Thanks for you comment. I speak specifically to AMF and bed net distributions because those are what I have first hand experience with. The argument is not that, if your only goal is to save lives, the AMF does not succeed at this (though I could tell many a story of communities who just put their bed nets up when the observers come around or the cultural practice of most people here of staying outside chatting well into the peak mosquito time, but that is an aside). The argument is that we should have other goals than just saving lives, such as creating jobs, letting people choose their own development initiatives, and decreasing dependence.
The question for you is which part of the argument do you object to? The claim that AMF destroys jobs, limits freedom, and creates dependence, the claim that we should evaluate charities based on these three criteria, or the claim that this means that AMF does net harm? If your only concern is with the last claim, but you would agree with the first two, there are other organizations which focus on capacity building and behavior change which succeed where AMF fails. I am not a critic of all aid, simply aid whose main focus is giving physical objects, ignoring what people actually want, and making everyone dependent on it, instead of training people, allowing them a say in their development, and working themselves out of a job.
Thanks for you comment. I speak specifically to AMF and bed net distributions because those are what I have first hand experience with. The argument is not that, if your only goal is to save lives, the AMF does not succeed at this (though I could tell many a story of communities who just put their bed nets up when the observers come around or the cultural practice of most people here of staying outside chatting well into the peak mosquito time, but that is an aside). The argument is that we should have other goals than just saving lives, such as creating jobs, letting people choose their own development initiatives, and decreasing dependence.
The question for you is which part of the argument do you object to? The claim that AMF destroys jobs, limits freedom, and creates dependence, the claim that we should evaluate charities based on these three criteria, or the claim that this means that AMF does net harm? If your only concern is with the last claim, but you would agree with the first two, there are other organizations which focus on capacity building and behavior change which succeed where AMF fails. I am not a critic of all aid, simply aid whose main focus is giving physical objects, ignoring what people actually want, and making everyone dependent on it, instead of training people, allowing them a say in their development, and working themselves out of a job.