Long-time readers will recognize the sarcasm with which I approach this story of famine and grinding poverty. But they will be wrong: I really don’t care.
UN food agencies said yesterday that 166 million people in 22 countries suffer chronic hunger or difficulty finding enough to eat as a result of what they called protracted food crises.
Wars, natural disasters, and poor government institutions have contributed to a continuous state of undernourishment in the 22 nations, including Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan, the Food and Agriculture Operation and the World Food Program said in a report.
A country that reports a food crisis for at least eight years and receives more than 10 percent of its foreign assistance as humanitarian relief is considered to be in a protracted food crisis, the two agencies said — offering the first definition of the term in hopes of improving aid response to these nations.
…
Countries in protracted crisis require targeted assistance, with the focus not only on emergency relief but also on longer-term tools, such as providing school meals or implementing food-for-work programs, the report said.
Food for work? What a radical concept! But it could spread, leading next to shelter for work, medicine for work, car for work, flat-screen TV for work, Doritos for work, and all other manner of necessities and luxuries in exchange for productivity. And what kind of world would that be?
But just read this sentence again:
A country that reports a food crisis for at least eight years and receives more than 10 percent of its foreign assistance as humanitarian relief is considered to be in a protracted food crisis, the two agencies said — offering the first definition of the term in hopes of improving aid response to these nations.
If a country can prove itself a basket case for eight years, unable to feed its people and dependent on foreign charity, it qualifies for more charity. In other words, when presented with a failed model, double down. It is so typical of the liberal mind. If we only spent another million/billion/trillion/bajillion (Aggie’s word from yesterday), peace would rule, hunger would end, and Obama would reign forever and ever.
It’s just weird that such a world has never come to pass.
In another forum, we begin to find a hint about why:
Mr. Derbyshire — Regarding your post on NRO Tuesday afternoon, I can attest to the validity of the contention that well-meaning aid organizations often exacerbate the problem which they are supposedly there to alleviate.
In January of 1994 I was deployed to Mogadishu, Somalia with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, partly in response to the “Blackhawk Down” incident.
As part of our preparation we were given extensive intelligence briefings on the history and culture of Somalia. A little acknowledged fact is that there was no famine in Somalia prior to the U.N.’s arrival. To be sure, there were localized food shortages and hunger, but no widespread famine.
The famine began when the U.N. arrived and began giving away food. With free food available, farmers cold not sell their crops and so they stopped farming; the U.N. became the major source of food.
Once U.N. aid convoys were the only viable source of food, it was easy for the warlords to seize the unarmed convoys and food warehouses and monopolize the food supply. Presto, instant famine.
So ended my belief that the U.N. was anything more than a third-rate debating society. Incidentally, the northern half of the country was generally stable (and, I believe, remains so). They sought to break away from the south and form their own nation but were prevented by the U.N. They remain shackled to the the dysfunctional south to this day.
Good line about the UN being nothing more than a third-rate debating society. I’ll have to steal it some day—when I’m feeling charitable.
Another comment:
Mr. Derbyshire — I can speak with some authority regarding the motivations of those in the “helping professions” generally, having spent well over two decades working for non-profits, mainly government funded. I was politically perhaps a tad right of center at the start. I am now firmly well right of same.
If there was one characteristic of my colleagues that was consistent, and that I found ever more dismaying it was precisely that they needed our clients, likely more than our clients ever needed them. I watched in chagrin as, on those occasions that our work actually began to make a dent in the problems we were funded to ameliorate, they found a new population of clients who needed them, or alternatively advanced solutions that guaranteed failure to keep the clients dependent.
Again, I don’t care. The world has never been wealthier, yet never have more people been hungry. The stupider among us would decry the inequality of capitalism, but the real reason is that those perennially starved nations—Haiti, Sudan, Somalia—are addicted to a failed model of “humanitarian aid”. As so often, you get what you pay for.
War and natural disasters can knock a country off its rails for a while, but if it encourages a free market (through the rule of law, as well as through economic reforms), it will be restored. See Japan and Germany after war; USA for resilience after hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, wild fires, etc.
Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but sometimes starvation is a choice. Fine, don’t eat. See if I care.
