WHES researched this new fact sheet about famine: https://www.worldhunger.org/famine-fact-sheet-dec-2024/
Author: Steve Hansch
Regenerative Agriculture to Mitigate Hunger: Thurow’s Latest Book
Book Review: Roger Thurow’s Against the Grain: How Farmers Around the Globe are Transforming Agriculture to Nourish the World and Health the Planet (2024, Publisher: Agate Surrey)
American journalist, Roger Thurow, has written consistently about global hunger and food issues for many years. In his latest globe-spanning book he highlights the work of farmers who are “going against the grain” by adopting regenerative agriculture practices. These methods prioritize soil health, biodiversity, and natural processes, leading to more resilient and productive farms. Thurow introduces readers to farmers in diverse regions, from the American Midwest to Africa and India, who are successfully implementing these practices and achieving remarkable results.
Thurow visits a dozen countries in different continents telling the story of local responses to the upward pressures of world population growth and the strains on global food chains. He highlights the UN World Food Programme, the NGO World Vision, the International Livestock Research Institute, and others.
Against the Grain’s central theme revolves around the idea that industrial agriculture, with its reliance on monoculture, chemical inputs, and intensive farming methods, has come at a significant cost to both the environment and human health. Thurow argues that this common approach is unsustainable and undermines the long-term viability of food production.
One of the book’s strengths is its ability to explain the connections between individual farming practices and global concerns such as climate change, food security, and public health. Thurow demonstrates how sustainable agriculture can play a crucial role in mitigating climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He emphasizes the importance of diverse, nutrient-rich diets in combating malnutrition and promoting public health. He interviews dozens of farmers, some of whom farmers incurred risks to change their long-term practices to work with nature and terrace their land to catch more rainwater and prevent soil runoff; to plant a diverse range of vegetables that would balance the nutrients in the soil; to replaced commercial fertilizers with organic matter from their own farms; to plant more trees and drought-resistant grains; and then shared their success with neighbors and communities.
Thurow spends time with farmers in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley who are implementing practices like terracing and agroforestry to restore degraded land and improve their livelihoods. He highlights the ongoing work of aid organizations like the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in promoting sustainable agriculture and empowering local communities.
In Uganda, he visits farmers who are diversifying their crops, integrating livestock, and using cover crops to improve soil health and increase resilience to drought.
He explores efforts to combat land degradation and improve food security in Ethiopia, where farmers are adopting techniques like intercropping and water harvesting to enhance productivity in the face of challenging environmental conditions. He travels to India’s Indo-Gangetic Plain, where he meets Indian farmers who are revitalizing their soil and increasing yields through practices like no-till farming and crop rotation. He also examines the challenges faced by Indian farmers, including water scarcity and climate change.
When visiting Guatemala’s Highlands, Thurow describes the efforts of smallholder farmers to preserve traditional maize varieties and promote sustainable farming practices in the face of pressures from industrial agriculture.
Against the Grain offers a valuable contribution to the conversation about the future of food and farming. It provides a hopeful vision of a more sustainable and equitable food system, while also acknowledging the challenges that lie ahead. Thurow’s engaging writing style and his passion for the subject matter make “Against the Grain” an informative and thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the intersection of food, agriculture, and the environment.
Note: Some NGOs specialize in promoting this type of agriculture, including Trees for the Future. Thurow serves on the advisory committee for Action Against Hunger, US.
A related book review about Regenerative Agriculture is available at another non-profit’s (Well Being International’s) site: https://wellbeingintl.org/resources/newsletter-archive/wellbeingnews/wellbeing-news-vol-6-11/ .
Film Mischaracterizes Humanitarian Aid Work
[Editor’s note: The following opinion piece was written by career aid worker Amy Leah Potter in response to the recent release of the film “Dirty Angels” which has upset many people in the aid community for its depiction of humanitarian NGOs serving as shells to hide army combatants. The movie, distributed by Lionsgate, takes serious themes of working in Afghanistan (which many dozens of international aid organizations do) but perverts the depiction of how aid really works. The movie was released one month ago and has received negative reviews and earned only $15,000 globally.]
Hollywood’s Fictional Narratives have Real-World Consequences for Humanitarian Aid
Opinion by Amy Leah Potter
In 2017, I was briefly held at gunpoint by members of the Houthi Rebel group in Northern Yemen. My presence in their territory was questioned at a checkpoint, leading to my detainment. For 90 distressing minutes, I awaited the confirmation of my identity before being allowed to continue my assignment: working with a team to establish an emergency surgical program in a conflict zone.
Gaining access to provide care in war-affected areas is an immense challenge. It requires fostering trust with governing factions—whether governments, rebel groups, or militias—convincing them to view international aid organizations as impartial and independent. When this neutrality is not recognized, the consequences are dire. Denied access means critical care cannot reach those in need, leading to preventable suffering and loss of life. Tragically, this mistrust has also cost the lives of both national and international healthcare workers.
In 2011, a covert CIA operation that used a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The aftermath was catastrophic: an immediate ban on unrelated international aid agencies and a wave of violence. Over the next two years, 56 polio vaccination workers—and the police officers protecting them—were murdered. Polio cases resurged in the region, undoing years of progress and costing even more lives.
The backlash would bring lessons and efforts to avoid replication of such dire scenarios. Humanitarian workers welcomed the statement from the White House, affirming that the CIA would no longer use vaccination programs or workers for operational purposes. A CIA spokesperson acknowledged, “By publicizing this policy, our objective is to dispel one canard that militant groups have used as justification for cowardly attacks against vaccination providers.” This recognition of the vital need for humanitarian neutrality was a step forward. However, the damage to trust in global health efforts lingers as evidenced by my experience in Yemen.
Sadly, lessons from the past may have already been forgotten.
A new Lionsgate film Dirty Angels has recently been released. According to its IMDB synopsis, the movie “centers on a group of female soldiers who disguise themselves as medics to rescue teenagers caught between ISIS and the Taliban.” The trailer shows these women armed and posing as members of an “international relief organization.”
I wish I could trust the public, governments, and rebels to distinguish fiction from reality. But in my experience, the paranoia and mistrust in many conflict zones are deeply ingrained. Agencies and workers are currently risking their lives to deliver aid in territories controlled by groups like the Taliban, ISIS, Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, and others. My concern is that the script in this piece of entertainment will, unintentionally, undermine the essential work of humanitarian organizations as well as endanger thousands of lives.
On behalf of those who rely on life-saving care in the most inaccessible regions—and the individuals delivering it – I urge you not to support this film. A message needs to be sent that these narratives are not just dangerous; they are life-threatening.
Instead encourage productions that share stories of heroism, service, and altruism that bring hope and change. Filmmaking can be a force for good, and an ally to humanitarian workers everywhere in the world.
The world cannot afford to lose more trust, more workers, or more lives.
WHES Undertakes Research about Attacks Against Food & Nutrition in Humanitarian Aid
This month, toward the end of 2024, World Hunger Education Service launched a broad study about the patterns, trends and extent of violent attacks and threats against aid programs delivering food and nutrition solutions in famines, crises, war zones, and for displaced populations. The results will be published here, in Hunger Notes. This is an independent study that is at WHES’s initiative.
In recent years, there has been a growth in attention to and professional publications about attacks on health care in fragile states and conflicts, which include missiles, drones, shooting, targeted assassination, roadblocks, air strikes, mortar fire, kidnapping and siege. All of these are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
There has been no corresponding attention to attacks on food assistance or nutrition programs, which this new study hopes to fill in.
WHES’s Lead Researcher, Eline de Looijier, is seeking inputs from a wide range of UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, donors, journalists, researchers and observers who can help her document not only the extent of attacks on food/nutrition, but also how aid agencies adapt to threats and risks of attacks and seek to mitigate these risks.
WHES is an independent nonprofit and respects the confidentiality of people contributing to this study. WHES thanks all those who are able to share their thoughts. Please send inputs to Eline at: Eline de Looijer <elinejdelooijer@gmail.com>
Remembering Don Kennedy, Human Biologist
Don Kennedy, who passed away four years ago, was founder of the unique Human Biology program at Stanford University, where he served as a role model as arguably the most influential teacher of his generation, particularly teaching about intersections of biology, ecology and policies. In addition to teaching a unique interdisciplinary program, Kennedy also served as the head of the US Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and President of Stanford University.
What was remarkable about Kennedy was his obvious love of scientific discovery, evident to his students as he himself kept learning while teaching about all the different sciences that fed into the multi-disciplinary Human Biology program he led. This infectious curiosity led him to be an ideal lecturer, department head, university president and Food and Drug Commissioner for the US. He served as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (1977–79). At the FDA Kennedy’s efforts toward comprehensive drug regulation reform helped modernize the regulatory framework to ensure public safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals.
As Stanford President, he led the university’s Centennial fundraising campaign. He established overseas campuses in Kyoto, Oxford, and Berlin, broadening Stanford’s global reach. Later in his career he was senior fellow at Stanford’s Center on Food Security and Environment. He wrote a seminal monograph “Environmental Quality and Regional Security” for the prestigious Carnegie Preventing Deadly Violence Project.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remembers “I first met Don when I was a first-year professor. Imagine what it was like to have the President of the University know your name and what you would be teaching. I was blown away. He 
was a terrific leader because he always cared first and foremost about students, faculty and staff. Don was an important influence on me and on the way I tried to lead. I learned a lot from him.”
As Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine (2000–08) he set a standard for promoting the application of science in public policy. Professor Wally Falcon (who directed Stanford’s Food Policy Institute, and who passed away in 2023), remembers: “Don had a truly amazing capacity to generate 1,000 word essays for the Science editorial page. And he did it week after week. He would stroll into my office, saying I am thinking about a topic, we would talk about it, and the next day an amazing draft would appear. Most Science editorials go unread; Don’s were looked forward to with anticipation. In the cogent-1,000 word—overnight—scientific-
Dr. Seth Foldy, a campus leader on many policy issues, and global physician/ epidemiologist, remembers “My biggest recollection of Don Kennedy was how much he believed in us as students. During a revision of the HumBio Core in 1975-6 he basically gave me and a few other TAs nearly full control of the Spring semester focused on health policy. 4 groups of students had to develop policy solutions; one group I oversaw had to design the national health plan they thought would p
roduce best results.” Another student remembers: “I will never forget Donald Kennedy getting up on the lab table at the front of the lecture hall and assuming a quadruped position to demonstrate to us the concepts of dorsal, ventral, cephalo, and caudal. His first concern was always with teaching effectively, not preserving his dignity.”
Kennedy told the Stanford Daily: “Teaching is when you plan a course; you invite some other people in to lecture; you create an intellectually coherent and stimulating whole; you develop readings; you develop challenging examinations; you read people’s …papers and you write in the margins — that’s teaching.”
His wife recalled that “he was one of those triple threat guys: brilliant teacher, brilliant researcher and brilliant administrator.” He told the Stanford Daily newspaper that he wanted “to be a cultivator of enthusiasm and a good agent of consensus.” That he did. He charismatically instilled enthusiasm for learning, by example, in all his lectures.
Professor Falcon remembers Don as being exceptionally kind with his time for his handicapped son, Phillip. “Don spent hours 
with him, talking about all manner of things. Don spoke at Phillip’s memorial service and also arranged for a special appearance of the Stanford singing group that Phillip so enjoyed. This personal story is part of a larger point having to do with the affection young people had for Don. The world is a much poorer place without Don Kennedy.”
A neurobiologist by training, Kennedy received his PhD in biology from Harvard in 1956 and came to Stanford in 1960, where he Chaired the Department of Biology (1964–72), then the Program in Human Biology (1973–77), served as Provost (1979-80), President of the University (1980–92), and Bing Professor of Environmental Science.
Foldy also remembers: “He was also very funny in a dry way. I remember him in lecture going through all the biofeedback loops that resulted in his sweating only AFTER showering, after a four-mile Dish run.”
Dr. Eric Noji, who led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s global humanitarian work, and served in the White House, remembers: “Professor Kennedy was a mentor and inspiration to me both personally and professionally while I was an undergraduate at Stanford. We shared a passion for birdwatching and I met him on a Saturday birding field trip to Jasper Ridge as a freshman. He later asked me to teach an undergraduate special entitled “field ornithology” which by my senior year had over 40 students! It was his strong encouragement that led me to pursue a career in biology and medical schoo
l. A day rarely passes when I don‘t think of him, a gifted and rare man who has influenced generations of students at Stanford.”
The alumni of the Human Biology program, which Kennedy co-founded, created this online memorial to him: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y6-wnoK2AZp3CH4wLSVTxcBASJtuWHSz/view
Kennedy’s own Memoir, A Place in the Sun, derives its title from his love of family and work, ability to share the light, and interact with so many brilliant colleagues.
SHansch
Past World Hunger Prize Winners
Thirteen winners of the World Hunger Prize issued an appeal on October 30, 2024 at the Borlaug Dialogue gathering in Des Moines, Iowa. The annual gathering, this year from October 29-31, showcased over 50 speakers from around the world, including the 2024 World Food Prize winners Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin and Dr. Cary Fowler. Hawtin and Fowler were founders in 2008 of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, in Norway, which today holds 1.25 million seed samples of more than 6,000 plant species in an underground facility in the Arctic Circle. The goal is to ensure options for crop diversity long into the future.
In the featured image here, the Governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, speaks to the conference participants.
The letter published signed by 13 prize winners asks for candidates for office and voters in the US to remember world hunger and its potential solutions, and for the US to participate in multilateral initiatives to avert famine. It includes: “As we gather in Iowa, in the heartland of the United States, we are also thinking beyond the U.S. election and planning ahead to bring about a world without poverty and hunger. …Hungry people are struggling for a better life. U.S. leadership can give them hope. ”
Prize winners who signed this are: Maria Andrade, David Beckmann,
Howarth Bouis, Gebisa Ejeta, Lawrence Haddad, Geoffrey Hawtin,
Gurdev Khush, Heidi Kühn, Rattan Lal, Jan Low, Per Pinstrup-Andersen,
Pedro Sanchez, Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted.
The full letter is at: www.worldfoodprize.org/index.cfm/87428/49164/laureate_statement__world_hunger_the_big_issue_being_overlooked_in_the_us_elections
SHansch
Why Nations Fail, Famine and the Nobel Prize
The 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded in October to the authors Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in part for the analysis of international inequalities in their best-selling 2012 book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (Crown Publishers), which arrays economic development experiences of many countries to argue that poverty and famine are due to a lack of inclusive institutions allow for broad participation in decision-making processes and provide incentives for innovation and productivity. The authors refer to “extractive” examples where the interests of elites are empowered over the needs of the population.
While not specifically exploring hunger, the authors touch on agriculture and food insecurity, for instance when comparing North Korea (characterized by extractive institutions) and South Korea (inclusive), including North Korea’s drift toward famines. The authors also look at the extractive rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, which resulted in famine. They write: “The persistence of poverty in many parts of the world is not due to lack of resources or ignorance… but to extractive economic institutions.”
Acemoglu teaches economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Robinson at Harvard University. They write: “economies based on the repression of labor and systems such as slavery and serfdom are notoriously noninnovative. This is true from the ancient world to the modern era. In the United States, for example, the northern states took part in the Industrial Revolution, not the South. Of course slavery and serfdom created huge wealth for those who owned the slaves and controlled the serfs, but it did not create technological innovation or prosperity for society.
Governments resist agricultural reforms that can mitigate malnutrition and poor health because of fear. “”Fear of creative destruction is often at the root of the opposition to inclusive economic and political institutions.”
The authors note: “In many African countries, the majority of the labor force works in agriculture, yet agricultural productivity is very low…. The Green Revolution in agriculture… had a major impact on the lives of millions of people, but its benefits were highly unevenly distributed.”
Acemoglu and Robinson acknowledge that geography and culture play some role, as does agency. But they array evidence that inclusive economic institutions like property rights, rule of law, ease of starting businesses, and open, competitive markets create incentives for investment, innovation, and widespread economic participation – driving sustained growth. Echoing decades of comments by other economists, they observe that many poor nations are trapped in a “vicious circle” where extractive political institutions inhibit economic reform and preserve the power and wealth of elites.
Some critics of the authors’ argument focus on reverse causality. In other words, wealthier, modernized countries are more likely to foster inclusive institutions. Bill Gates critiqued the authors for attributing Venice’s decline to institutional changes rather than external factors like competition in trade routes. Similarly, Gates argued that the authors overlook environmental factors like droughts in explaining the collapse of civilizations such as the Mayans.
S Hansch
Book Classic: Famine, Conflict and Response by Fred Cuny
Book Classic: Famine, Conflict and Response: a Basic Guide
By Fred Cuny, with Rick Hill (West Hartford, CN: Kumarian Press 1999)
This basic, extremely readable text about famine prevention and relief remains a preferred textbook decades after first written by Fred Cuny, and published after he was killed along with his team near Chechnya. Compiled posthumously by Fred’s colleagues Rick Hill and Pat Reed, the text style is not academic, but practical, reflecting Fred’s own frontline problem solving in a wide range of emergencies.
Chapter one addresses the causes of famine, including war, drought, disruptions to markets, failure to plant, collapse in purchasing power and environmental degradation. This is followed by an examination of the consequences of famine, including measles, diarrhea, the separation of family members, and challenges to social bonds. In chapter three, Cuny puts forward the notion famines spread geographically, how famine ‘belts’ shift. Chapter four explores the economy of rural subsistence communities and herding pastoralists. He observes how famine coping strategies, such as eating seed stocks, prolong the famine by decreasing the next year’s harvest.
Chapter five shifts to aid agency response, namely early warning, including the USAID Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) which watches for indicators of famine; increases in distress sales, livestock deaths, crop failure, poor rainfall, low food reserves, and then – at a late stage – increases in the rate of child malnutrition. Fred pointed out the value of “food demand models” that “attempt to find out whether people have reasonable access to that food.. Access is measured by the market price and whether people have the money to buy an item or barter for it.” Notably: “a rapid increase in food prices or a drop in family income may indicate the onset of famine.”
The book then has several chapters of “counter-famine” interventions, including food, cash, “market interventions” including loans, market sales, food-for-work, price supports for livestock, barter, grain-for animal exchanges, subsidies, price controls, and income-generating projects that improve agricultural systems. Page 76 presents a novel and brilliant diagram matching stages of famine (hoarding, migration, starvation, etc.) against preferred interventions (monetization, food-for-work, price support, intensive feeding, etc.) Fred encourages counter-famine operations “aimed at keeping the local market system from collapsing, preventing people from having to sell their assets, stopping migration and maintaining the family.”
Decades ahead of his time, Cuny outlined the use of vouchers or coupons, to be redeemed with identified food vendors set up for each community. He also recognized the counter-famine dynamics of tapping local merchants and food supplies: “Once merchants release food they are hoarding, others will also start to sell… helping to reactive the normal market system.”
The book explains food rations and the logistics of moving and storing food to camps. His explanation of the use of aircraft is short but clear. The book concludes with chapters about effective aid monitoring and cross-border operations which are frequently necessary for reaching conflict zones. The book concludes with discussion of helping populations along border “enclaves” and their long-term shift to rehabilitation and return.
In the volume’s introduction former OXFAM, CEO John Hammock, and former USAID administrator, Andrew Natsios, explain that Fred’s “powers of observation and analysis were his greatest strengths, allowing him to aggregate disparate and seemingly unrelated data into a coherent explanation of what was happening and then design a comprehensive strategy to address the crisis.” Then, “Whenever Fred traveled to a food emergency, he would first stop at the local market to review prices for price and livestock and to talk with merchants about inflationary pressures, the volume of commodity turnover in the market, the sources of commodity supply, and to which local ethnic or political groups the merchants were allied. And then he would simply stand and observe: who was buying, what they were buying, and what they were using for currency. By the end of the first day, he would understand much of the economy of famine in the region.”
They also summarize key themes that ran through Fred’s analyses:
- The context of the emergency is crucial;
- Traditional responses by international agencies can cause more harm than good;
- International aid is a drop in the bucket compared with local aid;
- The key to success in relief aid is involving local people directly;
- Relief and development are intricately linked;
- Relief aid is not a logistical exercise to get goods to people – it is a process to accelerate recovery; and
- Relief intervention teaches us lessons; we should heed the lessons learned from the past.
BOOK REVIEW: The Enduring Struggle: The History of the U.S. Agency for International Development and America’s Uneasy Transformation of the World
BOOK REVIEW: The Enduring Struggle: The History of the U.S. Agency for International Development and America’s Uneasy Transformation of the World, by John Norris. 2021. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher.
America’s primary international assistance organization, for moving federal tax dollars to solve global problems, has for over 60 years been the United States Agency for International Development, known more commonly as USAID (or in the past, AID).
USAID has had a long and illustrious history of providing varied development and emergency assistance in most countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union since its founding in 1962 at the initiative of President John F Kennedy. In The Enduring Struggle, author John Norris tackles the sweep of USAID’s work, starting in the late 1950s. The book is organized largely around big new decadal initiatives undertaken. Parenthetically, it recounts the creation of the separate Millennium Challenge Corporation.
This book provides readers with the context for how anti-hunger programs are marshalled for federal funding of agriculture, “feed the future,” nutrition, livelihoods, and anti-poverty projects by NGOs in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The USAID Alumni Association provided critical support for the writing. One supporter, Alex Shakow, says “We are especially pleased. We hope that students and scholars will, over time, dig more deeply into the many issues raised and programs… readers have said all AID staffers should read the book to help them better understand the history, experience, and culture of the agency of which they are a part. In fact, AID Management has made it possible for every person in AID to have access to the book.”
Norris, who has written other books (including Disaster Gypsies) and a blog about political leadership at USAID, orients his history from the view of senior political leaders in Washington, DC. Norris gives human face by quoting political appointees who interfaced between USAID, the White House and Congress. More attention is given to USAID’s top officials (the head being called “Administrator”) and White House strategists, than to career aid specialists working in the field. There is scant specific description of USAID’s large field offices, which today are in over sixty countries,, though Norris drew heavily on the many “oral histories” that have been done by many alumni and available at: https://adst.org/oral-history/oral-history-interviews/#gsc.tab=0
The author credits a sea change in the US approach to foreign aid to Herbert Hoover who engineered life-saving food aid to Europe during World War I to Belgium and then after that war to the Soviet Union. He gives weight to different decades, including the 1960’s and 70’s when there was an emphasis on endless new policy making, planning exercises and constant addition of new requirements for funding. Aid had to reposition itself time and again, such as when it was no longer needed strategically as a tactic in the Cold War. He notes the biggest jumps in USAID’s budget occurred under Republican Administrations (e.g. Bush, Reagan). It casts light on provision of aid inside war zones, including Vietnam, Central America and Afghanistan.
The Enduring Struggle addresses food security and food aid, and health (smallpox, HIV, COVID-19), but keeps a broad sweep of initiatives, without discussion of the NGOs, Universities, UN agencies, and local organizations designing and implementing aid projects. Norris covers the important early initiative to promote family planning was controversially led by Rei Ravenholt who had “unusual latitude and authority over personnel, spending and the direction of the program, reflecting a focus in the 1960s and 1970s on over-population. This program laid the groundwork for dramatic decreases in fertility and a long-term plateau in population growth.
Norris’ references to food assistance, which has been the most popular, robust and consistent part of foreign aid (of over $100 billion in aid) are derived from selective and few references that led to further misconceptions about the effectiveness of Title II food aid, mostly delivered by NGOs and the World Food Programme. He conveys none of the achievements in promoting local food security that have accounted for $100 billion of nonprofit efforts across the world during the last half-century. Norris diminishes food aid as the product of farm and shipping lobbies, ignoring how US nonprofits fighting hunger have been the biggest supporters of food aid to Congress.
USAID Alumni leader, Alexander Shakow, who helped arrange for Norris to have inputs from USAID alumni, said “We are especially pleased that AID staff, current and retired, have been very positive in their reactions. …Norris has made excellent use of AID retirees’ oral histories, files from Presidential libraries, and many other sources that bring his stories of major programs to life, and as a result the book is a very interesting read in addition to all the substance that one learns.”
The author gives greater attention in many cases to the politics or news-version of issues than the relevance in the field. He comments about how HIV/AIDS was identified in the early 1980s but not a topic of interest to the President of the United States, presumably as a theme for foreign aid. This makes little sense because, apart from Haiti, the AIDS epidemic was not understood at that time to be a problem elsewhere in the world. It was really only in the 1990s (long after Reagan) that USAID programs revealed the prevalence of AIDS infection in countries like Malawi and much of southern Africa.
A strength of this book is that it is well vetted and is accurate in what it does cover, particularly the politics of aid. What’s unfortunate is that it does not touch on what was actually accomplished (for instance, lives saved) with US taxpayer’s taxes, in the form of a great many momentous successes of USAID (it does mention the eradication of smallpox). It conveys well the inside baseball politics of USAID meetings in the Cabinet and White House. But, in the end, it gives little insight about what assistance looks like at the level of its delivery in the field.
In the final chapter, Norris writes “The United States Agency for International Development has been in existence for sixty years, and foreign assistance has been established as an important part of the American ethos…. Aid can provide incentives for reform and encouragement and support to local reformers. But it cannot, by itself, overcome entrenched resistance by those who benefit from bad policies or corrupt politics.”
He concludes, “As this history describes, the United States and other donors have delivered lifesaving humanitarian assistance to millions upon millions of people since 1960; without that assistance the death toll from wars and famines… would have been far higher.”
Shakow adds that “We hope that students and scholars will, over time, dig more deeply into some of the many issues raised and programs left without adequate detail. Many readers have said all AID staffers should read the book to help them better understand the history, experience, and culture of the agency of which they are now a part. In fact, AID Management has made it possible for every person in AID to have access to the book.”
One interview with the author, as streaming media, at the think tank CSIS, can be found at: https://www.csis.org/events/book-event-enduring-struggle-conversation-john-norris
The Razor’s Edge: Embezzlement, Corruption and Development in Ethiopia, a Novel (2022)
For anyone interested in learning what development work overseas entails and what work is like, there may be no better introduction than Robert Gurevich’s novel, The Razor’s Edge. Thinly modeled on his own experiences in Africa, with his protagonist, writing in the first person, caught between the US Government’s Agency for International Development (USAID) and non-governmental organization work, primarily in basic education for kids. The book follows the adventures of a westerner hired to lead an NGO’s (KAP) education program of schools, collaborating with parent-teacher associations, and building on models that have worked.
One reviewer on Amazon agrees: “Any development worker contemplating taking a senior foreign posting, especially with an NGO, on a government-funded education project could benefit from reading this book.” The 2002 story is an easy read at 298 pages, with the subtitle “Embezzlement, Corruption and Development in Ethiopia, a Novel”.
He starts the book as the new project director of a USAID-overseen project supporting 2,500 primary schools in Ethiopia. The journey of the protagonist has formed experiences at each stage of his project work, from being proposed to USAID through to meeting staff, implementation, accounting, responding to evaluations of his program, and controversies that have arisen over the years which include observing staff turnover and allegations of fraud. The author repeatedly debates how to interact with USAID – the main funder — regarding his choices, presentations, and reporting USAID is likely to accept or reject. Though budgets are not discussed, key realities of development programs are milestones, timelines, and scaling.
Hunger and malnutrition enter the plot when there is a poor harvest, to which the NGO and their donors respond with school feeding. School feeding has been a large part of aid programming for decades, particularly as an incentive for girls to attend school. Late in the book, Ethiopia suffers a drought, for which USAID provides new resources to KAP (“a large emergency grant”) to support school feeding programs to encourage children to continue attending school, help them have the strength to travel to school and nutrition to help pay attention and learn in the classroom. The protagonist observes USAID efficiently sought to “utilize an already existing project for addressing this emergency quickly.
In the telling, hot, cooked meals (i.e., “wet food”) were provided. “With wet food, we know for sure that the food is consumed by the child and not taken by an older family member at home. By eating the meal at school , this makes all the children continue to attend.”
Other insights about the challenges of aid work appear in each chapter, such as “the major problem has been the use of cash payments to schools, along with lax scrutiny. I am recommending each beneficiary school be required to open an account with the nearest bank, credit union… into which project funds can be deposited.”
Two choices families face are: “For children to continue their schooling beyond the four grades offered in the village school, they would need to move to a town with a primary school offering eight grades, and, later, a secondary school. These children would need to live with someone.” or “Parents need the labor of children during certain times of year, keeping them out of school at these times. But when the children fall behind their classmates, they become embarrassed and drop out.”
The author is an anthropologist, specializing in education, working in consultancies for USAID and the Peace Corps, Chairman and Member of the Board of Directors for the USAID-funded Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program. Among other technical achievements, in 2015 he evaluated the USG’s education portfolio in Yemen.
In his way, Gurevich pays homage to the 1944 novel of the same name by Somerset Maugham where the protagonist, also, travels far and wide seeking to discover transcendent liberation from human suffering. It took its title from the ancient Upanishads verse “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus, the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.”
https://www.amazon.com/Razors-Edge-Embezzlement-Corruption-Development/dp/1950444295
