I'll Give You Money If You Promise To Follow My "Religion"

Foreign aid organizations are well-known for linking their aid to ideological change. Usually this involves setting some stipulations upon which the aid money is contingent. These stipulations usually center around the promotion of various Western ideologies - democratic reforms, free-market reforms, women's rights, individual liberties, etc. etc. The IMF is well-known for this, however even smaller NGO's participate in such aid-linked ideological reforms - some explicitly and others more implicitly.

I personally find this strategy to be both ill-founded, and oppressive. I believe that development projects should not be linked to ideological changes for a number of reasons including:

1) it subverts local movements by linking them to western movements which often hold negative connotations in many parts of the world

2) it takes advantage of vulnerable people who need essential service and essentially holds them hostage to promote our own western political views

One example to demonstrate how the (well-meaning) promotion of ideologies by foreigners may paradoxically have the opposite effect of that intended follows below:

As many of you know, Canada has a Communist Party. Now, imagine that there is a Chinese NGO whose mandate is to support communist movements around the world in the hopes of "enlightening people to the joys of communism"(much as we Westerners do in our zeal to "enlighten people about democracy"). This NGO may well consider lending their support to the Canadian Communist Party. What effect do you think this endorsement would have? Do you think it would increase Canadian buy-in to communist values? Or do you think it would do the opposite?

Personally, I think that if such an endorsement were to occur, most people would develop increasingly negative feelings towards the Canadian Communist Party. Why? Because of all of the negative connotations that Chinese-style "communism" holds in most Canadian's minds. Their endorsement would backfire and ultimately subvert the Canadian communist movement.

Similarly, if western women's groups went into Pakistan to preach women's rights (as they do), I believe that it would do a similar disservice to the Pakistani women's movement. Because of the connotations of western women that exist in Pakistan (that we are "loose", "easy", and "lacking in morals") - endorsing a local women's rights movement would actually cause people who may have been sympathetic to move away.

Besides being wholly insulting to the legitimacy of another cultures' chosen world view, besides being an instrument of holding poor people (who need these essential services) hostage to ideological reforms, this ideologically-linked aid in fact has the possibility of having effects that are directly opposite to its intent. Much like Colonialism, these blatant neo-Colonial excercises will no doubt bring about more misery than development.