The Long Term Effectiveness of Turkish Aid for Somali

 
    Between 2010 and 2012, over 260,000 people were killed in Somali because of drought. In 2011, Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a historic visit to Somali, urging the nation to take action. Turkish public responded to Erdogan’s calls for humanitarian effort by raising 254.6 million dollars of aid. There is no doubt that foreign aid has helped to reduce death tool in Somali. However, Somali might suffer from famine again if the country’s long term problems in production and education not solved. Can Turkish aid respond to these long term problems?

  Planning vs Searching

     In his book “The White Man’s Burden”, NYU Professor William Easterly describes two kinds of approaches in eliminating poverty: planning and searching. Planning is a top to bottom approach, which mainly consists of pouring millions of dollars into developing countries with mostly utopian ideas. Very little is accomplished with this approach, as these programs do not provide the right incentives, accountability or feedback, which are necessary to solve problems. The real solutions to problems come from “searching”, the ground level approach to solve problems. Searchers are local people who work for profit and good will to solve local problems. They carry accountability, feedback, and more incentives than planners to complete their actions. For instance, when a local governor in Mogadishu promises to provide garbage trucks, he risks losing his office in the next election if the project does not reach success. However, Turkish government does not face the same level of risk if the project fails. If locals were thought how to dig water wells, they would respond to feedbacks, be sufficient for themselves and dig many other wells to make profit. If wages of nurses were increased, nurses could visit more patients and vaccinate more children. The success of Turkish aid lies into incorporation of locals to solve everyday problems.