Aid for a much better planet

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees basic human rights and a good life for all. Even though not legally binding, the declaration has been adopted by and  has influenced the constitutions of most countries. The Declaration has served as the foundation for most laws, treaties and institutions protecting and promoting human rights. The South African Constitution grants basic human rights to all. Apart from the right to political and religious freedoms, everyone has the right to good nutrition, access to health, and the right to live in a clean, healthy environment that does not compromise the status of their health.

Which is all very good and well. Except this is one of those areas where we are clearly not succeeding. Even though we guarantee access to good health and nutrition, this is hardly the case in real life. Achieving this would make a tremendous difference to the vast majority of citizens of Mother Earth. The point here is that if we can’t give all kids a decent start in life, there is no guessing what's gonna happen to them down the road. Most often, such unfortunate kids end up on the welfare queue. Or much worse, they end up crowding our jails. So it really would be in the best interest of everyone if we spent a little bit now to help the downtrodden, as opposed to spending vast sums of money later on to fix a broken system (i.e. in the form of kids in jail, broken lives, etc.). It all makes perfect sense to me.

Giving the poor a leg-up

I'm no big fan of aid of course. Aid probably exacerbates poverty and keeps beneficiaries reliant on it forever. That’s simple logic. But is that all there is to it?

It turns out reality is a different kettle of fish. Without aid, there is little hope for others. If aid is geared to give the poor a leg-up, or help them gain a foothold on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, then aid is good. Every child deserves a good start in life. It makes even more sense if such people have been victims of a systematic system of oppression that deprived them of the most basic requirements of modern life. This would be the case in many poor African countries. So on second thoughts, aid may not be such a terrible thing after all.

But how much aid would be fair for a start?

Ours is an odd world. There's unbelievable wealth on the one side, juxtaposed with extreme poverty on the other. People struggle with lifestyle diseases such as obesity, while a third of the world’s population are desperately poor and struggle to make ends meet. It seems more a case of distorted distribution of wealth and resources. A big chunk of food is thrown away as waste on the one side, which would surely provide much-needed relief to others. Blame our political systems for this, or blame our belief systems. They're all letting us down in this regard.

So it turns out that the rich world is foremost when it comes to donating money to aid. They set themselves targets such as putting aside about 0.7% of their GDP for aid. This may be a paltry sum if you come to think of it, but one must accept that they give the money out of their own goodwill. But if one considers that percentage against the subsidies pumped into their agriculture - which distorts the market and makes it virtually impossible for companies or farmers from Developing Countries to compete with them on an equal footing - the amount set aside for aid is very minuscule indeed. Back in 2002, the amount pumped into agricultural subsidies in the West was well over $360 billion, while roughly $50 billion was spent on aid. And disappointingly, the percentage set aside for aid has been declining ever since.

An innovative idea to boosting aid

According to Michael Metcalfe, the central banks of Japan, the US, and the UK pumped $3.7 trillion to prop up their economies during the recent financial crisis through what they euphemistically called Quantitative Easing. QE is essentially money that’s artificially created, with no underlying value or assets to support it. The Central Banks went about buying assets (mostly government bonds or treasuries as they are referred to in the US) to stimulate activity in their markets. One can argue that QE has worked to save their economies (and by extension that of the world in general) from oblivion. The biggest concern with QE was the attendant inflation that would supposedly accompany the artificial money created. But this never came to be. Or so the consensus goes.

The argument then is, why can't the amount dedicated to aid be created in the same manner as that in QE to boost aid? If such a vast amount of money ($3.7 trillion) could be pumped into economies to prop them up, why can't the same logic apply to money for aid? In any case, aid is a more pressing priority than say bailing out reckless bankers. We’re talking about the livelihoods of a vast majority of people here. By whichever metric you use, the advantages of creating money for aid would far outweigh those of bailing out irresponsible banks and struggling corporates (who got themselves in the mess through not exercising proper caution in their business dealings in the first place). Aid would improve people’s lives and make our planet a much fairer place.

Call for a moral code

As you can gather, this calls for a moral code and a humane spirit. The task is not unattainable. It is perfectly within our means. As opposed to consistently making pledges which they fail to fulfill, rich countries could implement a version of QE focusing on aid in a bid to improve the livelihoods of the helpless on the planet. This would have a touch of genius and make such an unbelievable difference in the lives of the poor. Those who benefit from aid would be given a leg-up. They would gain a foothold on the bottom rung of the ladder (with all credit to Jeffery Sacchs who coined that phrase) and over time become self-sufficient. Understandably this would take time. But there's no denying the vast benefits this would have for the world economy. So the choice is in doing the right thing, or ignoring the plight of a large section of human society. And if we accept that most of those poor people found themselves in the helpless situations they are in through no fault of their own (but through our rampant greed and opportunism), saving them is a no-brainier.

What do you think? Does aid makes sense to you?