ONE has lost its way

I'm taking a few minutes out of my day today to help stop global poverty. I just was forwarded an email from Susan McCue at the One Campaign inviting me to join the "ONE Campus Challenge". I signed Grinnell College up, and now anyone on campus can win points for Grinnell by participating in poverty fighting activities, such as dressing up a pet up in ONE gear, getting its marching band to form the "ONE" logo, or getting other people to join in on the Campus Challenge. I decided to start right away, and for this blog post linking to the Campus Challenge, I'm earning 75 points for Grinnell. I hope it will help us get out of 491st place.

A lot of ONE's activities deal with engagement, and because they seem to be reaching people who wouldn't normally know about global poverty, I have been able to ignore Jeffrey Sachs parading around Africa with Angelina Jolie. Even though they offer great prizes to the school that earns the most points, including a prize that's so great it's still a secret, the Campus Challenge doesn't seem to accomplish anything but get more involved with the Campus Challenge.

And that is my major criticism with the ONE Campaign. It is all about increasing awareness, which is fine, but it doesn't offer any information about how to work on the issues after people become engaged. On the main site for the ONE Campus Challenge, the only information it offers besides the rules of the Challenge is that "our generation has the tools, technology, and resources to end extreme poverty and yet, a billion people still live on less than a dollar a day." The ONE main website has an "issues" page, as well as a "take action" page, but the action either involves wearing ONE gear, getting more people to sign up onto ONE, or contacting Congress. (To be fair, the Campus Challenge also asks students to lobby Congress.) When you decide to "learn how to become an active member of the movement," all that is suggested is more ways to engage more people.

It seems like ONE gives people an easy way out for global poverty. It offers people shirts and wristbands, and people can proudly wear these, saying: "I care about global poverty." Which is great. But that care and concern, even if it is well meaning, cannot make change by itself. The ONE campaign offers no real course of action for individuals, it just puts the power back into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats.

And it is daunting for individuals to try to confront poverty by themselves. That is why ONE has gain popularity through uniting many different concerned individuals. But they have lost their way. They have become self-serving and do not look for effective ways to stop poverty, and instead focus on what they think is right rather than what is working.

So what is working? I will shamelessly plug my own student group, the Social Entrepreneurs of Grinnell. We have raised over $3,000 on campus and loaned almost all of it all over the world to Third World entrepreneurs. There is no reason why other colleges can't do this instead of participating in the Campus Challenge.

I think that the work of SEG is more effective than anything the Campus Challenge can accomplish, but are they really ending poverty? Maybe. I don't know. But SEG is actually doing something. And we certainly are doing more to end poverty than just wearing a ONE wristband.

At Least Two Sides to Every Issue

All of my course work is starting to blend together. I can't remember which conservations I had in which class, which professor said what.

I suppose it's my own fault for choosing classes that try to explain the same thing, just through different academic lenses. But the higher up I get in academia, the more I realize that it doesn't matter whether or not your trying to find answers through political science, ecology or anthropology, people will conclude different things, even while looking at the same facts.

We just read two pieces in my African cultures class, both put out around the same time, but with completely messages. The first was Robert Kaplan's, "The Coming Anarchy" and the other was Nelson Mandela's 1994 speech to the OAU. Both came out around the same time, Kaplan's in February and Mandela's in June, but each describes Africa in a completely different way. Kaplan's article, from the Atlantic Monthly, is famous for being the first wake-up call to the Western world about the trouble Africa is in. After I read it, I felt that Africa is beyond repair and there's nothing we really can do about it.

Mandela comes to a completely different conclusion. He tells the OAU that Africa has been through hard times, but they can persevere through them. He cites South Africa's expulsion of Apartheid as an example of all they can accomplish. Strangely, Mandela's hopeful speech comes after the Rwandan genocide and Kaplan's warning comes only a few months before it. Of course, Mandela is a politician and Kaplan is a journalist.

Another great example of people looking at the same thing but seeing it differently is the Jeffrey Sachs/ William Easterly debate. We're reading both their books ("End of Poverty" and "White Man's Burden", respectively) in Political Economies of Developing Countries, and it is hard to tell which has their facts right. It seems that both of them do, yet their conclusions are such polar opposites.

If you don't know the story behind Sachs and Easterly, Sachs runs the One Campaign with Bono and champions the idea that extreme poverty can be ended by 2025. Easterly makes no such claim and thinks poverty only can be ended by grassroots movements, instead of large aid donations recommended by One. Both make convincing arguments.

But when all the arguing is over, it seems like not much is really getting done. We get reports of terrorism around the world and people dying needlessly. The One Campaign reports 10 million children die every year, mostly from preventable diseases.

That is, until this year. UNICEF today released a report saying that in 2005 the number of child deaths before the age of five dropped to 9.7 million, a fall of 29% from 2000. This is the lowest its been since UNICEF began to record these statistics. "We feel we’re at a tipping point now,” said Dr. Peter Salama, Unicef’s chief medical officer. They expect this drop to continue, and think the UN Development Goal of cutting child mortality by two-thirds by 2025 could be accomplished.

So was Sachs right? Does this drop come from the increased efforts of NGOs like One and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria? Or was Easterly right, and this reduction in needless deaths is due to people at the bottom finally taking control of their lives?

Was Mandela right in calling Africa to unite and be strong? Or was Kaplan right in scaring the First World into doing something?

If more than 300,000 children are no longer dying needlessly, I don't think it matters.

Exporting Markers

Yesterday, I had a brief conversation with my mother about my upcoming fall semester in Botswana. She said she wanted to buy a lot of markers and pencils at Target before I left, so I could distribute them to the needy children and needy schools I would encounter on my travels. She was well-meaning, of course, but I quickly refused her offer and tried to explain why her suggestion was a bad one.

I give the One Campaign a lot of crap, and I will continue to do so with this post. I think things like One have made people like my mother think getting needy children supplies is as easy as buying them cheap at Target and getting someone to distribute them. One's "twelve cent medicines" make it seem like all it takes is a check and connections to solve all the world's problems.

My mother's suggestion for me to bring markers to Botswana would be like bringing Pop-Tarts to a starving community. These potential Batswana children may need school supplies, but we can't just assume help is as easy as giving away what we personally think someone might need. If I show up with a suitcase full of markers, and what they really need is paper, then I'm stuck with markers that could more efficiently be used elsewhere.

Another, more complex reason that I would not like to import markers into Botswana is because it takes away from local economies. In my opinion, Botswana needs my and my mother's money more than a U.S. Target does. By waiting to see what the Batswana people need until after I arrive, I am not only able to effectively deliver what they need, but also purchase those things in the community and stimulate the local economy.

Today the New York Times reported on CARE refusing to accept 45 million dollars of food aid from the U.S., "CARE Turns Down Federal Funds for Food Aid". CARE is one of the world's largest charities and usually sells donated food from the U.S. to finance anti-poverty programs. It is also the first NGO, that I know of, to have refused a donation that large.

CARE claims that these cheaply-produced and -sold crop donations stagnate growth by deflating local primary product prices. I agree with them, but many would disagree. Some see this price deflation as a necessary evil; without these crop donations, groups like CARE would not be able to function and help the thousands of poor farmers in the same way as they do now.

My mother was distressed when I explained to her the problems with importing markers to Botswana, and by extension, importing primary products as aid. She asked me what she could give me instead of markers. I asked her what she had.

"Well, how about Beanie Babies?" she said.

"Yeah," I responded, "Those would be great."

"Why? Why are Beanie Babies any different? How do you know they need Beanie Babies in Botswana and not markers?"

"Mom," I said, "no one ever needs Beanie Babies. Beanie Babies are always superfluous."

Expensive Trade

As a student of economics, I've learned that free trade is beneficial to all participants. As a member in the activist community, I've learned that the free trade movement is sucking the ever-dwindling life out of Third World nations. Through my own experience, I've learned that free trade does not exsist.

Today the New York Times reported on the WTO's Doha Rounds. These international talks started in 2001 to promote global trade and the elimination of tarriffs. The NYT's article reports that a overhaul of the current trade system could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the world's income. I think it would also ignite cultural synergy like never before.

The Doha Rounds have not produced much of anything. Many people blame First World nations for rigity with their policies, especially the US's argicultural subsides, which inflate domestic prices and leave many Third World nations unable to compete in the global market. The activist community has called for the elimination of these subsidies, claiming that they only support large agribusinesses while stagnating Third World economies. I agree with the elimination of these subsides, as do most involved with global politics, activist or otherwise.

What many activists organizations, especially the famous "One" campaign, ignore is the complexities behind these trade talks. Many would like to frame this trade battle as a First versus Third World, a poor versus rich, corrupt versus innocent. However, it is not as simple as that. Peter Mandelson, the top European trade negotiator, said in the NYT's article:

"This is not a classic North-South conflict. It is also South-South. The developed countries and the emerging economies have a responsibility to help the poorer countries."

The "emerging" economies that Mandelson refers to are countries like China, India and Brazil (commonly called "BRIC", with the R being Russia). China and Brazil are wary to lower their tariffs, as they are afraid of cheap Chinese imports flooding their markets. China has also refused to unfix the Yen, which artifically lowers their exports even more.

Many Thrid World countries feel that they should not be all grouped together, as is common. China, India and Brazil have the post power in the Third World, and many other, slower growing nations don't think they are accuratley respresented by the concerns of BRIC and similar countries.

The NYT's article gives a comprehensive layout of trade complexities. It reports that 70% of traiffs paid by poor countires goes to poor countries, giving a new perspective on assumed exploitation of the Third World by the First. (This statistic was reported by a US trade representative, so it could be exploitative on its own.) Also, the US has said it will losen some of its trade restrictions if India and Brazil do the same.

I am not saying, contrary to popular belief, that these trade talks are successfull. I think they are crippingly breaucratic and a waste of time. Poor countries are being ignored by most of these trade talks (especially when it comes to agricultural subsidies), but not in a good-versus-evil way that most groups working on the Doha Rounds would like us to think. Trade is a complex topic, and free trade is even more complex. There is no one right way to create a universially benificial trade deal, but it can be done and must be done.