Jonathan Power
McNamara's agrarian policies have unwisely been dismissed
Barbara Ward, the distinguished writer for the Economist and a close friend of Robert McNamara, told me back in 1972 that McNamara “bled inside for what he’d done in Vietnam.” Ward was cross with me for using this quote, and insisted that over time people would judge McNamara more for his (then relatively new job) as president of the World Bank.
Judging from last week’s obituaries she was wrong about that. Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis and his flip-flopping on nuclear weapons dominate contemporary attitudes to McNamara. Yet it is true that what he did at the World Bank is worth remembering, especially his efforts to turn aid in the direction of small farmers. Under his tenure the World Bank spent 30 per cent of its budget on helping small third world farmers be more productive. Today, as pre-McNamara, it spends about 10 per cent.
McNamara argued that there was enough knowledge available to raise the output of small farmers by 5 per cent a year—far in excess of population growth. If that had been done, it is probably safe to say that today there would be no significant poverty or hunger, as most people in the poorer third world countries still live on the land.
Instead, as the G8 said last week, the number of hungry is up near the one billion mark and too much of western budgets is spent on food aid not long term rural development. The G8 said they were committed to reversing that.
Read more »
Leo Hornak
Swedish cuisine has yet to sweep the rest of Europe
Sweden has taken the moral high ground again. In the same week that Italy’s handling of the G8 conference was condemned as ‘chaotic from start to finish’ and ‘without an agenda’, the Swedish prime minister issued a considered, heartfelt call to Europe to take climate change more seriously. Compared to the rest of Europe, Sweden is already a model of environmental restraint, with the world’s highest carbon taxes combined with impressively high GDP growth (until the economic crisis). They also have an inclusive welfare state, a near classless society and one of the highest standards of living in the world. And yet for all this, Sweden remains something of an enigma to outsiders. How many British, French or Italians could name a major Swedish politician or political party, for example?
As Jonathan Power argues in an exclusive online essay for Prospect, Swedish culture and society really is distinct from the rest of Europe in a number of crucial ways. From sexual habits to foreign policy, Power’s adoptive home is a place where the “pursuit of equality goes deeper,” with consequences both good and bad. Swedes marry later, work harder, travel less and pay more tax than the rest of us. Quite possibly they are happier too.
Jonathan Power
Cassava: Nigeria's staple crop
At the summit meeting that opens in Italy on Wednesday the leaders of the G8 are expected to announce a “food security initiative”—an effort to reverse “the tendency of decreasing official development aid to agriculture” and increase investment in third world food production instead. According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Washington spends 20 times more on food aid in Africa than on long-term agricultural programmes to develop local food production. A similar bias exists in the policies of the EU which believes that in food aid it has a good way of dumping its surpluses.
Nothing may come of the new promises, as nothing came of the big hoo-ha at the G8 summit four years ago when a massive increase in aid, especially to Africa, was agreed. But if these promises were to be honoured, this will be just what the poorer countries need. Read more »
Post a comment »
