The Spirit of Ozanam : (January 2009)

Frederic Ozanam possessed two wonderful qualities. He was graced to see the person of Christ in each poor person and had the ingenuity to formulate practical ways of working to alleviate the effects of poverty in the lives of those he and his companions served. To others of his contemporaries he was a brilliant young academic.

A recent newspaper article praises the efforts of another young French academic who has devoted much time and energy into improving the lot of the poor. Esther Duflo has just commenced a series of lectures at the prestigious Collège de France on Paris' left bank. At 36 she is the youngest ever to be asked to lecture at this famous institution. She is described as a 'development economist'.

Originally planning a career as an academic historian, her experience as a voluntary aid worker during her holidays turned her towards development economics.

Fr Perry Gildea - Vincentian Fathers

Cliftonville Road, Belfast 15

She wanted to discover the economic principles which would ensure that aid granted to the poor in the developing countries achieved the hoped for result. It was obvious that despite the billions in aid that had been poured into project after project and country after country, desperate poverty remained.

She formed the theory that there must be some way of testing the effectiveness of anti poverty programmes and above all to discover why and how they often failed. From that she progressed to a system for scientifically 'random testing' such programmes.

This was not an intellectual exercise, it involved being in the field. Her research was carried out in villages in India, Ghana and Kenya. Her search was to discover in careful detail the practical field and often small things which can make a difference in improving the lives of the poor.

She encourages economists and others to engage in practical field research to discover the reasons for success or failure of programmes at a local level. One of her important discoveries was that aid programmes will often need simple human incentives to be accepted by those for whom they are intended.

It is not enough to provide money and materials for schools if neither the pupils nor the teachers turn up. If the programme is accompanied by school meals, or uniforms and the teachers have status and salaries then pupils and teachers will be there and the programme can then go on to achieve its long range purpose.

She also concluded that prejudices on the part of the aid organisers may need to be challenged. For some instance, offering incentives along with aid is considered as bribery by some, but if that is what is required for the aid to be taken up and work, then it is not bribery but an incentive. A long term project may require clear short term benefits to those for whom it is intended.

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Recently she founded the 'Poverty Action Lab' to put her ideas into practice. Now the World Bank among others is 'testing' the effectiveness of programmes in ways outlined by Mme Duflo. She has devised research methods to determine how anti poverty programmes can be more successful and thus reduce the terrible scourge of world poverty.

Her determination to encourage the professionals to test their methods and improve them is making a difference, hence the invitation to address the distinguished Collège de France.

We can surely learn something from the ideas of Esther Duflo. We should always ask how we can make what we do for the poor be more effective. We must also ask how and what can we do to move them out of the poverty which so often traps them in an endless spiral of dependency? Ozanam and St Vincent would certainly be concerned about these things.

Fr Perry (January 2009)

Esther Duflo