Easterly: "big plans" for Africa won't work

As Liberal Order points out, William Easterly had a nice op-ed in Sunday's New York Times (registration required) on Live 8 and the work of Jeffrey Sachs, Bono, etc: Tone Deaf on Africa. Easterly's point is not that foreign aid is necessarily a waste of money, but that "big plans" to end poverty don't work:

It's great that so many are finally noticing the tragedy of Africa. But sadly, historical evidence says that the solutions offered by big plans are not so easy. From 1960 to 2003, we spent $568 billion (in today's dollars) to end poverty in Africa. Yet these efforts still did not lift Africa from misery and stagnation.

Why don't big plans work? Because they miss the critical elements of feedback and accountability. If consumers like a product, its maker prospers; if they don't, the company goes out of business. If voters complain about public services to their local politician, the politician either fixes the problem or gets voted out of office. It doesn't always work, but it works well enough for rich people to get potato chips and paved roads.

For the poor, Professor Sachs and the United Nations Millennium Project propose everything from nitrogen-fixing leguminous trees to replenish the soil, to rainwater harvesting, to battery-charging stations, for, by my count, 449 interventions. Poor Africans have no market or democratic mechanisms to let planners in New York know which of the 449 interventions they need, whether they are satisfied with the results, or whether the goods ever arrived at all.

So what's the alternative?

The sensible alternative is to concentrate on piecemeal solutions to poor people's problems.You can evaluate the results of a specific intervention by comparing them with conditions in another group without the intervention, and you can get feedback from those affected and hold an individual aid agency accountable.

The Dutch aid organization I.C.S. Africa distributed deworming drugs to schoolchildren in the Busia district of Kenya. Ninety-two percent of the children had intestinal worms that cause listlessness, malnutrition and pain. I.C.S. invited economists to evaluate its program, comparing those children who got the drugs with those who did not. The deworming drugs decreased school absenteeism by a quarter. "Pupils who had been miserable now became active and lifeful," said a schoolteacher.

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The Dutch aid organization I.C.S. Africa distributed deworming drugs to schoolchildren in the Busia district of Kenya. Ninety-two percent of the children had intestinal worms that cause listlessness, malnutrition and pain. I.C.S. invited economists to evaluate its program, comparing those children who got the drugs with those who did not. The deworming drugs decreased school absenteeism by a quarter. "Pupils who had been miserable now became active and lifeful," said a schoolteacher.

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