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Aid for underdevelopmei

_ carrots and the sticks

By Eleanor Maclean

Many things have been called aid: from '

the CLC, CUSO, OXFAM and the major Canadian churches’ support for Nicaragua’s successful literacy Campaign

last year; . . . . . . to the funding—by both 'the US and USSR—of massive hydro- electric projects in Egypt; . . . . to

Canadian business sending candy and junk food to the wounded and homeless survivors of a Caribbean hurricane; . . . . to the US’s exporting of cattle prodders for torture in other countries.

In each case, these different kinds of "aid" have in fact aided someone. But the question is who have they aided?

What is the aid doing?

Multilateral aid—originating from an international pool of funding—frequently does not serve the interests of the people living in the recipient countries. In 1978, the World Bank, an international lending institution dominated by western funding, sent over 25 percent of its loans tofour countries known for their repressive and anti-democratic regimes—Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines. This .has not resulted in an improvement in living conditions for the people of these countries. The real income of Filipinos un—

meat.

Some experts claim that large-scale aid eventually "trickles down” to help the poor. One might ask! them how they would explain a survey taken in 1971 which found that workers in the sugar- producing North-East of Brazil had a level of nutrition inferior to that of slaves in the same area of 1880:

‘,‘Aid is used by COngress both as a carrot and a stick, to reward or punish

how the US regards their behaviours.”

—US Congressman Frank Church -

recipients depending. on~

example, has declined steadily since 1972. Unions are outlawed and workers earn an average of about $2.00 a day. Threequarters of the World Bank’s loans still go to commercial develop- ments (electric power, railroads, high- ways, mining .and manufacturing pro- jects). in this way, World Bank loans

ARCIIP International

1%. ARC UP international attempts to provide a more perceptive analysis of international issues than is normally available to the public through the commercial media.

ARCUP International is published monthly by Atlantic Region Canadian University Press (ARCUP). Members are The Muse, The Picaro, The Athenaeum, The Journal, The Dalhousie Gazette, the Xaverian Weekly, The U.P.E.l. Sun and The Caper Chronicle.

The views expressed in ARC UP International are not necessarily those of the publishers or the editorial staff. r

Editorial staff for this issue was:

Contributors to this issue were: Cathy McDonald, Alan Christensen, Faye Chisholm, Paul Clark and John Parsons. ‘

Production: The Journal, St. Mary’s University

ARCUP International invites your comments. Write to:

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clo ARCUP Bureau N

3rd Floor, Student Union Building Dalhousie University

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finance the expensive infrastructure of a country, paving the way (sometimes quite literally!) for giant global corporations to invest there, their profits typically leaving the area as quickly as they are made.

The World Bank also promotes large- scale export agriculture instead of small- scale subsistence food production. Non- food crops such as tea, tobacco, jute and rubber received $258.5 million in 1978, and food for export (explicitly designated as such) such as sugar, vegetables and cashews got another $221 million. In Latin America, a startling 79% of the Bank’s agricultural credit subsidizes livestock production destined for tiny local elites and export markets, according to resear-

cher Bob Carty of theLatin American

Working Group. in Latin America, 7% of all landowners possess 93% of the arable land.

In Brazil between 1960 and 1970, 6,300,000 peasant farmers had to leave rural areas to‘join the ranks of the unem- ployed in and around the cities. Food riots have erupted in recent years in Brazil,

where crops f0r export, like soybeans, "

replaced food such as black beans. and potatoes (those staples rose in price by 400% and 300% became unavailable as dairy cattle-were

slaughtered to be exported as hamburger

der 'the rule of Ferdinand Marcos, for‘

respectively). Milk ' ‘

. The Coady Instit

brand of interna

By Faye Chisholm ' Constructive help from.the west in loosening the knot of third world

underdevelopment often needs to have more profound impact than temporary relief through loans and food grants. Detached from business interests and political mileage are aid programs and opportunities offering citizens of im- poverished countries self-help through education.

St. Francis Xavier University in An- tigonish, Nova Scotia, has since the1920’s been rooted in a co—operative movement that sought to better the lives of rural farmers and fishermen in Nova Scotia. Now its Coady institute uses the prin- ciples of the Antigonish movement— collective self-help action through eo- operatives and credit unions—to offer students from underdeveloped nations the knowledge that could mean a shift from desolation. I

With half its funding provided by the .

V ‘ Federal Canadian International Develop-

ment Agency, the Coady institute offers

/ two study programs—one, a community

diploma course taking six months, and the

second, a five-week co-operative study program. _ r

The shorter course hasgan enrolment of

36 students fromrzﬁ countries, and fo-

cuses directly on the operation and

management of credit unions. The di‘

ploma program-taught this year to 52

students from 21..countries,,-explores the

r workings of public;ndministration,in im-

plementing. changesi,;Co-operatives are irr

. cludedinitsscope. ,2»,

2,500 students-7mm Africa, ms; the