Page 18 RAIN November 1980 Aid as Obstacle: Twenty Questions about our Foreign Aid and the Hungry by Frances Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins, and David Kinley, 1980, $~.95 from-: ' Institute for Food and • • Development Policy ~ ~ 2588 Mission Street 1 San Francisco, CA 94110 Expanding upon a theme raised in previous IFQP publicatio11s, Aid as Obstacle is an , expose of our-foreign aid system, the premise that supports it, and the myth of national altruism that surrounds it. "We are saying ... that the overwhelming bulk of official aid projects do not allevjate hunger, directly or indirectly . .. aid actually increased hunger and repression by reinforcing the power of national and international elites who usurp the resources rightfully belonging to the hungry." IFDP, as usual, has produced a book that is both informative and highly readable. The question/ answer format, similar in style to other IFDP publications, allows the authors to cut to the heart of an issue-minus the rhetoric. I'm not sure which I like better, the refreshing candor of their questions or the thorough research and thoughtful analysis demonstrated by the answers. Each successive question guides .the reader through the maze of contradiction and illusion that is our foreign aid and development policy. The book begins with the most obvidus question: does U.S~fOFeign aid focus on the poorest countries? It continues with an examination of the large government aid agencies (the World Bank and the Agency for International Development [AID]), foreign aid·programs (food aid anti work programs and their relative success in reaching the hul).gry), and a reevaluation of our develdpment policy (the suggestion that we terminate food aid). • THE DO-GOODER DILEMMA: • While the content of much of Aid as Obstacle is d~sheartening, the overall impact is not. Continuing in the philosophy of IFDP, the authors of this publication have emphasized action strategies in their conclusion. The last three chapters are ~evoted to a summary of meaningful and effective ways for Americans to get involved outside of the aid establishment and make a real difference. "Just as we rtrnst confront the unjust concentration of economic and political power we have in our society, only the poor in the Third World can organize to overcome their powerlessness ... the appropriate role of Amerieans is to help remove the.powerful obstacles in their way; . . . built by our tax <Jnd consumer dollars." Their suggestions'for us include: 1) educating ourselves to the inconsistencies around us, 2) believing in ourselves-and our ability to make change happen, arrd 3) taking,the initiative, in our communities, in addressing the problems most immediate to us. - LS INAPPROPRIATE ' .'TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER by Laura Stuchinsky The po1nts raised in Aid as Obstacle lend a fresh perspective to another increasingly complex area of concern: technology transfer to Third World countries. In the last decade organizations such as the Intermediate Technology D,evelopment Group (ITDG), Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), and Appropriate Technology International (ATI) have formed, all concentrated on the issij.e of appropriate technology transfer. The concept of Intermediate/ Appropriate technology-small scale,-labor-intensive, locallyproduced and simple to use-has gained increasing acceptance among development econoipists, international government agencies, and leaders of various1underde-veloped countries. With this much support from higher echelons, things begin to smellsuspi-
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