Michiel’s piece, though, is exactly right in using the term “useful idiots”. It’s just that he draws the wrong conclusion. Of course there are pressures placed on decision-makers, and of course the safeguarding of aid’s impartiality (not to mention neutrality and independence) is vital. But what about the idiot part?

Even if we agree that they are able to pack up and go home, do expats really make a good decision-makers. Here’s a few of their common traits: (a) can’t speak the local language; (b) can’t read a local newspaper (ditto for radio, TV, etc); (c) don’t know much more about the history, culture, peoples or politics of a given context than you could find out by reading the background section of a Lonely Planet Guide; (d) don’t have an established relationship (let alone hundreds of them) with a single local person; (e) have phone contact lists full of other foreigners and aren’t trusted (nor, perhaps, distrusted) by people in power etc etc. In the end, let’s admit that a relatively high level of ignorance and blindness are at least just as inimical to objectivity and sound decision-making as are pressure and bias.

Michiel makes a great argument for expats as people who can open doors. But idiots don’t build effective houses. Worse still, they have trouble even noticing if they didn’t. In the end, rather than making a case for being useful, I’d suggest a better solution would be to get rid of the idiot. The model there? Locally empowered NGO hires a few powerless, foreign front men who provide the “protection” Michiel seeks but aren’t allowed to interfere in the development and implementation of contextually effective programming.