Kill Aid!
8 July, 2009 | 16 comments | Category: Africa, Current Affairs, Senduq - Nani, book snip, peace & conflict
(picture courtesy of agent_of.chaos)
by Nani
Finally! Phew! The debate has started… It’s a long time coming. Many Africans have often raised this issue among themselves; it’s a well-known secret.
Aid, as we know it today, is it hurting or helping Africa? Does it really reach the people it’s meant to? Does it even reach the continent at all, or is it true that it simply goes from one bank account to another, from the West’s to the Swiss belly of the African elite? … Well there are enough cases to purport that Aid has very rarely achieved its objective – i.e. to alleviate poverty, achieve long-term economic growth, and create jobs. Think of a country that owed exactly the amount of money its president had tucked away in the Swiss banks. No, Aid as it is implemented in Africa today has never, and will not ever achieve prosperity.
My first encounter with the now famous and rightfully acclaimed economist Dambisa Moyo was when I watched her interview on Charlie Rose of March 25th. I accidentally run into the interview online a day or two later while I was aimlessly wandering on the web. That same night I bought Dead Aid from Amazon.
This book is an absolute MUST read. Niall Ferguson who wrote the forward for the book gives us the perfect reason for why we should seek out and read the book, “The simple fact that Dead Aid is the work of an African black woman is the least of the reasons why you should read it. But it is a good reason nonetheless.”
Ferguson is quoted saying …“ It has long seemed to me problematic, and even a little embarrassing, that so much of the public debate about Africa’s economic problems should be conducted by non-African white men. From the economists (Paul Collier, William Easterly, Jeffrey Sachs) to the rock stars (Bono, Bob Geldof), the African discussion has been colonized as surely as the African continent was a century ago.” — The author herself thanks organizers of her recent debate at The Munk Debates in Toronto, Canada for ‘allowing (her) to say a few things about the state of (her) continent, even though (she)’s not a celebrity
Loved her feistiness there!
One particular country she likes to pick on is Ethiopia, -- and rightfully so. Some statistics show that about 90% of our annual budget is based on Aid, and our government does not seem to have any intention of changing that any time soon. Why should that be a problem? The simple fact that it (Aid) removes the basic incentive in a society is the simple answer. As Moyo put it – we all live in a world of incentives, individuals, governments, policy makers all are incentivized to do the right thing. Remove that and you lose the basic motive that binds all elements together. In an Aid system governments have no incentive to respond to their people. You vote, so what? The government does not rely on tax money for its existence so what its own people say has no bearing whatsoever on its agenda. Moyo points to the startling fact that NO country on earth has ever recorded meaningful economic growth or reduced poverty on an Aid based system. Yet, our government seems to support the notion that more Aid is the only way that the country can survive, (and I’m left thinking – when are we ever going to think beyond survival?) and is seen asking and insisting on getting more donor money year after year. Since the famine that preceded Haile Selassie I’s overthrow we have been known as the begging bowl of the world. But will that change anytime soon? Likely not.
What is also persuasive about Moyo’s argument is that she points to specific facts of how and when Aid has been effective, for Aid has its place. But like everything else, when it’s in check. She also offers specific alternatives countries should consider if they’re serious about developing, which is really what is lacking in most African governments. And despite all the rhetoric, the donors themselves are not really serious about being agents of development in Africa. They have chosen to ignore all signs and evidence that Aid does more ill than good, but they still choose the easy way out, offer and when given accept little band-aid solutions to shut quibbling rumors that the rest of the word does not give a whit. — And so they only give us funny papers, papers we’ve never seen, but are supposed to be thankful for, and are worth nothing! ‘Cause the harsh truth is ‘Africa is to development, what Mars is to NASA. No one really believes that Africa will ever develop, and no one really believes that we can live on Mars’
This post is to thank Ms Moyo for her outstanding work, for attracting attention to the subject and showing the true character of Aid – that it is really ‘the disease of which it pretends to be the cure’ (Karl Kraus).
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