African Aid Must Stop (1)
Born and raised in Zambia but educated at Oxford and Harvard, Dambisa Moyo was an uncommon face as a black woman in the world of high finance. Now with the publication of her book Dead Aid, she has become an uncommon voice, a strong and eloquent advocate of stopping financial aid to Africa as the best way to help the troubled continent. It is an idea contradicting rock star campaigners, Western politicians and grassroots wisdom all at once. As she makes her way to Canada for a highly anticipated debate on Monday with Stephen Lewis and others at the Munk Debate on Foreign Aid, she spoke with the National Post about her ideas and the hazards of opposing the aid orthodoxy.
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Q What’s so bad about rich nations sharing their wealth with poor nations to help them cope with their struggles?
A No country on Earth has ever achieved long-term growth and reduced poverty in a meaningful way by relying on aid. It’s just never happened. So we’re pushing a strategy that has no evidence of working anywhere on Earth. And we have years of evidence that the aid strategy doesn’t work.
It boils down to incentive. We have to ask ourselves: Are African governments incentivized to do what governments all around the world are expected to do, that is, deliver public goods: education, health care, infrastructure and security? Unfortunately an aid system has allowed African governments to abdicate their responsibilities…. So until African governments live or die based on job creation and providing goods to Africans and not rely just on getting aid money, we will continue to see a situation where the private sector has not developed and Africans do not have job opportunities. The billion dollars that go from government to government … can make African governments lazy with respect to doing what they are supposed to be doing. It also fuels corruption, can fuel civil wars, inflation, the debt burden, and so on.
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mike Says:
We’ve known this about welfare on a civic, provincial and federal level, why should it be hard to understand on an international level. Try sell this idea to the maritimes.
mid island mike
Posted on June 1st, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Mac Says:
Stopping financial aid (or welfare) is contrary to the tenets of socialism.
Posted on June 1st, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Philanthropist Says:
Socialists want power over people more than anything else, it doesn’t matter how awful conditions are for Africans.
Posted on June 2nd, 2009 at 5:35 am
Cynapse Says:
Moyo’s challenge is going to be finding supporters who actually want to trade fairly, as opposed to people who simply don’t want to give money to “them” (aka “socialism”)
Posted on June 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 am
Mac Says:
True enough. Consumers want low prices and everyone along the retail chain want as much profit as they can scoop which means the amount paid to the producer is always as low as they can make it. There are ways to address this but throwing money at the problem isn’t a viable solution. 40+ years of doing so hasn’t resolved the issue, has it?
Posted on June 2nd, 2009 at 8:31 am
Cynapse Says:
One rather obvious thing the West could do is support states that are actually trying to build a market the legit way. Ghana and Namibia have long been trying to build their economies (the former has a very promising stock market on the go) and could probably use with a bit of an investment injection. Once Africans get a taste of capitalism from the non-colonial point of view, it will probably spread like wildfire. The West could do very well to turn that aid into investment.
Posted on June 6th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Mac Says:
Hmmm…. investment instead of aid… It sounds too good to be true…
Posted on June 7th, 2009 at 12:27 am