A long time missionary in Africa, Jim Harries accurately observes the results of outside resources on the African people. Find more by Jim at http://www.jim-mission.org.uk/articles/ or email him at jharries@africaonline.co.ke
Jim writes:
People in the aid and development business rarely take account of the 'counterfactual argument'. The counterfactual argument, is that which looks at what might have been had things not have been done as they were done. In terms of the provision of aid and development, what would the position of countries have been if they had not been provided with aid and development assistance? (I am grateful for Deryk Belshaw for my awareness of this notion of the counterfactual.)
More often they look at a condition at the beginning and end of their intervention. Then they try and explain all changes according to the impact of their intervention. They rarely consider what might have been had they not intervened.
For example, a development plan may be drawn up for a country or region. Various economic indicators are chosen that are thought to show the presence of economic advance. Policy makers take credit for the advances made, and find excuses for their failures. Their underlying assumption is that an economy is somewhat like a machine that ought to behave predictably according to their rules. Their other assumption is that without their intervention things would not have changed. (This could of course mean that rates of change would not have changed. i.e. If there was already a state of economic deterioration then the assumption is that this would not have been halted without the provision of the outside aid or intervention.)
This rather crude way of treating peoples as parts in a machine, enables those carrying out interventions to take credit for whatever changes are occurring while rarely taking sufficient account of what might have been the case even if they had not intervened!