We must find the will and the means to end poverty
Here are two propositions: first, the elimination of destitution, disease and deprivation is taking too long; second, additional assistance to the world's poorest countries is easily affordable. The important question is whether that aid can be well used.
Some argue that aid merely allows bad governments to ignore the wishes of their populations and avoid necessary reforms. Others seem to believe that extra aid is sure to deliver improvements in desired outcomes. Neither of these extremes is right. Even in Africa much aid has delivered high rates of return, once one allows for adverse external shocks, conflict, the burden of disease and poor agro-climatic conditions.* But there are also many examples of great waste: Tanzania's socialist experiment of the 1970s comes to mind. Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire is a far worse case.
Many of the world's poorest countries offer extremely difficult environments for development. What are today called (somewhat euphemistically) “fragile states” are home to about 15 per cent of the world's population and contain one-third of those living in extreme poverty. Prominent on any list of such states are Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan. Six of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa is also, not coincidentally, the region whose ability to achieve the Millennium Development Goals is most in doubt (see charts). On current trends, east Asia and Pacific will eliminate extreme poverty by 2015 and hit most other targets. But in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole conditions are getting worse, or at best barely improving, in almost every salient area.
Fortunately, there are success stories in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank lists Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda (with combined populations of 200m) as countries with relatively good policies that are capable of absorbing substantially more aid.** Mozambique has been receiving about one-quarter of gross domestic product in aid. Its real income per head also rose 4.3 per cent a year between 1990 and 2001. Uganda, another heavily aided country, achieved growth of income per head of 3.6 per cent over the same period.
So how, then, are we to ensure that increases in aid are to be reasonably well used to achieve the improvements in human well-being that we seek? I offer five rules and two dilemmas.
Rule one: give tolerably governed countries the aid needed to achieve the internationally agreed goals. Anything short of that is hypocrisy. If a desperately poor country has a reasonable government and tolerable policies, it should receive the assistance it needs to implement agreed investments and programmes.
Rule two: make open agreements that can be monitored. Detailed conditionality rarely works. That is today's consensus. Although too stark, it has a great deal of truth. Governments cannot be forced to do what they do not wish to do. They
will cheat. But they should do what they promise. So let them put down their promises in detail and then monitor them.
Rule three: use markets. One of the most innovative and effective approaches to delivery is “social marketing” the use of market mechanisms to deliver subsidised goods, such as condoms, water treatment systems, anti-malaria bed nets. Population Services International, the leading organisation in this field, has had remarkable successes. In Malawi, for example, the proportion of children under five covered by nets jumped from 8 per cent in 2000 to
55 per cent in 2004. In Tanzania,
nets have been sold, with similar success, through subsidised commercial channels.***
Rule four: make aid predictable, untied and, provided the recipient's commitments are met, sustained. If countries are to engage in long-term spending, they need to know the aid will be there. The only qualification is the need to provide cushions against short-term economic instability, particularly shocks to the terms
of trade.
Rule five: remember policy. Many campaigners view trade liberalisation, privatisation and budgetary discipline as anathema. They are wrong. It is more important, not less important, for the poorest countries to avoid the waste inherent in high and variable protection against imports, inefficient state monopolies and macroeconomic instability. It is particularly silly to combine greatly increased aid with higher protection against imports, since additional aid must mean a bigger trade deficit.
This, then, is the approach to be taken with reasonably well-governed countries that can absorb more aid. This leaves two dilemmas. One is that the quickest way to reduce poverty is to shift aid towards India and Bangladesh from other low-income countries. These countries receive low levels of aid per head, but have enormous numbers of people in poverty and reasonable administrative capacity. A better solution is to transfer aid from over-aided middle-income countries that need it far less.
The bigger dilemma is what to do about fragile or failing states. These are, by definition, the places where money is most likely to be ill-used. They are also, by definition, the places where the concentration of desperately poor people is set to rise over time. This is a huge challenge, to which we have few good answers, but it must not divert attention from what we can do: help those already prepared to help themselves. With luck, examples of success will themselves turn at least some of the failing states around.
What we must do is our best. We can not justify doing less. The aim is to eliminate the extremes of poverty and despair that continue to disfigure our world. Additional aid is certainly not the answer on its own. But it has to be part of the answer. Let us resolve to give aid, properly directed and monitored, a chance. Few can question the ends. We must will the means.
*Mick Foster, The Case for Increased Aid, December 2003,
www.odi.org.uk; **Supporting Sound Policies with Adequate and Appropriate Financing, September 12 2003,
www.worldbank.org; ***Rose Nathan et al, Mosquito Nets and the Poor: Can Social Marketing Redress Inequities in Access?, Tropical Medicine and International Health, October 2004
全球脱贫的五项基本原则
有两个主张：第一，消除贫困、疾病和供给匮乏的工作已经耗去了太长时间；第二，加大对最贫穷国家的援助，世界完全承担得起。问题是这种援助能否得到善用。
有些人认为，援助只会使糟糕的政府无视其人民的愿望，逃避必要的改革。还有些人似乎认为，增加援助肯定能更好地实现期望目标。这两种极端观点都不对。如果考虑不利的外部冲击、冲突、疾病和恶劣气候环境的影响，即使是对非洲国家的援助，也大都获得了很高的回报率*。但也有很多浪费巨大的例子，如坦桑尼亚20世纪70年代开展的社会主义实验。而蒙博托(Mobutu Sese Seko)当政时期的扎伊尔，则是一个更糟糕得多的实例。
很多世界最贫穷国家的发展环境极为严峻。我们目前所称的“脆弱国家”(一种委婉说法)，其人口约占全球总人口的15%，包括1/3处于极端贫穷状况的人口。在任何版本的“脆弱国家”名录中，阿富汗、安哥拉、刚果民主共和国、缅甸、尼日尔、尼日利亚、索马里和苏丹等国都排在前几位，其中有六个国家在撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲。
无独有偶，撒哈拉以南的非洲国家实现“千年发展目标”(Millennium Development Goals)的能力也令人怀疑(参见图表)。按照当前趋势，东亚和太平洋地区将在2015年前消除极端贫穷。然而，撒哈拉以南非洲几乎所有主要地区的整体状况却正在恶化，最好的也只是略有改善。
幸运的是，撒哈拉以南非洲也有成功的例子。世界银行认定，贝宁、布基纳法索、埃塞俄比亚、马达加斯加、马里、毛里塔尼亚、莫桑比克、坦桑尼亚和乌干达(总人口2亿)等国具有比较良好的政策，有能力吸纳更多援助**。莫桑比克迄今接受的国际援助约占其国内GDP的1/4。1990年至2001年，该国实际人均收入年均增长4.3%。另一个大量接受国际援助的国家乌干达，其同期实际人均收入的年均增长率也达到3.6%。
那么，我们应该如何确保增加的援助得到善用，以实现我们改善人类福祉的目标？我在这里提出五条准则，并指出两个难题。
准则一：向管理还过得去的国家提供所需援助，以实现国际商定的目标。做不到这一点就都是空谈。假如某个极端贫穷的国家有合理的政府和过得去的政策，它就应该得到援助，以实施已立项的投资项目和发展项目。
准则二：援助协议公开，以便于监督。详细的限制条款很少奏效。这是当今的共识。这种说法固然尖刻，但在相当大程度上符合事实。人们无法强迫一国政府去做它不愿做的事。政府会用欺骗行为作为对策。但它们应当履行承诺。因此，应该让它们详细列出书面承诺，然后监督它们。
准则三：利用市场。提供援助最新颖和最有效的方式之一是“社会营销”，即利用市场机制提供得到补贴的物资，如避孕套、水处理系统和防疟疾蚊帐等。国际人口服务组织(PSI)在该领域居于领先地位，工作开展得非常成功。例如，马拉维5岁以下儿童中，得到蚊帐保护的比例已从2000年的8%跃升至2004年的55%。在坦桑尼亚，这种蚊帐通过得到补贴的商业渠道同样销售得很好。***
准则四：要使援助具有可预见性，不附带条件，而且(只要受援国履行承诺)长期保持。受援国要开展长期支出项目，就需要知道援助将会到位。唯一的限定条件是需要提供缓冲机制，以应对短期的经济不稳定，尤其是对贸易条件冲击较大的因素。
准则五：记住政策因素。许多活动分子视贸易自由化、私有化和预算纪律为恶魔。他们错了。最贫穷国家更应该(而不是不那么应该)避免贸易保护措施所导致的浪费、低效率的国家垄断和宏观经济的不稳定因素。尤其愚蠢的是在援助大幅增加的同时提高进口壁垒，因为更多援助必然意味着贸易赤字扩大。
这些准则适用于管理能力较好、适于吸纳更多援助的国家。这会产生两个难题。第一，最迅速的脱贫途径，就是把给其他低收入国家的援助转移至印度和孟加拉国。这两个国家的人均受援金额较低，而贫穷人口很多，政府管理能力尚可。更好的解决方式，是把给中等收入国家的援助转移给低收入国家，因为某些中等收入国家接受援助过多，而对援助的需要程度也远不如低收入国家。
还有一个难题更大，那就是如何对待脆弱国家或正陷入失败的国家。在这些国家，援助最有可能被滥用。这些国家也是赤贫人口大量集中、而且必然会不断增加的国家。这是一个巨大的挑战，我们对此还提不出什么解决方案，但我们绝不能因此而转移注意力，即尽我们所能，援助那些有意好自为之的国家。如果我们够幸运，成功的榜样至少会使部分处于失败进程中的国家转向。
我们必须竭尽所能，也没有理由不竭尽所能。我们的目标，是消除仍在给世界带来污点的极端贫穷和绝望。单纯增加援助肯定无法解决问题，但增加援助不能不作为解决方案的一部分。让我们给妥善安排和监控的援助一个机会。没有人质疑目的。我们必须用意志决定手段。
*Mick Foster, The Case for Increased Aid, 2003年12月,
www.odi.org.uk; **Supporting Sound Policies with Adequate and Appropriate Financing, 2003年9月12日,
www.worldbank.org; ***Rose Nathan et al, Mosquito Nets and the Poor: Can Social Marketing Redress Inequities in Access?, Tropical Medicine and International Health, 2004年10月。
