It can’t be easy being from Zimbabwe, that unfortunate,
landlocked former British colony in Southern Africa that inspires
exasperated sighs, endless clichés and colorful
superlatives.
It’s bad enough that the country has the highest inflation rate
in the world, 8,000 percent, as reported recently on BBC radio’s
website; that four in five people are said to live in poverty; that
life expectancy is among the lowest in the world, if not the
lowest; and that “there is virtually nothing to buy in stores,”
according to Reuters.
With those mind-boggling statistics as a backdrop, a
well-meaning effort to help Zimbabweans by one do-gooder in
wealthy, charitable America ends up seeming like an insult.
I was driving south on Interstate 95 in Connecticut some weeks
ago and happened to catch a radio interview with a young American
musician championing a romantic charitable cause. The man announced
with obvious youthful enthusiasm that he was helping to collect
shoes to send to the poor in Zimbabwe.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT made me cringe. A country’s economy is collapsing,
its infrastructure is in ruins, millions have no basic political
freedoms, and all one wants to offer is a pair of used sneakers?
This kind of handout strikes me as an improper, impractical and a
counterproductive form of charity — a perversion of the core
function of aid.
The poor of Zimbabwe, of course, need to protect their feet from
disease and the sharp thorns of acacia trees, and they’d gladly
accept free shoes from anybody. But handouts of shoes take the idea
of aid a little too far.
What would a single pair of used Nikes do for a poor woman who
can’t find or afford bread in a collapsing economy? At best, it
would provide only a couple of weeks of protection for the feet as
she walks miles upon miles every day in search of food and
fuel.
In a region where tropical rainstorms drench denuded lands and
turn many rural roadways into impassable muddy tracks, a pair of
shoes would last, what, a week? And then what? Would the musician
then hold another funds drive to send another pair of shoes to
replace the ruined pair?
Material aid of this kind betrays a major misunderstanding in
the West about the true needs of the poor in Africa, and we should
do everything we can to discourage it.
Unfortunately, the act of charitable giving, while reflecting a
genuine concern for the needy, is also a way for Westerners to
soothe their own souls — a way to try to reduce the guilt they
feel about having too much in a world so full of needy people.
Whether the charity actually helps seems to be beside the
point.
WHILE WE’RE ON the subject of charity, let me also add my voice to
those who have said that the whole enterprise of aid for
Sub-Saharan Africa should be re-examined. Some people have
suggested an end to aid altogether, even emergency or disaster
aid.
As Kenyan economist James Shikwati told Germany’s Der
Spiegel in 2005, “Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the
aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are
taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition,
development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens
the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As
absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for
Africa’s problems.”
Opponents of aid for Africa cite instances of aid money that
ended up in the European bank accounts of wealthy, politically
well-connected Africans, and the sacks of grain intended for famine
victims that ended up on sale at African shops and open-air
markets, some still in bags clearly labeled “Not For Sale.”
Some critics, including Shikwati, have said that charity groups
are huge self-perpetuating bureaucracies that promote dependency
and provide well-paying jobs for Westerners who enjoy life in the
tropical sun and don’t want to become unemployed any time soon.
Zimbabwe is poor and its population is not free. Zimbabweans
need our help, and some charities provide services there that
preserve lives and enrich those lives in other ways. But the last
thing the land of cliches needs from us is our used shoes.
We can help, not by offering old shoes, but by exerting more
pressure on dictator Robert Mugabe to loosen his grip on power and
exit the political stage, by encouraging more foreign investment to
boost the country’s economy, and by supporting Zimbabwe’s
independent media.
