Bill Easterly’s blog, Aid Watch, is taking some criticism in the development blogosphere right now. I normally try to avoid discussions like this because, honestly, my opinions change every 35 seconds about what the right way to blog about development is. (Or, for that matter, to do development.) We all have different ways of writing, and different motivations for our blogging. But I’m an occasional contributor to Aid Watch, and some people have questioned why. I feel like I should get into this one, at least a little bit.
For those of you who don’t obsessively follow (like I do) the RSS feed of every existing development blog, Transitionland, The Big Push, and Siena Anstis have all recently called out Aid Watch for not contributing to discussion about international development in a useful way. They’ve called it a pointless echo chamber and an unproductive and mean-spirited use of time. Prof. Easterly has responded by linking to their critiques, and defending the use of satire.
I see both sides. I think that Prof. Easterly is too quick to blame aid agencies and NGOs for problems that are systemic. He blames individual actors for doing things that are incentivized by the development industry. I would like him to write and think more about fixing the system than attacking the individual organizations. And I agree that his tone can be snarky to a degree that stops being funny and makes you tune the post out.
On the other hand, the system needs someone who will speak truth to power (or, in this case, development money). And I know from my own experience that the blunter and snarkier you are when writing about development, the more people listen. How many times have I written about the damage done by poorly considered in-kind donations? But I never got any attention until I wrote a post called “Nobody wants your old shoes.” Then all of a sudden, I was getting quoted in the NY Times.
Prof. Easterly is nasty because being nasty makes people listen. People listen because he’s willing to say things no one else will, and he says them loud and mean. Sometimes he crosses the line. But sometimes he says exactly what needs to be said.
I think that your view on the Aid Watch blog depends on where you’re standing. If you are working in development, actually doing the hard jobs and fighting to make an impact, then Aid Watch feels like one more attack on your efforts. If you are in DC, though, or Geneva or London, exposed on a daily basis to the ugly business end of development funding, then Aid Watch is like watching Dorothy unmask the Wizard of Oz. Sometimes, behind the rhetoric, there is nothing but an empty space. We need somebody to point that out.
I’m in Dushanbe now, it’s true. And I’m fighting to support a project I care about. But my last job was Washington, on the donor side, in one of the deepest and most obscure nooks of the development bureaucracy. The memory hasn’t faded just yet.
My take on Aid Watch varies from day to day. Sometimes it offends me, sometimes the thinking seems shallow, sometimes I want to stand up and cheer. But I wouldn’t call it useless.
Good post, I have to concur on your overall point: that both sides have valid points and it is not useless. I think the conversation that it generates is the goal. I am finishing up “Creative Capitalism”, a great read, and Prof Easterly (and others) have some great arguments (and dialogue) in which it brings a broader perspective to the Creative Capitalism concept, as well as all the aspects of development, capitalism and other topics. Overall, I can only hope that these conversations will continue to bring attention to the entire system, and no matter what side of the argument or criticism that we are on, to strive to make the improvements that we can.
I wish Aid Watch had more meat. The posts are too short and often too general to offer anything but sarcasm. Double the length and we could get some learning with our snark.
Oh and you were not un an obscure State group 10 years ago. It was the pickle. Now it’s just juice, like South America after the Wall fell.
I’m so glad to see this post. I’m a dip in and out kinda soul so I’ve been wondering what I missed: what on earth did Bill do to get people so angry at him. Thank you for the concise clarification. In my admittedly intermittent readings, he seems to have a go at people and initiatives that fail to put themselves in the shoes of the folks they’re trying to help, e.g. if your life was torn apart, how much of a say would you like in putting it back together? Probably quite a lot. How much of a say should pen-pushers who’ve never heard your story or passing rock stars have? Not so much. It seems as much a reality check as Transitionland’s railing against the ironies, injustices and abuses she encounters in her work. I agree with you that when I was working in a big NGO I might’ve been yelling at Aid Watch ‘we do not do that!’ Now that I’m free of a single organisation or sector allegiance, it seems that if we know anything it’s that a ‘one size fits all’ approach hasn’t worked so far. Trying to shut each other up doesn’t have a good precedence either. An ongoing, wide-ranging, heated if necessary, debate is healthy and I’d say essential.
I like Bill Easterly’s book (White Man’s Burden) and read his blog. He’s even blogged about our work at GlobalGiving in Kenya. But reading this reminds of the dark site of advocacy in the US, and not about development at all. My wife works at a vegan lobbying firm (that goes by a totally unrelated name, as is traditional in lobbying). They think being loud and controversial is the goal. They measure results by the dollar value of the news coverage they get. No. It’s just the tactic.
This week they’re offering the City of Dallas to cover Texas Stadium in banners that say “cheese makes you blow up” – to counter Kraft’s sponsorship of the demolition. But somewhere I think they lost their focus – which should have been better health, not better coverage. Isn’t development just mirroring this on a grander scale? And don’t we need some way to talk about it without the process being what we talk about?
A lot of development workers believe they should not be exposed to criticism. It is a closed world where acceptance is based on adopting and maintaining the status quo. There is a huge amount of money involved and not rocking the boat seems to be the preferred mode of operation. From my experience in Africa, there is a deep-seated reluctance to opening up to scrutiny, adopting new practices and – in particular – assessing the impact of interventions.
Easterly is sometimes guilty of not being funny, but satire and bluntness are useful tools in pricking the egos of people who see themselves as above reproach.
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