International Aid and Integral Human Development

By Philip Booth

Christians in wealthy nations have an obligation to assist those who struggle to subsist in developing economies. The critical question remains: How is this duty best discharged? Conventionally, church leaders have often recommended government-to-government aid transfers as a major strategy to promote development in poor nations. Philip Booth, relying on the principles of Catholic social teaching and the evidence of development economics, argues that this strategy has been in large measure a failure. Booth draws attention to the indispensable conditions for economic development, urges us to reconsider our approach to international aid in light of this evidence, and reminds us that material welfare is only one dimension of integral human development.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PovertyCure
• Release date: Jul 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781938948077

Philip Booth

Philip Booth is Director of Catholic Mission and Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Book preview

International Aid

and Integral Human

Development

Philip Booth

PovertyCure Series

Copyright © 2012 by PovertyCure

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Contents

Preface

Foreword

I. Introduction

II. True Development

III. Charity or Aid?

IV. Catholic Social Teaching:

Making the Case for Aid

V. Underlying Economic Assumptions

VI. The Economics of Aid

VII. Conclusion

About the Author

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Preface

The PovertyCure series is a collection of monographs and other short books focused on economic development, poverty alleviation, and entrepreneurial solutions to poverty. The plan for the series is to include a mix of new books, reissued monographs, and reprints of older works from seminal thinkers in economic development. We are grateful to the Acton Institute for permission to reprint several monographs within this series.

The purpose of the PovertyCure series is to provide further materials for research into foundational and topical issues related to poverty and development.

The authors—who include economists, moral philosophers, and practitioners—take seriously the integration of economics on the one hand with moral philosophy and theology on the other. Their work is rooted in the Judeo-Christian vision of the human person as made in the image of God with creative capacity.

About PovertyCure

PovertyCure is an international network of organizations and individuals seeking to ground our common battle against global poverty in a proper understanding of the human person and society, and to encourage solutions that foster opportunity and unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that already fills the developing world.

There is no single solution to poverty, and good people will disagree about methods, but we have joined together to rethink poverty, encourage discussion and debate, promote effective compassion, and advance entrepreneurial solutions to poverty informed by sound economics, local knowledge, the lessons of history, and reflections from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Christ calls us to solidarity with the poor, but this means more than assistance. It means seeing the poor not as objects or experiments, but as partners and brothers and sisters, as fellow human beings made in the image of God with the capacity to solve problems and create new wealth for themselves and their families. At a practical level, it means inviting, and being invited into, broader circles of exchange and productivity.

The PovertyCure initiative seeks to spread this integrated message through a seven-session curriculum, a multimedia website, a documentary, and our international network of partner organizations working in everything from microfinance to clean water, orphanages, and business investment.

We hope you find the books in the series valuable and encourage you to visit Povertycure.org to learn more, or go to Povertycure.org/network to learn how individuals and organizations can join PovertyCure in the work of transforming charity and development.

— Michael Matheson Miller

PovertyCure

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Foreword

A distinctive mark of Christianity from its beginning has been solicitude for the poor. The source of this concern is no mystery: Jesus’ own ministry was characterized by compassion toward the marginalized and insistence on the dignity of all people.

With the rise of the contemporary international system of nation-states and the advent of extraordinary economic progress within many of those nations, the Roman Catholic Church recognized a new dimension to its traditional concern for the poor. Perceiving a disturbing imbalance in levels of development among nations, Catholic pastors urged those in richer nations to remember their brothers and sisters abroad.

Identifying an obligation and putting it into practice, however, are two distinct acts. With economists and political leaders, the Church has struggled to understand the mechanics of development and thus to answer the question: How can wealthy nations assist less developed nations in an effective fashion? This apparently simple question is surprisingly difficult to answer.

The most obvious potential solution is for governments of developed nations to transfer funds to governments of developing nations, thus providing resources to create the institutions, services, and infrastructure necessary for economic development. This approach has been attempted and proved unsatisfactory because the dangers of corruption and dependency have attended such aid almost to the point of discrediting it completely.

We should have known better. From the earliest days of the Church, Christians have recognized that material assistance alone is inadequate for the genuine development of the human person. Drawing on this insight, embedded in the social teaching contained in papal encyclicals, financial expert Philip Booth argues that development will never be accomplished merely by throwing money at the problem. Instead, those concerned about development should take into account the full range of Church teaching on charity, justice, solidarity, and subsidiarity. This approach, more respectful of the dignity and complexity of human nature, can avoid the pitfalls of customary government development aid.

As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, the track record of the old model of government assistance is long and clear, as Booth’s data substantiate. Led astray by their good intentions, Catholic leaders themselves have sometimes fallen into simplistic recommendations for international aid. Booth urges us to reacquaint ourselves with the rich tradition of the Church’s social teaching, examine the economic and other effects of various assistance programs, and creatively refashion our approach to aid. Only in this way will we fulfill our obligation to care for the least of these, by setting in motion a process of genuine development that leads to prosperity in both material and human goods.

—Kevin Schmiesing

Acton Institute

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I

Introduction

Of all Christ’s teachings as reflected