During much of 2009 European TV audiences were shown a commercial in which Sean Penn makes a plea for a "human rescue plan." The left-leaning actor rolls out a long roll of dollar bills showing the costs of the U.S. and EU stimulus plans, as well as the cost of the war in Iraq. He then compares the long rolls with a single dollar bill — representing the $3 billion dollars he claims could feed every hungry schoolchild for a year.

I have seen this commercial perhaps a hundred times on Swedish television. And each time I thought to myself: "Shouldn’t he also roll out the bill of total foreign aid, of some $120 billion dollars annually? And can you explain why this doesn’t feed every hungry schoolchild 40 times over?" But then I realized that the most interesting question was why the commercial was shown in the first place.

The ad is paid for by the UN World Food Programme. And on their homepage one can find that it is not only translated to Swedish, but also to Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish, French, Danish, and German.

Let's for one moment set aside the fact that researchers such as Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen have demonstrated that hunger very rarely occurs in "democracies," or that research based on more than half a century's experience has shown us that foreign aid does not foster prosperity but rather dependence. Let's assume that foreign aid is indeed the solution to poverty and hunger.

Why still would the UN World Food Programme show this ad across Europe, week after week and month after month? After all, the message of the ad isn’t that the TV audience should contribute to foreign aid, but rather simply that the UN is doing a great job. And that money spent on the UN is much better, much more humanitarian and utilitaritarian, than money spent on the United States or the EU.

But if the UN is so utilitarian, why fund this ad? It can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions, just to show one advertisement once on television. How much does it cost to run the same ad again and again across the world? It certainly can’t be cheap.

Let's assume that the UN believes its own message, that $3 billion a year can feed all hungry schoolchildren. Shouldn’t they be streamlining the vast UN bureaucracy to be able to gather this funding on their own — or simply spend the money that is allocated to the UN World Food Programme on actually feeding the hungry?

I can’t say whether or not UN officials actually believe in the message they are themselves propagating. But I do know that government and intergovernmental agencies are not driven by utilitarianism, but rather self-interest. And the self-interest of the UN is to be popular with the European public. And so, money supposedly going to feed the hungry is used for an expensive ad claiming that we ought to feed the hungry.

Photo: Sean Penn in the commercial

Nima Sanandaji is the president of the Swedish think tank Captus.

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Bonnie said:

Just asking How many children could be feed by redirecting the money spent on these commercials? How many more children could be fed by redirecting the money given as Nobel Peace Prizes? How many children could have been fed by redirecting the money spent on travel to and from Copenhagen last December? How many children could be fed by redirecting the money Green Peace spends protecting whales?

January 08, 2010

Henry said:

Even the Lefties Should be Upset I think a main point here is that "money supposedly going to feed the hungry is used [instead] for an expensive ad claiming that we ought to feed the hungry." Honest liberals, even those furthest to the ideological left, should be very upset about this. How close was the cost of this advertising campaign to the sum it claims we need to feed the hungry? Another point is that this is indicative of the kind of agency we have in the UN. While I'm sure that there are some honest and good-natured people working within the organization, the ultimate drive behind almost all of their actions is empowerment. The UN is a sovereignty trap and we are helping to foot the bill.

January 09, 2010

Flu-Bird said:

Hollywood nit-wit Just think how much SEAN PENN is possibly earning for this ad i mean they dont do this for nothing like any of these hollyweird celberties they dont work for free

January 09, 2010

oh poor hungry people said:

lol ; D

January 24, 2010