Giant_and_Dwarf-FIN

Giant and Dwarfsimply throw money at it. When a large volume of money begins to flow into a very poorenvironment, it quickly becomes apparent that these people were never capable of managingsuch wealth and the unexpected flood of money is quickly lost. 143 A sudden inrush offunds into an unprepared poor country is regularly accompanied by an inability to use suchsurplus funds with any sense of purpose. Smaller or larger amounts are stolen, a few whiteelephants appear and what does make its way down to the poorest people who need themoney the most ends up in the form of desirable consumer goods; instead of rain watertanks and hoses for irrigation, they purchase televisions and radios, instead of tractors,state officials buy new luxury cars. When the next drought appears, the country is rightback where it was before: ill-prepared and hungry.This cycle is associated with an opposite reaction, i.e. the premature withdrawal ofdevelopment aid and a redirection of attention to other countries or other topics. Developmentagencies love innovative pilot projects and their attention is often divided betweenmultiple projects. When an innovative project achieves a modicum of success, the successis quickly followed by a handover ceremony, press releases, photos and, occasionally,a documentary film. All too often, however, attention is simply shifted to something else.Another frequent error is scaling up, which is the multiplication and expansion of successfulapproaches and technologies. We’ve been able to build an excellent school garden ora plant for fired ceramic cooking stoves in two or three towns in Kenya. Great: our projectnow benefits 1,000 students and 100 stove owners, who now only use a third of the woodcompared to normal cooking on three stones. Logic says that this should be followed bysupport for starting school gardens in another 1,000 schools and cooking stove plants in3,000 Kenyan villages. Except that this frequently does not happen: many developmentactivities remain dedicated to a few pilot projects and their attention is divided as we knowpeople are easily distracted by something new and exciting. Some would say that the otherschools will be inspired by a few of the pilot school gardens and begin to build their ownwithout aid. Except that this is usually an illusion: even very cheap investments into rakes,hoes, barrels, drainage channels and other basic tools represent an unattainable amount ofmoney for schools. Without this aid, the inspirational garden from the neighbouring schoolwould remain an unreachable dream.As we have mentioned for countries that are stuck in the trap of natural resources, suchfinancial aid is useless and maybe even be counter-productive, with the exception of technicalassistance at the moment when reformers gain power in the country. Countries suchas Nigeria are flooded with cash, adding more simply doesn’t make sense. If we want tohelp the poor masses in these countries out of poverty then other tools have to be usedwithin development aid. The groundwork for such tools includes our own personal actionsor inaction and international agreements and charters.143 A parallel can be drawn to where the average Czech or Slovak wins a million Euros: it is highly likely thatthe money from such a huge win will be quickly spent or lost in a matter of years and the winners findthemselves right back in the same situation as before they won the money.158