Aid and NGOs in a globalised world

Cornford argues that "ultimately these two areas of development advocacy lie on conflicting paths." The projects that reinforce the first trend are "governance" sector projects, which, he says, enhance the capacity of the Lao central government to implement programs to the detriment of rural localities.

Among the projects which he categorises as contributing to the first path - global integration- he nominates:

• the Friendship bridge, which is seen as a catalyst for sub-regional economic integration in line with ADB regional development directions
• assistance to Laos to enter ASEAN and AFTA in 1996/7
• assistance in the education sector, which is strongly biased to tertiary sector, English language training to key government Ministries, such as the ASEAN Department in the Dept of Foreign Affairs
• the Land Titling Project designed to develop land markets in a nation where usufructuary rights dominate.

Australia’s considerable contribution to the rural sector in Laos in the nineties included:

• the Lao Uplands Agricultural Development project
• two SCFA Projects in Xiagnabouli Province, in primary health care and integrated village development and
• Community Aid Abroad’s rural development and institutional strengthening project

The latter projects, he argues, have been particularly successful at improving rural lives.

Cornford concludes that development assistance should strengthen sectors of the state and/or civil society organisations that have the greatest potential to advance rural livelihoods. This, he says, includes local government strengthening and strengthening those central departments which themselves may promote a critique of current economic orthodoxy.

So it is not just the level of aid that we need to look at, but what part the aid is playing in supporting either the neo-liberal agenda or the one I outlined earlier in relation to human rights and human development.

If we really want to respond to the problems facing the poor, and genuinely listen to them, we might consider the four systemic and pervasive problems which the World Bank’s study of 60,000 poor people has identified. People living in poverty told the World Bank that

• corruption, "connections" and violation of human rights with impunity had to be tackled;
• in many countries they reported increasing levels of violence, crime, lawlessness, including violence inside as well as outside the home;
• they want a say - they want a chance to participate in decisions which affect their lives, not always to be on the receiving end of the latest edicts; and
• their livelihoods are precarious, even in some cases where poverty had actually decreased, they said their livelihoods were less secure.

Poor people want a focus on human rights and accountability. In particular they want a right to live free of violence. They want the right to participate and to more secure livelihoods.

Corruption must be tackled. Mahbub ul Haq estimated that five times as much capital flows out of South Asia because of corruption, as flows in as aid. The NGO Transparency International has been set up explicitly to address this issue of corruption.