22629: Hess: Re: 22615: Durban: To Hess on Sustainable Foreign Aid (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dougrhess2@aol.com

Below is Lance's text, my comments on in brackets [like this]:

I favor a "bricks and mortar" aid project over a fuzzy,touchy-feely  kind of
institution building effort any day for a couple of reasons:
1. A road, bridge, or building project is easy to budget beforehand and
evaluate  upon completion.
[Having just completed a cost-benefit analysis course, I can  tell you that I
find evaluation of physical systems just as difficult as  evaluations of
social systems. The most enlightening part of the textbook on  cost-benefit
analysis (book is by that name by Boardman) was the last chapter  where they showed
numerous evaluations of a highway project in Canada where each  evaluation was
VERY different from the other. Add to that the fact that a  pre-evaluation
(ex ante) often underestimates the costs and you begin to see my  point.]

  2. There is an obvious need everywhere you look in Haiti.   Hardly a paved
road in the country, electricity supply a disaster, public access  to water
nonexistent in many neighborhood.

[All true, but man community projects (physical or not) are needed and
people can't be a part of the planning if they aren't involved in organizing  them.
This means identifying their interests, debating priorities, making
decisions, etc. Unless, of course, you think outside experts should just plop
physical projects down where they think they should go? That would violate your  and
my skepticism of the wisdom of non-local knowledge.]

3. From the donor's standpoint, foreign aid should also be a  tool to
generate good will toward the donor country.  That's just reality  and it shouldn't
come as a shock, but if the population can't even see it,  it can hardly be
appreciated.

[Not sure how this weighs in on the argument.]