Book Review: The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

William Easterly identifies the lack of achievable goals as being the bane of the Western institutions. The pursuit of a diverse number of unrealistic goals often causes overlaps and diffusion of objectives. The ignorance of the elite in the poor countries who controlled the bureaucratic processes at the top resulted in the misappropriation of funds and camouflaged the poor impact the International aid establishments should have had on the poor locals. Having spent a considerable amount of time working as an Economist for the World Bank, Easterly explains where the problem lay. From the projects run by the World Bank to the military “peace keeping” operations, it was evident that the Planners were responsible for the functioning of the Western interventions in the poor or developing countries. This meant that little or no heed was paid to the Searchers who actually drew on local knowledge and a system of trial and error to meet the requirements of the locals. The Planners on the other hand designed extravagant and cumbersome blueprints without any involvement or establishment of a feedback mechanism from the intended recipients. This trend of the domination by the Planners meant that real and quantifiable objectives were partially or never completed and resulted in different agencies shifting blame or claiming success unabashedly with almost little or no interest in the impact of their work on the intended beneficiaries. The Searchers often found themselves at the mercy of corrupt governments and scarce resources oft exacerbated further by the limited time in any given field location.

Easterly is critical of the West’s perception of the needs of aid requiring countries (Taylor 2012). He argues that the West and the aid providing organizations delayed the funding required for the development of a robust plan to tackle the emerging AIDS problem in the mid 1980’s. This lack of effort is attributed to the phenomenon of “Observability”; the extent to which problems and issues of the poor capture the attention of the Western public and political top brass. He, along the lines of Streeten (1987), also lambasts the ideologies and the vested political interests of the Western policy makers that prevented funding programs like provision of condoms and sex education to workers that would have alleviated a lot of suffering. While there is a lack of any substantial proof against the Planner mentality having caused the failure of aid organizations in the past, there is certainly an emphasis on how the international aid organizations could improve their effectiveness via the implementation of institutional reforms. The need of independent aid agencies that specialize in specific and obtainable objectives is the need of the hour. Collaboration between international aid organizations and communities should be encouraged more rather than focussing only on recipient government-agency interactions. Easterly concedes that community engagement is problematic and has urged rich governments to develop and promote independent and scientific evaluation of developmental frameworks involving community participation with aid agencies.

Easterly does not agree with the setting of high-profile developmental goals; United Nation’s Millennium Developmental Goals (MDGs) and also is critical of Sach’s “The End of Poverty” (2005). He argues that Planners always draft utopian goals which diminish accountability and mitigates the role of aid agencies in developmental work, just at Streeten and Burki (1978). He deems goal setting counter-productive to the realization of more achievable, immediate and impactful social actions like school for children and access to clean water to communities. Easterly fails to recognize the importance of goals for the overarching success of developmental plans as well as probably guiding his own thinking. The poor communities do not have the social or political clout to be heard and this highlights the importance of Organizations and goal setting. Market forces are met and addressed only when financing and strategic allocation of resources are done by aid agencies. Easterly fails to recognize that the Searchers hands-on-knowledge and studies on the poor can only materialize through the confluence of their local knowledge and the goals laid down by organizations. Easterly is partially right in thinking that the mere setting of grand goals isn’t enough and the MDGs and Sach’s call to eradicate poverty are easier conceptualized than implemented. However, Easterly underestimates the impact of what he deems as “lofty and utopian”. The MDGs and Jeffrey Sachs paper reflect the ever changing landscape and evolution of the international community’s understanding of development goals. They duly recognize that results and not efforts always are and will be a true metric of development and this is dependent on various factors rather than just an increase in average income nationally. It would be more beneficial and conducive to developmental progress if the goals, plans and objectives relating to the MDGs are used as a catapult for future talks and progress. Easterly also harshly criticizes activists and says their efforts should be directed at “Making sure aid money reaches the poor, rather than raising more and more money.” He is against the opinions of De Bono (1987) and Sachs (2005) that calls for foreign aid to developing countries to be doubled. It seems that Easterly’s message is, generosity is only useful when one knows that the resources donated are being effectively and efficiently used. I believe that although a greater emphasis must be placed on greater accountability, it should and must go hand-in-hand with greater generosity, which Easterly disagrees with. Developmental efforts around the world depend upon the generosity of resources and define the ethos of nations and their people alike in helping to bridge the socio-economic gap in poor developing countries. A surplus of resources would always be needed to aid and facilitate research, expansion and experimentation studies involving aid agencies, donor nations and developing communities around the globe.  

Easterly’s narrative is evocative and engaging whilst lacking depth at times. He tries to elaborate on the nature of the market and the aid institutions that are required for the implementation of market forces in the smooth running of developing economies. He clearly supports the notion of encouraging the Searchers in their quest to amend and bring about changes at the community level through interaction and interventions. He provides a snapshot of the ills fuelled and propagated by the Western powers during and after colonization and the damage done pre and post the Cold war. While the writing is rich and uses humour and anecdotes to engage the reader (“It is the job of economists to point out trade-offs; it is the job of politicians and Planners to deny that trade-offs exist” p. 256), one cannot ignore the fact that Easterly’s narrative lacks analytical depth and nous. While disagreeing with Western interventions, both political and military, he confounds the reader by failing to provide a clear distinction between how and why Planner mentality and Western predilection is a source of all trouble. Both Easterly and Sen (2001) ridicule the crafty development initiatives of Planners who view recipients as passive and patients, and the freedom centred understanding of development that often reflects an agent-oriented view (Nayyar 2012). Easterly does not provide an effective or even a counter proposal to combat the ineffectiveness of what he deems is the bane of the Planner mentality. His belief that “home-grown” economic success in countries like Japan, China, Turkey, Chile and Botswana lacks an explorative and critical eye as to whether these truly represent overwhelming success stories and are a result of non-intervention by the West. There is no mention or even an attempt to understand why domestic policies worked where Western policies may also have sufficed to bring about change. Easterly chooses to ignore debates whirling around the “home-grown” policies and instead acknowledges their success stories without leaving much room for a qualitative and critical assessment.

The book is a good read but one cannot escape the feeling that Easterly’s account of the West’s intervention failures is shrouded in angst and frustration rather than being completely objective focussed. The book explores a breadth of issues and lacks clear and concise focus. I personally think that a much more in-depth and explorative analysis is required of the institutional and policy changes that govern and result as a part of the West’s attempt to provide aid. Developmental efforts are heavily reliant on the extent to which Western aid agencies and countries recognize and comprehend the depth of the socio-political climate existing in aid recipient countries. Hence, Easterly would do well to narrow the scope and focus of the book to deal not only with institutional reforms but also educate activists, politicians and people of the West to the plight of the ailing communities.