CJ - Development Visionary?
The West Wing: fictional TV series about liberal American President.
Voices of the Poor: rigorous research project involving over 60,000 people in 60 countries run by the World Bank.
Strange but true: both recommend the building of roads as a key development intervention.
Voices of the Poor, published in 2000, says ‘the lack of basic infrastructure, particularly roads, transport and water are seen as defining characteristics of poverty’ and recommends ‘more emphasis on roads connecting villages to each other and the nearest town’. C.J. Cregg, the fictional (alas!) White House official, in an episode broadcast in 2006, replies rather more succinctly to the Bill Gates-type figure who is offering her $10 billion to spend on making the world a better place, ‘I’d build roads’.
Did anyone listen? According to the OECD database, after rising for three years, aid from OECD donors for transport infrastructure fell in 2001, the year after Voices of the Poor came out. It hit a low in 2003 and started to climb, fell again between 2005 and 2007, and then hit a high in 2008 with over 9 billion dollars going to the sector. I have no idea what lesson you can draw from this – except perhaps that poor people and fictional characters are equally powerless when it comes to influencing how aid is spent.
