Does aid work?

Does development assistance work? Of course it does. It works excellently for the 50000+ western aid employees who's paychecks depend on it. It works well for an equal number of politicians and government officials in developing countries who can line their pockets with it. It works for a much larger number of NGO employees who get most of their funding from western state budgets. It works fine for the producers of Toyota Land Cruisers, for satellite phone makers, American corn farmers, producers of solar panels, air freighters, consultancy firms, the academia, conference speakers and hotel owners. In short, it keeps the big aid industry running.

But what about Africa's poor? Does it work for them too? Occasionally. There is food for the hungry and vaccines for the children. But growth and prosperity promised by Western aid projects since the 1950ies are difficult to spot. The snows of Kilimanjaro are thawing but the number of poor does not fall.

Which is a good thing if you take a cynical view. Obviously aid cannot exist for long without the "bottom billion" as its customer base. Eradicating poverty is aid's #1 "production target". Achieving it however would mean undermining the livelihoods of an army of aid workers. They would need to find something else, probably less personally rewarding, to do. Luckily therefore, the industry's foremost sign of success being its own extinction, it has hitherto failed excellently.

The aid industry may also be a bit like a religion or church, with deities, rituals and clergy. There could even be something for the Winter God in it.

Apart from other things, a dollar a day may help clean an expatriate's swimmingpool.

The Snows on Kilimanjaro

Last night thawing continued and snow rumbled off the roof. Also stock exchanges rose, oil prices increased, Germans bought new cars as never before and Gordon Brown got standing ovations for advising the US Congress on free trade.

My climate-business cycle theory that come spring good times will roll again, seems well supported by this and I think the carpet of white snow on the ground this morning should be put down to statistical error.

It has however been suggested that the theory may not adequately explain the situation south of Sahara. There is snow on the Kilimanjaro, it has been thawing for a while but poverty stricken Africans have seen little improvement and the slump is worsening their livelihoods. More research is needed but the model should perhaps also take more explicitly into account the annual avalanche of development aid. It should not be ruled out that it may have corrupted the ways of some governments. I'll come back to this.

In the meantime: How many Icelandic investment bankers does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Just one, but it really gets screwed.

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Help is on the way. It is thawing out there.

Revenge of The Winter God

Is nature vengeful in your country? Here you need to take particularly care when writing about snow and ice. I have clearly blogged too flippantly about it. On leaving work yesterday I found The Winter God, obviously standing on the roof above, had thrown icicle spears at the windscreen of my car and smashed it. Alas, no picture of the cracks. Much too busy getting away glancing nervously over my shoulder for more.

This made me ponder the power of deity. My slightly blasphemous hypothesis which I offer to you, is that The Winter God is also responsible for the financial/economic crisis. The almost perfect correlation between the depth of snow and the severity of the slump is striking. A causal link is highly probable and as melting sets in you will see that times get better.

If it lingers on, there is good skiing in July.

Transport leg

I had a long tour planned today to get the feel of my new skis only to discover that someone in the store had stepped on them and made a crack. They can't be used and have to be exchanged. Minor setbacks like this cannot be allowed to stop a big expedition though. The roller coaster well prepared 13 km of ski tracks to Kikut where therefore covered on my old planks. Snow conditions were wonderful and there were not too many track-demolishing kid-sleds out to block the way. Hot chocolate with raspberry jam & sour cream waffles made excellent provisions before turning back. Waffles like these could well have been Amundsen's secret weapon to beat Scott.

I still have not got the Omnia HD which I was hoping Samsung would issue me with. I'm therefore turning to Olympus for a picture of an old snow covered Ent - here captured with a 10mp Mju1030SE.


On the way I also came by this group of Hobbits tenting in the snow. They are shy so I could go no closer and hence the slightly pixellated photo.

Imagine, these creatures spend their entire weekend in the snow. But then, with their excessively hairy feet they don't mind basking in it despite night temperatures below minus 10C. I guess they don't miss broadband either.

Sunday means that stock markets don't fall and businesses don't go bust. For all we know the economy may be recovering already but Monday may prove that wrong.

Some countries have been through this before. The British PM John Major lunched with president Yeltsin during a visit to Moscow and asked him to characterize in one word the state of the Russian economy. "Good", Yeltsin said. "And if you should use two words?" Major asked. "Not good" Yeltsin replied.

See you on Monday.