The Road to Hell
Michael Maren.
The Free Press, 1997.
Review by Kevin Baldeosingh
Journalist and former aid worker Michael Maren pulls no punches in stating his thesis: “This book is about aid and charity—aid and charity as an industry, as religion, as a self-serving system that sacrifices its own practitioners and intended beneficiaries in order that it may survive and grow.”
Maren worked as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Somalia in the late 1970s when that country became a failed state. It was from that experience that he learned how aid can do more harm than good, not only in Somalia but in Africa generally and in Caribbean countries like Haiti.
Part of the problem is simple corruption and inefficiency, although Maren points out that these elements are intertwined. Much of the contributions that ordinary people make after a disaster goes towards paying the personnel and bureaucracy of the charities which provide aid.
It is largely due to Maren that these organisations now often specify how much of each dollar reaches the people the money is supposed to help. On the other hand, it remains an open question as to which charities are being truthful.
Odd as it may seem, however, this is not the worst effect of aid. First, during disasters, aid itself may cause deaths that would not otherwise occur.
“Food aid attracts people to refugee camps, where they die from dysentery or measles or other diseases they wouldn’t have contracted in the bush,” Maren writes.
Second, aid creates dependency that goes beyond the immediate needs of the particular disaster.
“As in colonial times, the foreigners employ an elite cadre of locals to carry out their work,” Maren observes.
“The elites are rewarded for their relationship with the foreigners. They enjoy higher pay than most. They have access to foreign goods, education, and visas to foreign countries.”
Even worse, the entrepreneurs of the society start using their skills to get money from charities rather than more productive ventures.
“And why does it always seem that a group of local elites finds a way to get rich from the disaster?”
Maren notes, adding, “An African entrepreneur doing a rational analysis of his economic opportunities would likely conclude that the future was in relief and development work.”
Worst of all, aid supplies often undermine the local economy—how can a farmer grow crops or raise livestock when truckloads of free food are coming in daily, even after the disaster has passed?
Maren records how he listed his concerns in an official memo to the American government and USAID, but was ignored. Nor was media much help.
“Reporters seemed content to write about stolen food, starving babies, and heroic aid workers,” he writes.
Thus, even though this book by Maren has had some effect since it was published nearly 20 years ago, aid bureaucracies remain largely unchanged. Worst of all, economists and other policy advisors have not developed ways to address the negative consequences he has outlined.
