Yes, They Know It’s Christmas

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Yes, They Know It’s Christmas

By Michael Matheson Miller

The 1984 song Do They Know It’s Christmas? was written to turn the world’s attention to famine in Ethiopia. It succeeded at raising awareness and millions of dollars those in need. But for 40 years, the song’s inevitable return every holiday season has perpetuated a false picture of Africans.

Despite good intentions, the song is clueless. For instance, Ethiopia is home to some of the most ancient Christian communities. In fact, one of the first Christian converts mentioned in the New Testament is an Ethiopian baptized by Philip. Yet Bob Geldof, Bono, George Michael, Boy George, Sting, and the rest of the Band Aid “supergroup” ask with straight faces: “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?”

The answer is yes. They knew then and they know now. But there is a bigger problem. As Senegalese entrepreneur Magatte Wade says in our film, Poverty, Inc., Do They Know It’s Christmas portrays a sentimental vision of Africans as helpless and dependent on Western largesse. Who are the protagonists of development in Africa? According to Band Aid, it’s up to you, generous Westerner, to “feed the world.”

It sounds curmudgeonly to critique a pop song, but unfortunately the paternalism expressed in Do They Know It’s Christmas? underlies much of the West’s attitude and concrete policies of managing the developing world. Anyone who critiques the foreign aid model as ineffective or harmful is liable to accusations of being “heart dead and brain dead,” as Bono of U2 once put it.

According to defenders of the status quo, without foreign aid millions of people would die. This claim is made despite decades of evidence showing there is little to no correlation between foreign aid and economic development. It also makes no distinction between emergency aid and the thousands of projects and programs managed by USAID.

The recent DOGE - USAID shake-ups have focused on corruption and waste as the impetus for rethinking US policy. Putting a spotlight on the absurd pet projects of unaccountable bureaucrats—with no obvious connection to actually helping poor people—was critical to exposing the many failures of USAID.

But keeping the focus on corruption and waste in reforms of US foreign assistance risks missing the bigger picture. The fundamental problem of global aid is not fraud. It’s exclusion. I’ll highlight two examples.

First, the foreign aid model spends an enormous amount of time and money on health care, education, and infrastructure. No doubt these are important aspects of a flourishing society.

But ask yourself two questions. One, isn’t the purpose of development to help countries become independent? Yet we’ve been doing the same things since the end of World War II. Second, if you have good health, education, and roads, but you don’t have private property, access to justice in the courts, or the ability to start a business and participate in the formal economy, what would you do? The rational response is to emigrate, join the political or criminal classes, or despair.

As the late Ghanaian entrepreneur Herman Chinery-Hesse explains in Poverty, Inc. “You are stuck in a hole with all your skills and talents, and that is unfortunately the way it is.”

By focusing our foreign assistance on infrastructure projects, our aid often has the unintended effect of propping up corrupt regimes. As Michael Fairbanks explains, it cuts the link between the government and its people. Foreign aid subsidizes bad government and creates incentives for governments not to build the institutions of justice that would enable people to create wealth. If a government has no incentives to build a commercial society it won’t.

A second key problem is that foreign aid typically follows a “disaster relief” model. No serious critic of foreign aid argues against extending assistance during an emergency or natural disaster. We in the wealthy West have a moral obligation to help. But we’ve used the emergency response approach to solve chronic problems. It has not worked.

People are not poor because they lack material goods. They are poor because they are excluded from the institutions of justice that would enable them to create prosperity in their own families and communities. These are things that we take for granted in the United States, but are missing throughout Africa and the developing world -things like property rights and clear title to land, access to justice in the courts, and the ability to register your business and participate in the formal economy. This especially impacts women, minorities, and the poorest who lack political and social connections.

What do you think the United States would be like if we didn’t have property rights and rule of law? Do you think entrepreneurs would take risks and build companies if they could be confiscated without cause?

The United States is not perfect, but it is the expert in creating entrepreneurial societies with widespread opportunity and social mobility that attracts millions of immigrants every year. But instead of actually helping countries build the institutions that enable prosperity, USAID promoted on disproven theories and ephemeral and fashionable causes that perpetuated the global poverty industry.

The United States should not cease doing development. But it should avoid paternalistic, sentimental, and neo-colonialist policies that delay the development of business, and harm the US image. It should stop subsidizing corrupt leaders abroad and crony capitalists and entrenched bureaucrats at home. Instead, it should partner with countries to help build rule of law and create the conditions for enterprise so that people can create prosperity in their own communities and become independent engines of enterprise and growth.

Poor people are not objects of our charity, our pity, or our compassion. They are subjects and should be the protagonists of their own story of development. There will always be a need for generosity, help, and charity, but the point is not just to “do something.” As we say in Poverty, Inc, while we need a heart for the poor. We also need a mind for the poor.

It is time to re-think poverty. The fundamental question is not how to alleviate poverty, but how to help create the conditions for people to create wealth. The restructuring of USAID has been messy and volatile, but it is an opportunity to build a different relationship with Africa and the developing world. Rather than listening to the voices of pop stars or the leaders of the poverty industry, it’s a chance to listen to a different chorus of voices, people like Magatte Wade and entrepreneurs and innovators who are charting a better way forward.

You can view my recent conversation with Magatte Wade, here.

Michael Matheson Miller is a Senior Research Fellow and Chief of Strategic Initiatives at the Acton Institute. He is the director of the Center for Social Flourishing and is the director and producer of the documentary, Poverty, Inc.

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