The collateral damage of the aid system

Theo Ruyter has worked as journalist, development worker and activist. In the 1970s he was the first Dutch journalist to be based in Sub-Saharan Africa, where he reported from Dar-es-Salaam for various Dutch news media. He has recently worked in Chad for a German development organization and is a member of the board of Attac-Nederland. Theo Ruyter recently published a plea to put an end to the business of development aid in ‘Requiem voor de hulp: de ondergang van een bedrijfstak’ (Uitgeverij Papieren Tijger, 2005).

Discussant: Inge Brinkman, African Studies Centre

Development aid may be considered to some extent a mere blind from the very beginning. This especially holds for official development assistance (ODA), where political and economic interests and the objectives of both sides have always played a role. This does not alter the fact that development aid was and still is often provided with the best of intentions and therefore a great deal of effort is made to show its positive impact. This effort may have resulted in a tendency in the donor community to turn a blind eye to the negative sides of aid and especially to the collateral damage inflicted at the receiving end. In this presentation Theo Ruyter will try to identify this damage and the reasons for its neglect.