10 Minute Essay (2/19)

A Case for Cultural Anthropology

President Bush has recently been traveling in Africa to support a plan that will send 5.2 billion dollars to Africa to fight malaria and AIDS. While this goal is laudable, it is clear that Mr. Bush is making the same mistakes as many politicians before him. These mistakes have historically cost untold billions of dollars as politicians conduct foreign aid plans created without any sort of anthropological basis. Without an understanding of the underlying problems that create disease, poverty, and pollution, any plan of action is doomed to failure.

A case that highlights why the Bush incentives in Africa will be less effective than believed is that of Haiti and World Bank. In Haiti, there were serious problems with deforestation. In an attempt to combat this problem, World Bank created a plan to provide trees to Haiti with cash incentives for farmers to plant them. However, trees were a very valuable commodity. They were needed for lumber to build homes, as well as for charcoal for heat and cooking in the burgeoning cities. On a seemingly unrelated note, Haiti was plagued with corrupt politicians. The World Bank did send seedlings and funds to provide for farmers who would choose to plant trees instead of crops. However, most of the money went straight into the pockets of politicians. The seedlings then became a commodity and farmers sold them for cash to support themselves. Those farmers who did choose to plant had their trees stolen at night by those who would sell them. In the end all of the money spent on the program was wasted and no change came as a result. The planners at World Bank did not understand the culture that was driving the problem and so did not adequately plan to work with the existing culture to solve them.

The Bush plan will fail for the same reason as the World Bank initiative in Haiti proved ineffective. It is not that the people of Africa want to be plagued with disease and death. However, there are underlying practices in the culture that make certain diseases more likely to spread. This is not a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it. Until there is adequate research about the true cause of the problems in Africa, an effective solution—one that works with and for the culture, cannot be proposed. When it comes to issues of cultural interaction politics and money, acting without anthropolicigal aid, will solve problems only by luck.