Africans Face Competing Visions of Agricultural Development at a Critical Juncture | Fo... - 6 views
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While it is not surprising that the IFIs mediate the global economy, often brutally, in favor of the OECD countries-the flip side would be to engage in development activities as if these global imbalances did not exist. This seems to be the Earth Institute's perspective. Their website describes their program as bringing the benefits of scientific expertise of "850 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, staff and students working in and across more than 30 Columbia University research centers" to solve "real world problems." The Earth Institute believes "finding solutions to one problem, such as extreme poverty, must involve tackling other related challenges, such as environmental degradation and lack of access to health care and education."
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Arabica Robusta on 02 Jun 10Good critique of the Earth Institute: "engage in development activities as if ... global imbalances did not exist."
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The IFIs' fixation on macroeconomic indicators leads to the misguided belief that bumping up countries' GDPs will help poor Africans by way of some mythological trickle-down effect that has yet to materialize. This metric has led, among other things, to an inexorable push in Africa for large scale industrial agriculture for export markets, while leaving the peasant farmers who produce most of the food consumed by Africans out of the equation. The aid regime has thus done more to open Africa's agricultural resources for exploitation than to mitigate the roots of poverty and hunger in Africa.
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It is not difficult to succeed when one has a lot of money and one defines success as eradicating poverty in individual villages.
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