Bill Easterly and Development

Bill Easterly, in a recent Foreign Policy article, The Ideology of Development (subscription required), writes ominously that "a dark ideological specter in haunting the world," one in which "unelected outsiders imposing rigid doctrines on the xenophobic unwilling" and "favors collective goals such as national poverty reduction, national economic growth, and the global Millennium Development Goals, over the aspirations of individuals." He concludes that "Development ideology has a dismal record of helping any country actually develop." And finally that, "the only 'answer' to poverty reduction is freedom from being told the answer."I've always wondered if Bill Easterly really thought the world would be a better place it there were no official development assistance. Having read this piece I'm pretty sure I know the answer: he does. Easterly's Foreign Policy article will convince most readers that Bill, along with the likes of Adam Lerrick and other critics of the aid business, believes that the only good development agency is a dead development agency. Put in a less incendiary way, as Nancy Birdsall says in a forthcoming review of Bill's most recent book, The White Man's Burden, "[r]eaders may conclude that…the only good option is to reduce aid altogether."While I am an on-the-record critic of "business as usual" in doing development, I am truly puzzled by how anyone familiar with the developing world could reach this conclusion.Finding the development community's record for the past 40 years wanting and concluding that the best development assistance is no development assistance, that all the world's poor need is the freedom to make their own mistakes, is simplistic and unsupported by fact or common sense. Bill is a researcher and I am a practitioner, so, I won't try to fight him on the historical evidence front. However, I have spent a great deal of time sitting in countries that were (and still are) struggling to develop, and I do know that the international community can help. No, it cannot run countries. No, it cannot, should not, and does not have a one-size-fits-all approach. No, it does not have "one correct answer." But it does have money and experience, and poor countries lack both.Bill Easterly believes in incentives, and so do I. What's wrong with the international aid system is that the incentives that drive it are screwed up. If the international community wants something (better governance, gender equality, environmental protection, the Millennium Development Goals, equity, privatization, whatever) more than developing countries and their leaders do, expect bad outcomes. When donors set the agenda, they, not countries, become accountable. So, let's change the game. Let's make countries accountable. What we hold countries and countries' leadership accountable for will be different for the very poor and institutionally weak than for better off developing countries, but holding countries accountable for producing something with the money the rich countries and their agents supply is essential to fixing the aid system.Bill wants a world where "poor counties are forging their own path toward greater freedom and prosperity…." I want that as well, because I believe it is the only practical way forward. But I also want a world in which the fortunate help the less fortunate find and forge that path. Quoting Nancy's review again, "[t]his is the moment to try to channel [a wave of enthusiasm for increasing aid] toward improving [the] aid system, not going around it."