Is ONE Working?

"Bush, Blair Work on Plan for African Aid"...

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday they were working on a plan to eliminate all debt of developing African countries deemed to be on a path to reform.

Those nations "should not be burdened with mountains of debt," Bush said with Blair at his side.

Is The ONE Campaign working?

Comments

[John Mark]

I've seen the ads and the website, do you know of any sites that deal with the details of the One campaigns proposals. I respect Bono, Rick Warren etc, but I'm not sure they are experts in foreign policy. I'm also suspicious that Blair maybe trying to change the subject from Iraq to Africa for his own political security. In turn Bush figures he owes Blair a favor for sticking with him in Iraq. I think we'll find out more when the G8 conference meets.

[Steve McCoy]

I'm sure there's political slurry in the mix, but there are people dying in Africa. I don't know their motives, but I know what ours should be.

[Jon]

Steve – glad to see this issue getting some air time here. The easy answer to your question is no, that is unless Bush’s pledge of $647 million increases exponentially.

One of the guys who has influenced Bono’s thinking in terms of economic justice (at least the practicalities of it) is Jeffrey Sachs (Sachs is a tricky one to figure out, on the one hand he is often blamed for the policies that drove the present day economies of Russia and eastern Europe into their present dismal state but on the other he is an advocate for the poorest of the poor – which is simply to say he’s in need of just as much grace as the rest of us). Sachs has a new book out entitled The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Lifetime (Bono wrote the forward – for those interested there is a decent intro article here, a good radio interview here and an excerpt here) and I believe a lot of what the One Campaign is aiming at is based on Sachs’s proposal. You can see some of the numbers he’s working with here and see that for this thing to work the US would have to dedicate around $80 billion to foreign aid to get it to the international commitment level of 0.7% of GNP - that’s a lot of cash but we’ve decided other causes were worth as much before (coughIragWarcoughcough).

Unfortunately there are plenty of political issues at work here and most of them are working in the wrong direction and there are certainly legitimate questions as to the efficacy of throwing money at a problem in regards to some situations in Africa but the sad fact of the matter is that there are an equal number of contexts in which there are no reasons that we shouldn’t be doing more – we’re just not. The thing that is important about Bono, Warren, et al is that they see people, they don’t see numbers, or balance sheets, or votes or alliances, they just see people who are hungry and they want to put food in their mouths – the fact that Bono and Brad Pitt are more readily called to mind as vocal supporters of the voiceless shames me as a disciple of Christ, it makes me hurt for the church, for my church – but in that respect I’m probably preaching to the choir.

[John Mark]

I shouldn't be up this late and I really shouldn't be trying to think this late. Bush has stated previously that the US will no longer fund corrupt regimes. There is already some criticism of the G8 proposals from conservatives.
http://www.steynonline.com/
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp
I think the arguments of Hernando De Soto (see Mystery of Capital)undermine simply throwing money at the problem. I'm not saying that this is what One or others are doing, but I think conservatives in America can play a role in demanding results/efficient government from the nations of Africa.

[Jon]

John Mark-

Well, that makes at least two of us who are up too late.

The aversion to propping up corrupt regimes with foreign aid that may or most likely may not make it to the people who actually need it is a legitimate concern and one that must be taken into consideration. However, it is not an insurmountable problem – there are other ways of distributing aid besides direct financial disbursement and in places like Zimbabew, the DRC, and Sudan there won’t be any easy answers – we just have to think creatively, and again, those things which we value and prioritize we usually find the resources to do so. Also, I’m a bit leary of the “corruption card” for a couple of reasons: one, it is not ignored by the G8 or anyone else – the UK’s Commission">http://213.225.140.43/english/report/introduction.html">Commission for Africa’s report was recently released and it placed issues of governance at the top of the list of aid considerations; two, there are plenty of nations where corruption and conflict are not concerns –Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana to name a few in Africa – and we’re not doing anything to help them either. So, all that to say that Sachs and the One Campaign may not be the best answer but at least they are asking the right questions and that, I think, is something the church can and must support. Lastly, I’ve got no problem with “conservatives” (or “liberals” for that matter – although as a side note it seems like this issue should be one thing that would cut across those labels) “demanding results/efficient government from the nations of Africa” (although as another aside I would hope that those same “conservatives” would be equally open to receiving similar criticism from other nations) as long as they are doing so while calling with even greater vehemence for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources to pull the peoples of these nations up from poverty, unfortunately I hear a lot of the former but not much of the latter.

[Matt]

Steve: I've posted in support of ONE on Stones Cry Out, but debt relief should never, ever be the end-all, be-all of our policy. It just doesn't work. That sort of thing won't help much if a government is corrupt. That said, we should use this is a point of dialogue to push for more concrete agenda that will help Africa get on its feet. it's a move in the right direction, but contrary to some posts, market forces will do more in the long run to help development.

[Jon]

Matt –

No argument there, I don’t hear anyone saying that debt relief should “be the end-all, be-all of our policy,” but as you say it is a place where Christians can and should play a more prominent role to interject a measure of grace and mercy into the shaping of policies. I would however quibble with the idea that “market forces will do more in the long run to help development.” I think this is an idea that needs to be more carefully critiqued by Christian thinkers, especially in light of how closely evangelicals have wed themselves to capitalism – markets, free or otherwise, aren’t naturally occurring systems and they certainly aren’t amoral. I think a fairly strong case can be made that the free market ideology imposed by the IMF and World Bank, the removal of protective trade barriers and the unleashing of market forces within those countries has been horribly detrimental to the poorest of the world’s poor. In Christian circles a survival of the fittest ideology will raise a lot of alarms if we’re talking biology but if we’re talking economics . . . ahhh, no biggie.

[Matt]

Jon - good points. I'm a free-market capitalist, but I'm leery of globalization. Some level of market reforms must take place, but I agree that we must be very careful with young, developing economies.

[John Mark]

Jon, thanks for the links. I've tried to read over some of the stuff today. I'm far from taking it all in. Is it fair to set a .7% standard for all countries when goverments have different tax ratios. If a gov't imposes a 40% tax on its citizens, isn't it easier for that gov't to commit to give .7%. A gov't with a 18% tax rate has fewer resources to govern its own citizens. There is an interesting article on the political aspects of the G8 at the weekly standard(i know I'm revealing my right wing tendencies :))
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/684mutbg.asp?pg=2

The article says that Blair is is "prepared to argue that when the world measures America's commitment to the amelioration of poverty, the massive contributions of the U.S. private sector should be counted along with Washington's contribution."
That last quote relates a bit to my question.

[Jon]

John Mark -

Well, now we are straying out of the realm of things about which I have at best a thimble’s worth of knowledge and into the realm of things about which I can only make educated guesses! The tax issue is an interesting one on a couple of fronts: one, those countries which do “impose” a higher tax ratio on its citizens usually do so in order to provide a broader and greater range of social services to its citizens—universal healthcare and welfare are the two most often cited examples in the “European model”—and therefore the supposed excess of funds available for disbursement overseas just isn’t there; two, the thing about taxes that is most telling is the manner in which they are apportioned by a government – follow the money and you’ll find out what a government’s, and therefore by extension a nation’s, priorities are because the things that we value are the things we spend money on (a side note, Matthew 6:21 needs to get quoted a lot more often in our churches in regards to these issues). Last year over half of the federal discretionary budget went to military spending (somewhere around $400 billion if I remember correctly) and the remainder was divvied up as far as it could go into everything else we expect the government to do – with that kind of prioritizing at work it is not surprising that foreign aid is so often the odd man out.

The private donations issue is another interesting one and for those who try and paint the US as nothing more than a greedy isolationist country (I’m not one of them by the way – our nations character of generosity is one of the reasons I feel so strongly that we should be doing more) the numbers go a long way to exposing that for a lie. The last numbers I saw were from several years back and if I remember correctly American’s privately gave something like $35 billion overseas (more than double the US governments giving at the time!). However, somewhere around $20-$25 billion of that were personal remittances to developing countries—i.e. millions of immigrants sending their paychecks back home each month to try and feed their families—and therefore not contributing in any real measure to the kind of prolonged systemic aid needed to constitute real change. Like I said, I’m not an expert on this but want to prompt as many Christians and churches as I can to start thinking more creatively and constructively about what our priorities as believers should be – about how we can be advocates for the voiceless in the midst of battling agendas. Here">http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp#Agenda21RichNationsAgreedattheUnitedNationsto07%ofGNPToAid">Here is a handy site to bookmark and browse through some time – there is way too much information here (some guy puts all this together by himself – a Herculean task!) but it references a ton of articles with a variety of opinions and gives lots of stats and numbers (somewhere about halfway down is some info on private giving I think). Also, I’m a pretty firm believer that every Christian should own and read regularly Ron Sider’s Rich">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0849914248/qid=1118301688/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/103-9946325-9364631?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger - grab it if you haven’t already.

[Jon]

I’m probably talking to myself at this point but this seemed too relevant not to throw out to the blogosphere. I was skimming through David Bosch’s Believing">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563381176/002-9821340-0954418?v=glance">Believing in the Future this morning on my way to something else and came across this paragraph in the context of Bosch discussing the “West’s” complicity in the plight of the “third world”:

“I am not suggesting that the Third World itself is without blame. Let us not, in sentimental manner, deny each other our guilt. The most refined Western paternalism is in fact the one that declares that all faults and problems in the Third World are caused by the West. Much of the Third World’s predicament is, in fact caused by corruption senseless prestige projects, expensive bureaucracies, irresponsibly high military expenses, maladministration, and the like. But even when all this has been taken into account, it cannot be denied that much of the misery in the Third World can be traced back to policies emanating from the West . . . . A missionary theology for the West should allow us to look at the plight of the Third World (and the Third World within the First) with compassion, for we believe in a God who wants to liberate humankind from every form of injustice, oppression, fatalism and alienation. This perspective is fundamental to the Christian faith.” (pp. 37-38)

[Steve McCoy]

Great Bosch quote Jon. Thanks for that.

[Bob Robinson]

I just wrote on my blog how Abraham Kuyper's ideas about world engagement can be an assist to the emergent church. This Dutch Reformed theology about common grace and that God is God over all the world is what drives me to be a part of ONE.

[Jon]

Bob –

Thanks for the article on possible connections between Kuyper and “emergent” – I tucked it away for future reading. It makes sense to me that his thought could be a useful resource for emerging churches – especially his idea of “sphere sovereignty” (which I confess, not being a Calvinist, both simultaneously attracts and repels me at the same time – but if I were a Calvinist I might be a neo) which is summed up nicely by his famous quotation: “In the total expanse of human life there is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign,does not declare,'That is mine!” That sounds very “emergent” in some ways – and has rooted in it the possibilities of the kind of powerful engagement with culture that many emerging thinkers stress. For those interested there is a nice fair intro to Kuyper here, there is also some good intro material to neo-Calvinism on the site for those so inclined - he’s definitely one of those guys that more people should read, myself included.

[Bob Robinson]

Jon,
Yes. That CCO article very is helpful. BTW, that's the ministry in which I'm a leader! (and I have that article link on my "Spiritual Formation" Page).

[Steve McCoy]

Good stuff guys. Thanks for adding to the conversation here. Very helpful.

[Jon]

Bob -

What a fantastically small world! I came across CCO a few years back while doing some research on different discipleship models - looking for stuff that for some reason seems to fly under the radar once you move out of a particular circle - and I was really impressed with both their approach and their material. I bookmarked a number of their web pages and still occasionally point people to them for resources. Blessings on you as you serve there, Bob!