The argument adduced in Alex de Waal's Famine Crimes posits that humanitarian agencies enable bad governments, occluding their own goals of advancing human rights and helping the poor. While de Waal is paranoid in his suspicion of agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), his thesis holds water. De Waal begins by presenting a history of the impact of neoliberalism on African politics. He explains how neoliberal reforms encourage African states to shed their responsibility for famine prevention and welfare protection (De Waal, "Famine Crimes," 3). By prescribing privatized aid for famine crises, neoliberal advisors weaken "the forms of political accountability that underlie the prevention of famine" (4). Thus, by taking the onus away from local politics, governments are less likely to consider famine as a political issue.
Furthermore, an influx of humanitarian aid does nothing to obviate African nations' tendency to violate their citizens' rights, which is what de Waal sees as unfailingly leading to famine (9). By carrying out the functions of a state, humanitarian agencies stunt the evolution of the state to develop political contracts (11). They also make nations dependent on foreign assistance (86). By feeding bad government, agencies continue the cycle, much like the Darod militia, which was created by bad government and then created famine (166).
De Waal traces the development of Africans' ability to fight famine from the early 1900s. Colonialism,
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