经济学人下载:富国、穷国和弱国

The MIFFs are a headache for aid donors. Middle-income states in general need little financial support or technical advice. Yet the MIFFs contain many poor people whom the local government cannot or will not help. As Andy Sumner of the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University has argued, the West’s aid business has grown up in poor, stable places, such as Tanzania. The UN’s millennium development goals, like most other aid declarations, reflect the old way of doing aid. Donors admit that what works in poor, stable countries probably won’t in those which are not poor and not stable.

援助国对于MIFFs也感到很头疼。一般来说，收入中等的国家需要的资助和技术鸡翅不多。然而MIFFs有很多当地政府无能力或者不会去帮助的穷人。就如Sussex大学发展研究所的Andy Sumner说的，西方的援助之手已经伸向贫穷且稳定的地区，比如Tanzania。联合国千年发展计划，正如大多数其他的援助宣言一样，属于旧方式。援助国承认那些在贫穷且稳定的地区行得通的方案在那些不贫穷却不稳定的地区可能行不通。

MIFFs also pose a big problem for Western governments which want to influence them. Being no longer poor, their elites rarely see the need for aid, military or developmental. Being fragile, their governments often consist of complex, fractious coalitions that are hard to deal with. The combination is deadly. Look at Pakistan. In a warning to the country, America’s Congress this month suspended $800m worth of aid. That drew barely a flicker from the government of President Asif Ali Zardari. The aid is worth less than 1% of GDP. Internal political calculations matter more than external ones.

MIFFs也为那些想要施加影响力的西方政府出了一个大难题。由于他们不再贫穷，这些国家的精英们觉得不需要援助，不管是军事上还是发展上；由于政权很脆弱，这些政府经常面对那些复杂而又随意的组织的挑战。作为对这个国家的一个警告，这个月美国国会终止了价值8亿美元的援助。而这些援助对于Asif Ali Zardari.总统来说，不过小菜一碟。这援助占他们国家的GDP含量还不到1%。内部比重远比外部比重重要。

The MIFF phenomenon is not entirely new. Papua New Guinea and Equatorial Guinea—both undeveloped places with big extractive industries—are longstanding examples. But until recently, there were few of them and they mattered less. Now countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Nigeria may pose bigger problems to the West than traditional failed states, such as Congo, whose disasters are mostly visited on their unfortunate citizens.

MIFF现象并不新鲜。Papua New Guinea和Equatorial Guinea是两个大型采掘业所在地，都属于欠发达地区。但最近，这些国家慢慢脱离了这一行列，他们的影响力也越来越小。现在对于西方国家来说，巴基斯坦、也门和尼日利亚等国家比起那些脆弱的传统国家（如刚果）是更大的挑战，因为后者的国民遭遇得更多。