A challenging encounter in Geneva earlier this month involved a discussion of the ethical dimensions of the humanitarian and international development crisis that is disrupting lives the world over. It was a window into the pain and sheer bafflement of many involved in foreign assistance programs. Two organizations--Arigatou International, a Japanese founded transnational organization, and Globethics, a global network that promotes ethical leadership, education, and sustainable development—organized the event to provide a “safe space” to explore the situation and what lies behind it. The goal was to look deeply and positively for paths forward, even as the meeting’s tone was dominated by bewildered efforts to understand and deep concern for the impact that cuts are having on people and vital institutions. The event prompted reflections about why the crisis has emerged and the core values that demand an effective response and action. The current shock waves demand serious reflections that go well beyond a recalibration of messages – they demand that we reexamine fundamental moral and practical questions to orient future action.
The rapid, chainsaw cuts to humanitarian and development programs led by the Trump administration are sending shock waves across broad and diverse communities. The wounds are felt both by those whose lives depend on the food, medicines, and other support now shut off and by those whose lives have been devoted to what we have understood as worthy, ethically-driven work for the public good. On top of the immediate human destruction the cuts are causing, the radical rejection of fundamental goals and values is profoundly troubling. Reasons to care about people across the world vary, including among many other reasons: pain at acute human and environmental needs, religious principles, a vision of how the world should be, for example. My five decades of experience in the field highlight what I see as the deeply held ethical principles that lie at the core of development and humanitarian work. We need to look urgently to those principles, including why and how are they are rejected or misunderstood, as we try to understand what is happening and look to what can and must lie ahead.
Skepticism about foreign assistance has obviously always existed, and support for it, in the United States and elsewhere, has always been rather fragile and mixed. Many surveys show a constant public overestimate of how much of the US budget goes to foreign aid (25% perceived versus 1% actual is often cited). But surveys also highlight a deep well of compassion across different communities. Few people are more demanding of rigorous critical assessment and bold change, when required, than those most deeply engaged in day-to-day humanitarian and development work. The brutality of actions and sweeping attacks on the whole endeavor we are seeing now, however, call into question core ideals and principles that many, myself included, took, to a degree, for granted: that people are moved to act by people suffering if they know about it, that common aspirations and a shared humanity give us responsibilities to act in an interconnected world, and that, with the means that we now have to do so, we have real prospects of ending poverty, drastically reducing suffering, and building a world in which all people benefit from these opportunities to thrive through life.
What, then, inspires (an accurate but in this context jarring word) those wielding the foreign assistance chainsaws? It’s hard to believe that they truly believe their own assertions of vast corruption and misuse of funds, given elaborate accountability mechanisms and frequent and publicly available assessments. Less implausible are calls to a domestic focus, though a priority to care here at home does not seem to be a primary driver of current policies. Looking at some competing ethical frameworks at work, various forms of realism seem to explain a view of international but also human affairs, with somewhere lurking a priority to profit financially and slash government spending. Some term this “Neanderthal realism”; more politely (to our Neanderthal ancestors) I term it raw realism, a framework that in theory justifies laser attention to self-interest and immediate benefits. Is this indeed the framework, and its deeper ethical principles or ideology, that’s at work? Ethical approaches do demand an effort to appreciate counter arguments, so the question is important, however difficult to appreciate.
So what are the counter arguments, framed in ethical terms? What indeed are the ethical arguments for a robust foreign assistance program? And what should be its primary focus and priorities?
Some time ago I forced my own thinking into a ladder of priorities. An important reality infused the analysis: motivations are virtually always complex, as are arguments we use in different settings. There are multiple justifications for foreign assistance, most to my mind good, some iron clad, others worth reflection, debate, and balance. But it is a mosaic that varies in different circumstances: aid to Afghanistan, for example, would be motivated and shaped very differently from Guatemala or Indonesia or South Africa. Some arguments are as simple as they come: caring for others and trying to help where there is either urgent or longer term need. Others, linked to a common welfare and security, are more layered and complex. While my personal priorities are driven by a deep drive for human rights and fairness, I find compelling the arguments that charitable impulses and systems are vitally important; charity draws on the kind of compassion, empathy, and serving others that show the “best” in people: these are a constant inspiration. Market driven arguments are plausible and important: when all are better off the collective good will be enlarged. And fear can be a driver: deep inequalities, wide suffering, and conflicts are dangerous for our safety wherever we live because of the bitterness and anger that inevitably emerge in threats to our own security. But as I put it in my “ladder” piece, “We should first care about poverty because working to eradicate it is fair and just. Human dignity, the divine spark in human life, underlies a global ethic that mandates giving each person a fair chance. That ideal of human dignity and equality, however distorted throughout history by unequal relationships between men and women, between races, and between rich and poor, underlies our modern focus on rights.”
A remarkable global consensus on broad moral principles is reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals that all United Nations members agreed to in 2015 (including, of course, the United States). This framework in moving language echoes in noble terms the best of shared principles behind global institutions. It is a commitment to common efforts to assure a decent life for all people everywhere. It also aims to translate ideals into action with goals, targets, and indicators, as well as regular monitoring and refreshment. While the COVID-19 crisis and other developments have driven the SDGs off track, few have questioned the ideals. Yet the United States now is coming close to repudiation, a part of the strategic focus on raw realism and a fixation on narrowly defined national priorities.
There are powerful arguments going back to ancient times for the ethics of care, compassion, and empathy. Some involve pure altruism, but others link these impulses and duties to self-interest and common welfare. Wise people from many countries have argued powerfully for different ethical drivers for assisting others, at home but also far away. With the current crisis facing foreign aid, reems of print and voice debates among practitioners of different sorts, diplomats, academics, religious actors, and philosophers, are trying to understand motivations and impact, to reaffirm basic principles, and to look ahead. We must in this difficult time work to reestablish in various ways our understanding of the values that drive work for foreign assistance and reimagine the moral and pragmatic foundations of our global responsibilities, beyond reiteration and recalibration, in ways that are “fit for purpose” in the troubled contemporary environment.
