Paul Valentin, Christian Aid’s international director, resists a feeling of déjà vu when it comes to fighting poverty.
Here we go again! Another disaster, another tale of human misery.
‘The poor will always be with you,’ or so the saying goes. It often seems as if we’re not getting anywhere in the greater scheme of things. What difference does all that aid really make?
These thoughts are always at the back of the minds of even the most dedicated aid worker. Occasionally though, like the voice of doom, they come to the forefront, undermining all that you are working towards.
Objectively speaking, things aren’t great for many of the world’s poor, and they aren’t getting any better. So what is the point of our efforts? Why should we keep trying?
While condemned to struggle with these questions, those of us who have the privilege of seeing the work of Christian Aid’s partners at first hand know that despair and giving up are generally not part of the mindset we encounter ‘on the ground’ in poor countries. On the contrary, optimism and faith are found everywhere.
Despair is not an option
I think of the confidence exuded by a woman I met in a drought-prone part of Ethiopia. She had acquired new skills of fattening lambs in her back yard and was now able to feed her family with the hard-earned cash. For her, despair is not an option.
'What is the point of our efforts? Why should we keep trying?'
I think of the resilience of people driven from their homes by the civil war in Burma. I met a group who had trekked for weeks through landmine-infested jungle to reach a relatively safe camp on the
Thai border. They proudly displayed their patch of newly planted vegetables and showed us how they were building a school for their children.
I think of the AIDS orphans who manage to stay in school and share with us their ideal of giving back to the community by becoming teachers or nurses.
Taking charge
The Rev Martin Luther King once said: ‘Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.’ A stronger expression of hope is difficult to imagine – hope firmly rooted in reality.
Every time we send a grant to a local partner organisation or deliver emergency aid, we’re planting that apple tree. In the most difficult circumstances, this may well mean providing life-saving food, water or shelter. But in most situations it is also about ensuring that people can take charge of their own lives: earn a living, feed their families, survive not only today but in the coming weeks and months.
We believe that each practical step needs to lead to more fundamental change. For example, a well can free people to focus on other things that will make life better – like demanding better health and education services from local government.
What we do has to help people overcome the sources of their poverty and oppression.
So what good are the various appeals for aid that drop through your letterbox? Almost none, I’d say, unless the organisations behind them are really working to tackle the root causes of poverty and injustice.
Change doesn’t happen unless the people themselves can direct it and take charge. Even in the most seemingly hopeless of situations people are hardly – if ever – passive ‘victims’. Short-term solutions can play a role but never at the expense of a longer-term vision.
Good government
Change doesn’t happen, and people’s lives don’t get better, unless governments – both in poor countries and internationally – are determined to see it happen.
In poor countries there is a need for government that answers to the people and doesn’t squander their cash. That means our aid needs to help poor communities fight for their rights and hold their leaders to account.
At the international level there is a need to make trade work for the poor and guard against economies becoming so warped that only foreign investors and the elite benefit. That means our campaigning needs to challenge the governments that make the rules of international trade – and organisations like the World Bank that have so much influence on how poor countries are run.
And underpinning all this we must continue to support projects whose benefits last for more than the season – and far beyond when the next round of charity appeals arrives on the doormat.
We don’t want poverty to give us a sense of déjà vu. We want it to end.