilfe von außen, und mit dieser im Guten wie im Schlechten am selben Strang zieht. Aber das ist sehr spekulativ.

So, das ist mit einem tiefen Seufzer meine Afrika-Kritik. Ein Leben sicher nicht ohne glückliche Momente, die vielleicht auch heller strahlen weil sie so selten sind, aber eingebettet wie mir scheint in einen Strom von Sorgen. Dennoch ist das stereotype „Entspannt-Sein“ sicherlich da. Und ist vielleicht auch etwas, das ich zurück nach Hause mitnehmen kann. Ich habe manchmal das Gefühl, dass sich im gemeinsamen Ideenraum unserer (westlichen) Kultur eine Dichotomie von getriebener Produktivität oder entspanntem Nichtstun eingestellt hat. Was ja auch oft von der eigenen (mindestens meiner) Erfahrung bestätigt wird, wenn man aus so einer getriebenen Phase in die Entspannung eintritt und die Tage „nutzlos“ verstreichen. Aber das ist sicherlich auch ein Vorteil meiner Reise: Die relative Entspannung ist jetzt so lang, dass ich deutlich spüren kann, dass sich daraus ein von Innen kommender und freudiger Drang zur Tätigkeit entwickelt. Und dass man das auch im einzelnen Tag pflegen kann. Aber dazu mehr, wenn sich meine Erfahrung damit noch etwas gesetzt hat.

The articles I found convinced me that I wasn’t wrong entirely thinking microcredit could help. But there’s a big BUT, or a number of them actually. An article in the New Yorker from 2008 titled What Microloans Miss provides a very readable introduction, but my primary source is an article called Microfinance Misses Its Mark from Aneel Karnani, published in the 2007 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. It says that, first of all, microcredits help the not-so-poor better than the poorest:

One of the most comprehensive studies reaches a surprising conclusion: Microloans are more beneficial to borrowers living above the poverty line than to borrowers living below the poverty line.11 This is because clients with more income are willing to take the risks, such as investing in new technologies, that will most likely increase income flows. Poor borrowers, on the other hand, tend to take out conservative loans that protect their subsistence, and rarely invest in new technology, fixed capital, or the hiring of labor.

Now, even though that is already quite a problem (the way the poorest tend to spend microcredit money often brings them into a debt trap not much different from the one created by informal money-lenders, and the interest rates are still high for microcredit, mostly between 30% and 60% p.a.) it is not very surprising, and the fact that it can’t help everybody who needs help does not mean it doesn’t do any good.

So here are other negative aspects that are mentioned, and make a lot of sense from my own observations of business here:

A microcredit client is an entrepreneur in the literal sense: She raises the capital, manages the business, and takes home the earnings. But the “entrepreneurs” who have become heroes in the developed world are usually visionaries who convert new ideas into successful business models. Although some microcredit clients have created visionary businesses, the vast majority are caught in subsistence activities. They usually have no specialized skills, and so must compete with all the other self-employed poor people in entry-level trades.14 Most have no paid staff, own few assets, and operate at too small a scale to achieve efficiencies, and so make very meager earnings. In other words, most microenterprises are small and many fail – contrary to the United Nations’ hype that microentrepreneurs will grow thriving businesses that lead to flourishing economies.

This should not be too surprising. Most people do not have the skills, vision, creativity, and persistence to be entrepreneurial. Even in developed countries with high levels of education and access to financial services, about 90 percent of the labor force is employees, not entrepreneurs.15

It seems very obvious once you read about it, but still I must confess I never drew that simple comparison between the ratio of self-employed versus employees in developed countries and how we imagine to improve the economy of developing countries. And especially the stiff competition on the „entry-level trades“ is very observable — the number of things you can do for business on your own are very limited after all, it’s simple.

The people themselves see that similarly apparently:

The fact is, most microcredit clients are not microentrepreneurs by choice. They would gladly take a factory job at reasonable wages if it were available. We should not romanticize the idea of the “poor as entrepreneurs.” The International Labour Organization (ILO) uses a more appropriate term for these people: “own-account workers.”

Creating opportunities for steady employment at reasonable wages is the best way to take people out of poverty. “Nothing is more fundamental to poverty reduction than employment,” states the ILO. And the United Nations Development Programme agrees: “Employment is a key link between economic growth and poverty reduction. Productive and remunerative employment can help ensure that poor people share in the benefits of economic growth.”

That microcredit-funded businesses don’t usually create employment for others was already mentioned. The New Yorker article has a good summary of what would do that:

What poor countries need most, then, is not more microbusinesses. They need more small-to-medium-sized enterprises, the kind that are bigger than a fruit stand but smaller than a Fortune 1000 corporation. In high-income countries, these companies create more than sixty per cent of all jobs, but in the developing world they’re relatively rare, thanks to a lack of institutions able to provide them with the capital they need. It’s easy for really big companies in poor countries to tap the markets for funding, and now, because of microfinance, it’s possible for really small enterprises to get money, too. But the companies in between find it hard. It’s a phenomenon that has been dubbed the “missing middle.”

The problem is a dearth not just of lenders but also of people willing to buy an ownership stake in companies, like the angel investors and venture capitalists that American entrepreneurs often rely on. Microfinance has led us to focus on lending, but it can be hard for young companies to get big purely on bank loans, which consume cash flow that could be reinvested in the business. Supplying the missing middle will require backers who want to invest in companies rather than just lend to them.

Interesting, especially the aspect of ownership, investing versus lending. Aneel Karnani, again, has a good image to make the advantage of bigger business easier to grasp:

To understand why creating jobs, not offering microcredit, is the better solution to alleviating poverty, consider these two alternative scenarios: (1) A microfinancier lends $200 to each of 500 women so that each can buy a sewing machine and set up her own sewing microenterprise, or (2) a traditional financier lends $100,000 to one savvy entrepreneur and helps her set up a garment manufacturing business that employs 500 people. In the first case, the women must make enough money to pay off their usually high-interest loans while competing with each other in exactly the same market niche. Meanwhile the garment manufacturing business can exploit economies of scale and use modern manufacturing processes and organizational techniques to enrich not only its owners, but also its workers.

Very convincing. And how can we get there? Karnani’s take-home message, together with only some country-comparison examples (that is an interesting bit in the article which I won’t quote more of here, because it basically backs the claims made before) is:

Overall, governments, businesses, and civil society would be well advised to reallocate their resources and energies away from microfinance and into supporting larger enterprises in labor-intensive industries. This is what is alleviating poverty in China, Korea, Taiwan, and other developing countries. At the same time, they should also provide basic services that improve the employability and productivity of the poor. Otherwise, they will miss the mark of lifting people out of poverty.

And how about what I, we (Action 5) can do? Maybe we could indeed help funding businesses that create employment, on the lower end of the „small-to-medium-sized enterprises“ mentioned. I feel that also education would probably improve if teachers and students had more of an idea what they are being educated for, instead of that almost magical thinking that with an education something good will happen in your life. Without jobs, usually, it won’t.

The only discernible „luxury“ items on sale are drugs — cigarettes, alcohol, meat if you want to count that here Apart from that you get pots for cooking, water containers, soap, notebooks and pens, and very basic and local food items — bananas for cooking, rice, beans, tomatoes. You don’t even see too much fruit around, which is a petty for me personally but also I believe for people’s health. The services offered are similarly essential — bicycle repair, barber shops, „motorbike taxi“ and transport. And there are typing services, where your hand-written pages will be put into a computer for printing and copying. And, last but not least, a lot of people I think are more or less formally employed in helping with household chores. Here in my house there are two, but I feel at other times youths of different age pop in, help and eat…

This leads already to the production side, which I feel offers a very clear view of the concept of „value added“. The lower end is the mentioned „work for food“ concept. And I was told by teachers that many of the students would spend their afternoons like this: Two hours of walking to the river and back for 20 liters (some 5 gallon for my old-fashioned friends abroad) of water for their home, maybe a second round if the need is there. Then scrambling the bushes for firewood to be used for dinner preparation. So at nightfall, there is no homework done, clothes washed, or pleasure had from life. And what is the value generated in the process? A small contribution to what will eventually be a very modest dinner, together with many hours of peeling bananas, cooking different things one after another in a single pot over a small wooden fire. I don’t even dare trying to express that in terms of money. By the way, this story also explains the emphasis a youth magazine I read at school put on solar lamps for homework — I had wondered why people don’t simply do it in the afternoon… Then, of course, to continue the hierarchy of labor, there is agriculture, transporting and selling things, and the few skilled labor opportunities — barber, typist, motorbike driver.

Many of these activities strike me as painfully inefficient. Take the exams that I recently participated in composing — I was the only one to do that on the computer myself, and the colleagues were half shocked and half thrilled by the idea. The others wrote by hand on loose sheets of paper, to be collected and brought to the typist, who earns 500 TSH (25 Eurocent) for one page of output. That is the next fascinating point: Even in relation to local goods, the incomes and margins of profit are incredibly low. For 500 Shilling I can buy 2 small packages of roasted peanuts, and the price for typing one page is the same as for printing one page. The difference between buying and selling prices for the many shops are also very low. Human work is definitely not worth much here. And I feel the relationship to the value, the use, it produces is quite clear, as I said. If I transport a bunch of cooking bananas from one place where they are sold for 4000/= (the usual sign for Shilling) to another where they are individually sold for a total of 5000/=, my transporting, cutting up and selling has produced a value of 1000/=, no matter how long it took me and that I also need a bicycle to do it.

I also feel the way a whole society (or at least a region) can be stuck economically is visible here: Somebody should start with a more efficient, aggregate way of providing any of these goods and services, like selling water. But in order for his or her potential costumers to make use of that, they need an income — in other words: they also need to provide something to people others than themselves and their family. And somehow it seems almost impossible to start that cycle at only one point, which I think puts an end to many of the myriad smart little business ideas one could come up with here.

Another aspect is certainly capital, investment. A shop-keeper needs to hold a stock, a street vendor needs a bicycle to transport his stuff, a barber a room with electricity, mirror and an(electric) razor/shaving machine, not to mention the obvious case of the motorbike taxi. And this capital is still almost impossible to get with just a good idea and job qualification, despite an abundance of (mostly for-profit) micro-credit institutions by now. A new project partner of Action 5’s in Kenya had a plausible social business plan that would return its investment within a year and a half as profits. But they said even the micro-credit institutions want to see either an already running business and/or securities for their money.

Now, of course, there is a romanticism to this way of life. Self-prepared food is delicious and wholesome to an extent our mostly mass-produced stuff back home can’t reach. And the dominant (and hardly profitable) businesses, the small shops, also have a social aspect. People tend to buy everything in very small quantities — a single cigarette or maybe two, kerosene to light the lamp for one evening, rice for one meal, petrol/gas for one trip to town and back. I already get surprised looks when I buy a small bank-note’s worth of peanuts at once, 5 packages. I pass the shop every day on the way to school and back after all. And people who go to a shop always hang out there, meet the shop-keeper and other customers, chat and relax. But still I don’t believe it’s justified to say that this is just the way people choose to live. To many are the complaints from everywhere, too many the requests for help I get.

And this is a last point, of which I’m still not sure how close its relationship to the economic desolation is: the presence of (white) help workers and help industries. Firstly, this impacts the job aspirations of even and especially the well-educated young people. Their first choice is the government (for the security it provides, and maybe also a relic of the not-so-distant „socialist“ past), followed by international NGOs, and only then private businesses. Also, in terms of entrepreneurship, many seem to prefer starting their own little NGO with foreign money over starting a business (maybe this has to to with the aforementioned capital-problem). And secondly, pretty much anything that moves here involves foreign charity money, from water tanks for my school to the hospital to the roof of the local church. Now take into account that even the few things payed for by the government are in part funds from abroad. This seems to have almost become a reflex: our school needs books — find an NGO; I want my child to go to college — ask the white guy. In any case, the society and economy here are pretty much impossible to imagine without all these foreigners and organizations which permeate its every corner right now. And I can’t build up to much hope that the „new development aid“ will lead the way into more independence, after decades of different new aids have so obviously and utterly failed at that.

I am pretty much stuck myself right now with trying to sort that out mentally, trying to come up with the deep causes and possible ways forward for this situation. Maybe this feeling of mine is equivalent to the „problem trance“ we learn about concerning psychotherapy with especially depressive clients. I can’t help thinking, though, that the aid industry does after all contribute a lot to sustaining the misery, a conclusion I had always seen as free-market-ideology judging from the new genre of anti-aid books alone. At the same time, I most definitely don’t believe in the „just leave it alone“ message they often imply. I wish I knew more about how African economies do in the globalized markets right now, and what role that plays.

After some more illustrative than enlightening back an forth on the „hunger-based poverty trap“ (poor people cannot eat enough to be strong enough to earn enough to eat enough) and examples of how poor people make choices that cause malnutrition themselves (spending money on tasty but little nutritious food or on non-food luxuries, mostly entertainment and drugs) they get to the point, and a quite interesting one. Here are some of the central ideas.

First, they refute the radical Homo Oeconomicus assumption that, by definition, people’s choices of consumption are to their best utility.

Should we let it rest there, then? Can we assume that the poor, though they may be eating little, do eat as much as they need to?

That also does not seem plausible. While Indians may prefer to buy things other than food as they get richer, they and their children are certainly not well nourished by any objective standard. Anemia is rampant; body-mass indices are some of the lowest in the world; almost half of children under 5 are much too short for their age, and one-fifth are so skinny that they are considered to be „wasted.“

And this is not without consequences. There is a lot of evidence that children suffering from malnutrition generally grow into less successful adults. In Kenya, children who were given deworming pills in school for two years went to school longer and earned, as young adults, 20 percent more than children in comparable schools who received deworming for just one year.

There are other good examples beyond the Kenya one, and the authors also point out that fixing many of the nutrition-related health problems could be achieved for small money, in reach even for the poor’s budgets.

The first and simple explanations for the problem, then, are information …

It is simply not very easy to learn about the value of many of these nutrients based on personal experience. Iodine might make your children smarter, but the difference is not huge, and in most cases you will not find out either way for many years. Iron, even if it makes people stronger, does not suddenly turn you into a superhero. The $40 extra a year the self-employed man earned may not even have been apparent to him, given the many ups and downs of his weekly income.

… and motivation:

We shouldn’t forget, too, that other things may be more important in their lives than food. Poor people in the developing world spend large amounts on weddings, dowries, and christenings. Part of the reason is probably that they don’t want to lose face, when the social custom is to spend a lot on those occasions. In South Africa, poor families often spend so lavishly on funerals that they skimp on food for months afterward.

And don’t underestimate the power of factors like boredom. Life can be quite dull in a village. There is no movie theater, no concert hall. And not a lot of work, either. In rural Morocco, Oucha Mbarbk and his two neighbors told us they had worked about 70 days in agriculture and about 30 days in construction that year. Otherwise, they took care of their cattle and waited for jobs to materialize. All three men lived in small houses without water or sanitation. They struggled to find enough money to give their children a good education. But they each had a television, a parabolic antenna, a DVD player, and a cell phone.

But what I found most interesting is the aspect of expectation, hope and something vaguely resembling self-efficacy:

The poor often resist the wonderful plans we think up for them because they do not share our faith that those plans work, or work as well as we claim. […]

We often see the world of the poor as a land of missed opportunities and wonder why they don’t invest in what would really make their lives better. But the poor may well be more skeptical about supposed opportunities and the possibility of any radical change in their lives. They often behave as if they think that any change that is significant enough to be worth sacrificing for will simply take too long. This could explain why they focus on the here and now, on living their lives as pleasantly as possible and celebrating when occasion demands it.

This, I think, is a connecting point both for what we can learn from the poor for our own lives, and for how we can help them. And I think that a small-scale development aid that involves a lot of personal contact and brings some recognition and „audience“ for the lives and struggles of the poor is a pretty good way of doing that. Which I hope and think we do with Action 5.

But with my few days of experience I also believe that the old-fashioned education systems here do a lot to discourage the kind of initiative and trust in one’s own abilities that could lead to more sustainable personal choices. Which makes me wonder about an aspect of poverty that I have never read anything about — the relationship between the poor and their own countries‘ elites. I would of course be grateful for any pointers here.

What I didn’t know is that with Brazil and Mexico, two rather big newly industrializing countries are implementing on a large scale programs that transfer cash to the extremely poor, on conditions that mostly center around caring for your and your children’s health and education. And they seem to do a surprisingly great job at reducing poverty:

Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.

Contrast this with the United States, where from 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of earners.

The scientific evidence linking positive developments in the countries to these programs seem to be sound, even though I didn’t have time to search or read any primary literature:

The idea’s other purpose — to give children more education and better health — is longer term and harder to measure. But measured it is — Oportunidades is probably the most-studied social program on the planet. The program has an evaluation unit and publishes all data. There have also been hundreds of studies by independent academics. The research indicates that conditional cash transfer programs in Mexico and Brazil do keep people healthier, and keep kids in school.

The anecdotic, journalistic evidence sounds very convincing too:

When I traveled in Mexico in 2008 to report on Oportunidades, I met family after family with a distinct before and after story. Parents whose work consisted of using a machete to cut grass had children who, thanks to Oportunidades, had finished high school and were now studying accounting or nursing. Some families had older children who were malnourished as youngsters, but younger children who had always been healthy because Oportunidades had arrived in time to help them eat better. In the city of Venustiano Carranza, in Mexico’s Puebla state, I met Hortensia Alvarez Montes, a 54-year-old widow whose only income came from taking in laundry. Her education stopped in sixth grade, as did that of her first three children. But then came Oportunidades, which kept her two youngest children in school. They were both finishing high school when I visited her. One of them told me she planned to attend college.

For remaining questions, e.g. regarding if these programs can work in even poorer countries and on smaller scale (yes), or in developed countries like the US (maybe), with corrupt and weak governments (pretty good) and if they benefit the surrounding society as well (quite strongly) I highly recommend reading the whole article and also a follow-up article answering readers‘ comments. You also get interesting specifics on the fine-tuning that makes the programs work so well, like this:

There are caps on the benefits, so it does not encourage larger families — in Mexico, for example, three children is the limit. More important, education for girls is the most effective contraceptive. The more educated the mother, the fewer the children.

Without much profit so far, Nokia seems to be pursuing especially farmers and small entrepreneurs, offering them low-cost subscription services about market prices, weather forecasts and other information apparently very valuable to them:

Dattarey Bhonge, a 27-year-old onion farmer in Barshi, an Indian village 230 miles east of Mumbai, said he learned through Life Tools that he could earn more by selling his onions at a market in nearby Solapur. The additional profit allowed him to buy new farm equipment.

“I don’t have to go anywhere to find the prices,” he said in a video provided by Nokia. “The prices are reliable. I was cheated by my agent. Now he can’t cheat me.”

So Nokia is building a loyal consumer base, while at the same time delivering some sort of development aid.

Two-thirds of the globe’s 4.6 billion mobile phone users live in emerging markets, where Nokia is the market leader with a 34 percent share, according to Strategy Analytics. By selling valuable price data at a relatively low cost, Nokia is blending commercial and humanitarian goals to attract the next generation of upwardly mobile phone users.

“For Nokia, Ovi Life Tools creates tremendous brand loyalty,” said Wally Swain, a mobile analyst with the Yankee Group in Bogotá, Colombia. “Farmers and their families will not want to lose this capability. No other handset manufacturer pursues anything like this.”

A clear win-win situation? It does sound like a great thing, with just a little weird feeling. But maybe we have to consider this as a true example of the market working: Nokia is improving the world by pursuing its own interests?

Amartya Sen, the ebullient Nobel Prize-winning economist, developed a gauge of gender inequality that is a striking reminder of the stakes involved. “More than 100 million women are missing,” Sen wrote in a classic essay in 1990 in The New York Review of Books, spurring a new field of research. Sen noted that in normal circumstances, women live longer than men, and so there are more females than males in much of the world. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they vanish. China has 107 males for every 100 females in its overall population (and an even greater disproportion among newborns), and India has 108. The implication of the sex ratios, Sen later found, is that about 107 million females are missing from the globe today. Follow-up studies have calculated the number slightly differently, deriving alternative figures for “missing women” of between 60 million and 107 million.

Und ein Kommentar der Schwiegermutter über eine junge Frau, die mit Hilfe eines Mikrokredites zur Hauptverdienerin des Haushalts geworden ist:

Sharifa even allows that Saima is now largely exempt from beatings by her husband. “A woman should know her limits, and if not, then it’s her husband’s right to beat her,” Sharifa said. “But if a woman earns more than her husband, it’s difficult for him to discipline her.”

Und noch ein wenig Hintergrund, der den Fokus von Mikrokreditorganisationen auf Frauen erklärt:

WHY DO MICROFINANCE organizations usually focus their assistance on women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and bring home regular pay checks? One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.

Our interviews and perusal of the data available suggest that the poorest families in the world spend approximately 10 times as much (20 percent of their incomes on average) on a combination of alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children (2 percent). If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier.

Was ist falsch mit Männern? Schlechte Gene? Ich glaube, die Frauenbewegung braucht dringend eine ergänzende Männerbewegung, die uns einen konstruktiven Platz in der Welt aufzeigt. Wenn wir nicht in 50 Jahren die selben Probleme mit umgekehrten Vorzeichen haben wollen.

Diese Abbildung mit den OECD–Ländern zeigt, dass reichere Länder (weiter rechts auf der x-Achse) ein geringeres Wirtschaftswachstum (niedriger auf der y-Achse) haben. Und der Zusammenhang ist sehr deutlich! Das bedeutet, dass hier ärmere Länder am Aufholen sind, die Ungleichheit innerhalb der OECD langfristig abnimmt. (Der Zeitraum ist 1960 bis 97, die x-Achse entspricht der Situation 1960).

Leider ist die Situation global anders:

Hier sieht das ganze mehr nach einem Trichter aus. Das Wirtschaftswachstum der verhältnismäßig reichen Länder liegt in einem schmalen Bereich, bei den armen Ländern sind die Unterschiede viel größer. Für die meisten liegt das Wachstum allerdings gleichauf oder sogar unter dem der reicheren Länder.

Was sind die Konsequenzen, die hieraus für Weltwirtschaftsordnung, Entwicklungspolitik etc. gezogen werden müssen?

Das Thema ist moralisch heiß — im Kern stehen sich zwei Tatsachen gegenüber: Einsparungen durch moderne Technologien sind viel einfacher in Entwicklungs– und Schwellenländern zu realisieren als in der „Ersten Welt“. Letztere ist aber verantwortlich für einen Großteil des bisher angerichteten Schadens, und hat immer noch den höheren Lebensstandard, der sich in entsprechend großen Emissionen niederschlägt.

Wenn man sich nicht der minimalistischen Perspektive anschließen möchte, dass es toll ist dass USA und China überhaupt über Klimaschutz verhandeln, kann man den Artikel leider nur mit einem grimmigen Schmunzeln lesen:

For months the United States and China, by far the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have been warily circling each other in hopes of breaking a long impasse on global warming policy.

They are, as President Obama’s chief climate negotiator puts it, “the two gorillas in the room,” and if they do not reach some sort of truce, there is no chance of forging a meaningful international treaty in Copenhagen later this year to restrict emissions.

As a senior American team arrived in Beijing on Sunday for climate talks, the standoff was taking on the trappings of cold-war arms control negotiations, with gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions replacing megatons of nuclear might as a looming risk for people across the globe.

Both sides are demanding mutually assured reductions of emissions that are, in the current jargon, “measurable, verifiable and reportable.” In the background hover threats of great retaliation in the form of tariffs or other trade barriers if one nation does not agree to ceilings on emissions.

“This is going to be one of the most complex diplomatic negotiations in the history of the world,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, co-sponsor of an energy bill being debated in the House, who just returned from a week in China.
Many take the simple fact that the two nations, jointly responsible for more than 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, are even talking seriously to each other about the issue as a propitious sign after years of mutual distrust.

Jetzt aber zum Video. Ein wenig missionarisch, und so eindeutig moralisch im Recht dass es fast weh tut, dennoch nett anzuschauen, ein interessanter Gedanke schön dargestellt: Die News/Death Ratio …

Eignet sich auch schön, um das schöne Online Daten-Tool GapMinder in Aktion zu sehen, über das ich bald nochmal ausführlicher schreiben werde.