|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
United Nations
Development Aid: A Study in History and Politics
Are the instruments of aid and technical assistance structurally flawed? Is development aid too little too late or is it weakly linked to human development? Has the time come for rethinking international aid and the development agenda such assistance has sought to prioritise? The United Nations no doubt undertakes a wide variety of roles, perhaps more than it can actually handle. The cynics would say it is spreading too thin. Terrible poverty at the global level is an ugly reality of the globalised world. The rich-poor divide is widening, not closing. And it is happening all over, not just at the interface between the rich and the poor nations. The current UN development aid is like trying to eradicate cancer cells with a blow torch. The UN aid may very well be connected to human development objectives but given its size, it is at best a feel-good, short-term intervention which is no substitute for the vastly larger and essentially political task of raising the living standards of the masses. There are others who maintain that things are not as bad as they are made out to be. Human Development Report 2005 under the title "International Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid, Trade and Security in an Unequal World" says that "At the time of the Millennium Declaration the aid glass was three-quarters empty. It is now half full and rising." All the same, nowhere is the challenge of increasing real aid as a share of overall aid greater than in the case of technical assistance. Substantial portion of aid is spent on consultants, research and training. This is despite a growing body of evidence that technical assistance is often ineffective, and in the worst cases destroys rather than builds the capacity of the poorest countries. When the results are not desirable, the tendency is to blame the victim. For instance, African countries have cornered a major chunk of such aid and technical assistance with little to show for it. The recipient countries definitely share part of the blame for their miseries. Corruption, mismanagement, poor infrastructure and bad governance have compounded their marginalisation. Digambar Bhouraskar’s book gives us useful insights into the mechanics of UN development aid. Since few studies have been made to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of such aid, the book under review is of immense value to researchers. Bhouraskar’s three decades of experience in the development sector helped him to unravel new ground in the field of development aid. Another strength of the book is that it is based on the analysis of primary source materials such as records of discussions and decisions in the General Assembly and Economic and Social Council as also that of the Technical Assistance Committee, reports of the Technical Assistance Board and the one prepared by the Secretary-General himself. The study covers a period only upto 1966 when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) came into being as a result of merger of the EPTA and the Special Fund. There was a realisation among nations that the UN was uniquely placed to provide effective and disinterested assistance to countries who were in dire need for such assistance. But as Bhouraskar points out, many countries opposed the idea on the ground "that the ECOSOC would be overburdened especially in its early stages when it had already a number of high priority items to deal with." Many others felt that the General Assembly and ECOSOC were in no position to finance development projects. That perception changed in subsequent years. The intention of setting up Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA) and later the Special Fund may have been noble, but they were structurally flawed. As Bhouraskar rightly says, "lacking experience in managing development aid on such a large scale, EPTA underperformed in the early years and later overbudgeted thus leading to a financial crisis." The absence of specific country targets, the inability to manage different currencies and lack of coordination at the country level led to the ineffectiveness of the UN development aid. EPTA never measured itself to the ever-expanding task of meeting demand for assistance. Technical assistance should be seen primarily as a capacity building tool, not as doles. Aid should be thought of as a hand-up, rather than a hand-out. The book is a compendium of valuable information on development aid. However, it is long on chronological details, and short on analysis. The strength of the book (author’s long experience with the UN) has become its weakness. It appears more an account of the establishment and is not sufficiently critical.
|
Human
