Mali was in the news recently when a desert military tribe that had gotten a whole range of new weapons (from 'Americans leading from behind' strategy) in Libya, set out to use their new and powerful weapons to conquer Mali.
The French, with a minimal force mostly delivered by two or three airplanes, were able to drive the militants out of northern Mali.
During that time I had a chance to talk to several people who had recently spent time in Mali. My time there was 20 years ago.
I had gone to see some of the aid projects, including one that I had worked on. One of the most impressive projects, that I was not connected to, was the construction of a forest made up entirely of thousands of eucalyptus trees surrounding a very small indigenous sub-Saharan forest.
The eucalyptus forest was growing very well and was being taken care of by tribal groups on the outer range of it. The new forest provided the neighbors with wood. It was a unique project because a eucalyptus tree, when cut down, will reproduce with five new trunks. The program had been created by Norwegians. I was very impressed.
However it is nearly 20 years since I saw this project. I asked several people who had recently spent time in Mali about the forest that was on the Northwest side of the capital of Bamako.
None of the people had ever seen or heard of the forest... it was gone.
So much for the 10th, 20th or 30th foreign aid project that I had looked at. Nearly all failures. This was the one that seemed to be very impressive, well thought out and entirely supported by the local people. Gone.
Aid simply doesn't work in the Third World no matter how smart or competent the aid givers are.
How will we ever get this do good notion out of our heads?
Posted with Blogsy