223. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
Rating: ☆☆☆
Recommended by: Dennis Prager
Author: Dambisa Moyo
Genre: Non-Fiction, Economics, Public Policy, Politics, Foreign
208 pages, published March 17, 2009
Reading Format: Book
Summary
In the past fifty years, the rich countries of the world have spent more than $1 trillion in development-related aid in Africa. Shockingly, all of this money has not improved the lives of Africans. Instead, things of gotten worse. In Dead Aid, economist Dambisa Moyo seeks to explain how this happened and what can be done to improve the lives of ordinary Africans. Moyo draws a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected foreign aid and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase. She explains how overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the need for more aid.
Quotes
“In a perfect world, what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving (unfortunately, too often countries end up with more dictator and less benevolence).”
“In 2004, the British envoy to Kenya, Sir Edward Clay, complained about rampant corruption in the country, commenting that Kenya’s corrupt ministers were ‘eating like gluttons’ and vomiting on the shoes of the foreign donors.”
“Africa is addicted to aid. For the past sixty years it has been fed aid. Like any addict it needs and depends on its regular fix, finding it hard, if not impossible, to contemplate existence in an aid-less world. In Africa, the West has found its perfect client to deal to.”
“What is clear is that democracy is not the prerequisite for economic growth that aid proponents maintain. On the contrary, it is economic growth that is a prerequisite for democracy; and the one thing economic growth does not need is aid.”
“It is worth pointing out that there has been some notable success with a concept known as ‘conditional cash transfers’; these are cash payments (in a sense, bonuses) made to give the poor an incentive to perform tasks that could help them escape poverty (for example, good school attendance, working a certain number of hours, improving test scores, seeing a doctor). The idea of conditional cash transfers has met with much success in developing countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru (a similar programme is now being tested in the boroughs of New York City).”
My Take
While economist Dambisa Moyo posits an interesting idea that less foreign aid is the key to solving Africa’s poverty issues, her book Dead Aid reads a bit like a master’s thesis. It was interesting at times, but also a bit boring at other times. I particularly enjoyed her discussion of micro-lending as part of the solution for Africa. I was also fascinated to read how much China is investing in Africa, something I was vaguely aware of, and how the future of the continent is likely to be Chinese.
