Once the initial humanitarian disaster relief is provided, a country or nation affected by a humanitarian disaster needs to create an environment that will encourage business and foreign investment. Bottom line is that a healthy community, at its foundation, needs jobs and employment and so this is where world humanitarian efforts should be focused. Civil wars and factional conflicts are bred by lack of jobs for young men. Additionally, it goes without saying that a healthy community needs a vibrant economic system.Legal System
One of the major priorities for community development that world humanitarian NGOs need to help build is the country's legal system. Microenterprises work without an effective legal system. If I'm selling towels on the street, as long as no one forcibly tries to steal my towels (security), it's quite a simple transaction to buy the towels from a supplier and then to sell it retail on the street.
However, in order for there to be foreign investment and for businesses to grow, which is the next step in humanitarian aid development efforts, there must be a system to enforce contracts. Business contracts are no good if there is no arbitrary, third-party government authority to enforce remedies for breached contracts. If a large multi-national corporation doesn't trust the legal system to fairly judge and remedy a contract case, they will not even consider investing inside that country. World humanitarian efforts need to be focused on encouraging and assisting the local government to provide a sold legal system.
In addition, if domestic businesses cannot enforce contracts they make with each other, businesses will be less likely to work with one another, which will hurt the local economy.
In order for people to have jobs, businesses must be able to grow and prosper. In addition, if a country wants to significantly grow their national GDP quickly, it must included corporations coming in to make significant investments. In order for all this to happen, the legal system must have a strong arm to enforce contracts and be perceived as fair and not corrupt by the business community.
Microenterprises can be the bridge to sustaining people as the community development process progresses into a larger and more complex society. But in order to have long-term sustainability in community development, there must be business large enough to provide jobs for the less entrepreneurial members of society in order to prevent another humanitarian disaster. In order for these things to take place, a strong legal system must be established early on in it's community development and world humanitarian NGOs need to lobby for this.
Foreign Investment
After burning through $500 billion in world humanitarian aid and another $200 billion in loans they can't pay back, Africa has still yet to see sustainable community development in most of it's nations. Through corruption and mismanagement, the money basically disappeared with most nations in Africa needing more.
With the billions of dollars of world humanitarian aid that went into Africa with no results, it's ironic that it might actually be China with a fraction of that cost that lifts Africa out of poverty. It is yet to be seen, but if you look at the sectors of society in Africa that are the most promising, is where the Chinese have landed.
Granted, there are reports of Chinese mistreatment of African laborers in addition to the fact that China is trying to extract as much natural resource from Africa as it can. But just think about the alternatives. Chinese employers may mistreat their laborers, but those workers always have the freedom to quit. In addition, African government also has the power to mitigate abuses like every other developing country had to learn to do as it came into industrialization. It's nothing, just growing pains. Maybe as the Chinese are investing, world humanitarian NGOs can take up the cause of being watchdog agencies who keep the investors accountable. Humanitarian NGOs can also establish labor unions to represent the interests of the workers.
The Chinese aren't doing this to be nice or helpful to Africa. They are doing this out of self-interest. But if you look at it pragmatically, the Chinese are actively building great infrastructure like roads and factories, and they are infusing cash into the local economy. They are also providing jobs and valuable services that help the economy. China might be self interested, but they may end up doing more good than all the $800 billion that has come and gone into Africa so far.
My point is in terms of community development and humanitarian aid is that foreign investment has several mechanisms that make it incredibly efficient and cost-effective way to make a positive impact on a developing nation.
One, foreign investors have a vested interest on how their money is spent. They have an incentive on cutting costs and increasing yields. In addition, although they still have to pay brides in a way to get their way, it's probably a lot less than what the US loses when they give a lump sum of millions of dollars to an African nation.
There's also accountability. When the US gives an African nation $20 million, it gets great publicity. When the African nation squanders it through corruption and mismanagement, the US is off the hook. Donor countries continue to still give aid for their own publicity even though they know most of it will go to waste so the African nation gets off the hook as well. No one is accountable and the broken cycle continues.
When a foreign investor puts money into the country and squanders it through paying bribes and mismanagement and don't get the return they were looking for, they lose their money or they get fired by their company or they lose any chance of raising more money from their partners. In addition, the African nation loses a foreign investor and a bribe payer. Everyone then becomes accountable: the people inputting the money and the African nation.
Foreign investment will always get more bang for the buck than foreign aid and will keep corruption at a minimum. Foreign investors won't invest if their bribes make it not cost effective to do business in a country where a donor nation like the US will do it anyways.
