Right Kind of Third World Aid

Re “What Poor Countries Need Is Less -- but Smarter -- Aid,” Commentary, Jan. 30: Thomas Dichter may be an expert on how aid is spent, but he does not seem to have noticed the real reasons why many developing countries, particularly in Africa, have stayed poor.

Agricultural subsidies by both the U.S. and the European Union make African agricultural exports impossible -- a European cow “earns” more than many Africans.

The supposed free-marketeers of the affluent North actually impose huge tariff barriers against any manufactured goods the South manages to produce. We still haven’t canceled much of the debt they will never be able to repay.

And on top of all that, there are the scourges of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria that kill millions, many of the productive members of society.

While the body of Africa is bleeding from these multiple wounds, Dichter would be better employed getting busy with needle and thread than in trying to disconnect the drip.

Bill Linton

London

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Though I applaud Dichter for his 40 years of service in international development, his suggestion that we should cut aid to poor countries would have disastrous consequences.

Contrary to his assertion that aid has never worked, one needs to look only at the investment in child-survival activities during the 1980s and ‘90s to realize the benefits of properly used assistance.

During that period, investments were made in immunizing children against measles and other killer diseases as well as such interventions as oral rehydration therapy for children suffering from diarrhea. The result is that there are millions of fewer children under age 5 dying each year.

Right now, our investment in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is saving hundreds of thousands of lives and protecting many more from these scourges. More, not less, money for the Global Fund is essential to expand the herculean efforts that are gaining traction in the most desperate places on Earth.

Steve Valk

Atlanta

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To reduce poverty in developing nations, Dichter says, “we should base our efforts on what the Third World tells us it wants.” But we already know what Third World countries want; they want to end poverty and prosper economically.

What developed and underdeveloped countries need to do to combat poverty is to properly identify the fundamental ideas that need to be adopted so that they can prosper.

This can be achieved by asking: What was the main social ideology that led to the industrial revolution and consequently the wealth of those nations? The answer: the only moral social system based on free trade and respect for the rights of the individual -- capitalism.

Brady Cuthbert

Irvine

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I am a board member of the Grameen Foundation USA, a global micro-enterprise organization, and I believe that Dichter is correct in asserting that poor countries need smarter aid.

One such program, now in existence throughout the world, is micro-lending. There are now 80 million of these small loans (some for as little as $50) in more than 70 countries, each year pulling millions of the poorest of the poor out of poverty to become healthier, happier and more productive citizens.

Loans are made almost exclusively to women, have a repayment history of over 95% and have raised the prestige and power of the borrowers in their own eyes, in their families, their communities and their country.

This is a program that works, has a history that proves its effectiveness and deserves to be elevated to the highest priority in the increasingly critical battle against world poverty.

Richard S. Gunther

Los Angeles