L'Etat, c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde. Frédéric Bastiat

mardi 4 avril 2006

Aide internationale

Professeur à la New York University, William Easterly fait le point sur l'inefficacité de l'aide internationale.
Et il n'est pas tendre:

This is the tragedy in which the West already spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last 5 decades and still had not managed to get 12-cent medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $4 bed nets to poor families. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $3 to each new mother to prevent 5 million child deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion and Amaretch is still carrying firewood. It’s a tragedy that so much well-meaning compassion did not bring these results for needy people.

La pauvreté peut être combattue par le développement. Ce dernier ne repose pas sur des aides financières externes mais bien sur le dynamisme des entrepreneurs locaux et les réformes politiques:
While the West was agonizing over a few tens of billion dollars in aid, the citizens of India and China raised their own incomes by $715 billion by their own efforts in free markets. Once aid agencies realize that aid CANNOT achieve general economic and political development, they could start concentrating on fixing the system that fails to get 12-cent medicines to malaria victims.

Les solutions sont simples :
The two key elements necessary to make aid work, and the absence of which has been fatal to aid’s effectiveness in the past, are FEEDBACK and ACCOUNTABILITY. The needs of the rich get met through feedback and accountability. Consumers tell the firm “this product is worth the price” by buying the product, or decide the product is worthless and return it to the store. Voters tell their elected representatives that “these public services are bad” and the politician tries to fix the problem.