Why must the poor and needy be convinced they are helpless?

HELPING the poor and needy in the Pacific islands has become a major ‘industry’ where both material and human capital are excessively spent at the expense of aid donors who dutifully give to appease their own social conscience.

The recipients usually have no idea of the mechanics and politics of aid, only that they are being helped when they are helpless. And the more helpless they are, the more assured they could be of getting help.

If you can convince the poor and needy they are helpless, they will act helpless. And they will see that the only way out of their helplessness is for them to do nothing, and for others (usually from outside and from afar) to come to their aid.

This is what happens especially in areas where natural disasters occur, as with the 2009 tsunami in Samoa, killing 192 people; and Tonga, killing 9.

The 2012 Cyclone Evan that struck Samoa was so destructive that officials claimed it did more economic damage than the 2009 tsunami.

The recent Cyclone Ian that destroyed Tonga’s Ha’apai Islands, the strongest ever in the kingdom’s history, left over 70% of homes destroyed.

Natural disasters create a national crisis that impacts not only the lives of people but also the economy of the affected nation.

Ongoing efforts to reduce poverty face a huge set back when natural disasters occur. Millions of dollars are needed not only in the emergency services but also in the long-term rebuilding and relief efforts.

The Samoa tsunami needed $150 million in recovery cost.

The Tongan government just released an estimate of $56 million that would be needed for housing reconstruction alone.

Aid donor New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully calls the figures given by Tonga’s Deputy Prime Minister, ‘frightening’. New Zealand would probably be asked, if not already, to contribute to the housing reconstruction.

The government of Tonga realizes that they cannot afford the cost of reconstruction in Ha’apai. They have not been able to afford to pay the wages of civil servants under their employment, in the last 4 years, let alone the huge cost of reconstruction as a result of the cyclone destruction.

So, they have to ask for help. It is a help-call demanded by regular aid donors such as Australia, New Zealand, the EU, IMF, ADB, and the World Bank.

There is no avoidance of appearing like an international ‘beggar’, simply because that’s what you really are in your time of crisis. The Tongan government was hoping aid donors would come to their aid without having to be asked.

But aid in general, according to journalist and broadcast commentator Sefita Hao’uli, is poorly explained to the recipients and those in need by receiving governments. ‘I suspect it is because it insinuates itself into the process to make it look as though it is a donor agency as well,’ he says.

There is also lack of explanation of aid to the people of the donor nations. There is almost like secrecy in carrying out aid, usually managed by the Foreign Affairs Ministries.  This lack of transparency on the part of aid donors often leave taxpayers in the dark concerning what their government is doing with their money in poor and needy nations.

But how does the Pacific in general fare in regards to the chief objective of development aid, which is to eliminate poverty?

Is aid, foreign aid that is, the inevitable solution to lifting the islands out of poverty?

Is development fueled and driven by aid, the only pathway to the future in these natural disaster prone islands?

There are some startling global statistics that have been released, having to do with the cut in extreme poverty and yet the increase in wealth inequality and income inequality.

In just 20 years, from 1990 to 2010, the proportion of the global population living in extreme poverty has been cut in half, from about two billion to one billion people.

It is assumed from this statistic that the gap between the poor and the rich has narrowed as well. But it is just the opposite. As one billion people made their way out of extreme poverty, wealth inequality and income inequality increased.

It is not the case of the rich getting richer while the poor got poorer. Rather, the rich got richer, and the poor got richer. But the increase in inequality is because the rate by which the rich got richer is so much greater than the rate of the poor getting richer.

A recent report by Oxfam, states that 70% of the world’s population live in countries where income inequality increased between 1988 and 2008.

There are also groupings of people in the world who have had a decline in poverty while poverty among others has increased. This is the case among the Blacks and Hispanics in the United States. Poverty among Blacks has decreased while poverty among Hispanics has increased.

When it comes to Pacific peoples, there is very little sign of extreme poverty existing anywhere.

But shifting Pacific peoples out of poverty altogether would be dependent on two major issues, both have to do with the conditions and ways aid is delivered and managed.

Firstly, there is no Pacific country that does not need aid, but being aid dependent is something else. Aid dependency is a social illness, according to many development experts, that locks people into a cycle of poverty that is perpetuated from one generation to another.

Secondly, the use of aid in geopolitical manoeuvring among powerful nations over less powerful island nations is an issue of great concern. It is possible to give aid not because the aid donor needs something from those who are being helped, but help could be given benevolently as part of the global effort to eliminate poverty, and thus increase quality of life among all peoples.

There is aid that increases poverty among some of the nations of the Pacific. Any nation that has become aid dependent sets itself up for poverty that would be perpetuated from one generation to another. This is a vicious cycle that is not easy to break.

It is not so much just having your material needs met, but rather the kind of mindset that is being established among those who are recipients of aid.

In other words, aid and dependency on it can increase and not decrease poverty.

The reasons and ways aid is being delivered impact a people either negatively or positively.

It is the discrepancy of understanding about aid that creates a culture of aid dependence that is becoming common to almost every island nation in the Pacific.

Unfortunately, instead of aid eliminating poverty and meeting extreme needs, as in a natural disaster, it establishes a political, economic, and social situation in which those who are being helped are portrayed as helpless. They are then given what they need, and not the tools to produce what they need on their own.

The question is whether aid can include teaching people how to help themselves, and not just giving them what they need.

Remember the story of  ‘giving a man fish as different from teaching the man how to fish?’

Most Pacific nations have been fishing for their livelihood since time immemorial. But thanks to aid, most of these nations do not fish anymore; they just receive help with low quality canned food supplies, while others (the powerful nations) do the fishing for themselves.

Communication that comes out of crisis situations often highlights the helplessness of the poor and needy. But the way help is delivered must always include giving the tools for people to become self-dependent.

A phenomenon of dangerous proportion is threatening to shift Pacific people who are poor and in need to become more helpless and create a cultural pattern of dependency, giving donors dominance over their lives and future existence.

It makes no difference where the aid comes from, the personal and social repercussion it produces among those helped will be counterproductive if it fails to address the issues of self-identity, self-dependency, and meaning. Such negative mentality changes and paradigm shifts threaten to undermine positive human development in any community.