March 30, 2009 at 8:26 pm

Thank You, Edith, for your contribution in the ONE Blog. You have stated very well what a lot of us feel and what a lot of us are concerned about if Ms. Moyo’s ideas were to ever be implemented.

While we always want to welcome constructive discussion, we must also stand strong for the progress that we have all worked so diligently and so tirelessly for in fighting extreme poverty in the world.

AS ONE, debbie
http://www.mpwn-uganda.org

March 31, 2009 at 12:44 am

I think that Moyo’s argument will be welcomed among those who have been resisting increasing foreign aid all along, and that will make positive change all that much harder, when these arguments resonate. I am glad to learn that ONE is actively seeking to rebut what she is presenting. I have seen her interview on TV, she has a very slick presentation.

I would like to know, would she like to live in an Africa without the basic healthcare, clean water or education that is now being provided by foreign donors?

She is appearing on C-Span Q&A this Sunday, April 5, 2009 at 8pm/11pm ET

March 31, 2009 at 5:41 am

Once again you are misrepresenting the ideas of Ms Moyo.

It is a low blow for you to refer to the ABC interview and state that it is an example of bad intentions towards humanitarian aid. What Ms Moyo says is that humanitarian aid is not a long term solution i.e. there will be a time when Africa can support itself.

This view is a lot more rational and optimistic than that put forward by organizations such as ONE which seem to think that poverty and suffering are perpetual and inescapable. If you can’t envisage a time when humanitarian aid would no longer be required, then you are in no position to act as spokespeople for the long term best interests of Africa.

The whole point of a market economy is that it creates surpluses of wealth which can be retained and put to use in times of need. America doesn’t beg after every hurricane, Australia doesn’t beg after every drought, and Africa needn’t either. Your solutions seems to be based around “reform”. This would suggest that you accept the notion of bureaucratic planners continually throwing money at the problem and that it is merely the particular things they are spending money on that are the issue. Perhaps aid would work if you tweaked a little bit here and there, put better PR on it, and use emotive headlines to create the false impression that empowering Africans will lead to their death? Fortunately not everyone is so naieve to believe that, or condescending enough to think that we know so much more than a billion Africans that we can usurp their day to day decision making power.

You say that you want dialogue and vigorous debate, yet your graphics give Ms Moyo’s book a grade “F” and you describe it as “thin on the facts, big on hyperbole and reckless in its call to cut off all aid”. It sounds more like you have a pre-determined workd view and you are working backwards to justify it.

Believe it or not, suffering isn’t our natural condition and there is another way of existence than waiting on edge for the next big disaster and planning the next begging campaign. The sorts of solutions that people like Ms Moyo are proposing will go a long way towards helping the people of Africa shape their own destiny. Which is the last thing that I could say of ONE.

March 31, 2009 at 6:03 am

I appreciate Debra’s contribution to this discussion and only wish that I could address the holes in Steve’s response above me.

I hope that more ONE members who have been with this movement for years and who know the falsity of what Scott says will step up today and post their opinions because I need to get ready for work and can’t post mine right now.

Thanks.

God Bless Africa, debbie ~

March 31, 2009 at 7:50 am

Although I don’t agree with everything Moyo says, I believe she has brought a much-needed perspective to a tired debate on aid effectiveness.

Most of the problem in this debate arises from blanket statements. Aid has failed Africa and is counterproductive. Aid is the answer to Africa’s problems. And so on. Neither view is particularly accurate – the answer is far more nuanced than that.

And really, I can’t see what ‘falsity’ Scott communicates above. He seems to put forth a passionate and reasoned view. Dismissing someone like him should require some argument and evidence, not just dismissal.

Brendan

March 31, 2009 at 7:52 am

Scott, good points. Most of those arguing against Ms. Moyo’s book don’t really address her central point. I may not agree with everything in that book but it is factually true that aid has not led to the kind of growth and poverty alleviation that will transform Africa. You can argue that without aid things would have been worse; I would argue otherwise. IMO, aid breeds dependency (the crux of the issue), makes governments in Africa less accountable to their own people and breeds corruption.

Should aid be reformed? To the extent that it leads to better outcomes, sure. I am not an expert on this but in my naive view, aid should be given with the provision that it will be eventually phased out, it should bypass governments (on both the donor and recipient side) as much as possible, and the inputs into it should be sourced as much as possible from local resources.

The core issue though is that aid in Africa breeds a dependency culture and implicitly presumes that Africans can’t carve out their own destiny ; this is why we must jump on the notion of aid being phased out over time. A commitment to an aid-free day will make African leaders and their citizens engage in the kind of dialogue needed to bring about sustainable development. Will such an approach mean some pain along the way. Sure, but that is the price we need to pay to “grow up”.

It is interesting that years after the West concluded the need for welfare reform in their own economies, we have this push again by a lot of folks in West to carry out welfare on the international scene even though such aid or welfare has a dismal record.

My last point: as an African who has lived in multiple countries in Africa and the West (and currently living in both the US and Ghana), I can say that the majority of Africans I know get ticked off by the sentiments expressed in this fashion by Debra:

” I would like to know, would she like to live in an Africa without the basic healthcare, clean water or education that is now being provided by foreign donors?”

Did I grow without these things in Africa? No. But I know a lot of people who did, including relatives. I currently help some of these people right now and in my own little way have seen the problems engendered by a dependency culture.

Instead of impugning people’s motives, why don’t we assume that we all want the best for Africa but do disagree about the way to achieve progress on the continent. You see, if I wanted to question people’s motives, I could also say that Debra’s comments say more about her than the issues she is supposedly debating. Maybe she likes the “God” feeling she gets by being able to deliver aid to these desperately poor people who are so willing to give her the adulation she does not get otherwise.

Africa has a ways to go for sure. But the potential is there and can be seen in small stories of success that happen every day. We need to believe in the capacity of Africans to make their own way in life by following time honored principles to growth and development i.e., better governance, hard work, deferred consumption and adherence to property rights and rule of law. Underlying all these principles is the need for a society in which the ruled and the rulers join in a social compact that aims to move the entire country forward. You see, aid sabotages the necessary processes required to bring about that compact since the rulers know they will continue to be “bailed-out” and hence refuse to take the steps necessary to build a real civil society.

March 31, 2009 at 7:56 am

Well, at least there is a conversation going on. Sort of. This response starts off well, but quickly deteriorates into exactly what many of us have a problem. The idea that Dr. Moyo somehow is bent on destroying the lives of several Africans. In any many places it would be ludicrous for a foreign organization to continue an attack on an native of the region who has seen a better way. To be honest its getting a lot of Africans thoroughly upset and I suggest ONE change there tactics. I completely agree with Scott, there seems something predetermined and ONE will not shift from there positions, thats fine, thats your perogative, but many of us Africans are being put off by this vilification. Just in case ONE or any other organization out there thinking they can shut up Africans through an innuendo-laced campaign, you have another thing coming. At some point you have to engage us as equals, Dr. Moyo is not speaking of something foreign to Africans, many Africans feel the same way. It would be interesting to know how much money your African “experts” are making from running donor programs. This is upsetting.

March 31, 2009 at 8:22 am

three cheers for dambisa and boos for edith- surely it is clear that dambisa was not saying zero percent of aid money gets through- however our transparency research over the last decade shows that in many places way less than half of aid gets through but worse it does not get spent in a way that consistently compounds development the way sustainability demands. Only transparent and compound organisational systems achieve communal progress over time. To see this look as the empowerment systems designed in bangladesh the nation that started a third of a century ago with the very least 100 million people have ever had and is one of the few poorest nations that it is making compound progress ahead of millennium goals.

March 31, 2009 at 8:25 am

I agree with Ridiyen, but I also understand where these ONE fellows are coming from. They have deliberately mis-read Dambisa’s argument because they know that should her recommendations be embraced, the goose laying the golden egg [the aid billions they are fattening themselves on] will be gone. Dambisa doesn’t argue against humanitarian aid but the other manifestations of this well-intended evil; the aid that ends up in a few people’s bank accounts and not the intended beneficiaries.
Edith mentions HIV/AIDS; is it because there are more people living on HIV/AIDS than those living with it? If so, is she in the former group? Away with the notion that nothing good can come from Africa.

March 31, 2009 at 9:10 am

I expected more of ONE and don’t understand why humanitarians would want to stand in the way of something that might actually help someone.

ONE has blatantly misrepresented Dambisa Moyo’s views at every opportunity.

On no less than page 7 of Dambisa’s book it clearly states “There are obvious and fundamental merits to emergency aid…..This book is not concerned with emergency and charity-based aid.”

So the people at ONE read enough of the book to call it “reckless” and grade it an “F” yet did not even make it to page 7!

Dambisa is also a patron and on the boards of several charities that support children and microfinance initiatives in developing countries so she has first hand experience of what she is talking about.

This artificial controversy prompted me to take a look at her own website http://www.dambisamoyo.com where I can see all the press she has had. In particular, the Charlie Rose interview which can be seen here: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10175 . Reading and listening to her actual viewpoints gives me a very different conclusion than reading about ONE’s biased interpretations.

March 31, 2009 at 9:44 am

Debra i cant believe an educated person like you would turn and around and slash so blindly at thin air. What exactlty has scott said that makes his debate weak. Also i noticed while reading that the people at one seem not to have even read the book, im not 100% sure about it, but its either that or they’ve got amnesia or memory like a gold fish (last for abt 2 seconds). Im not being rude but speaking facts. She clearly stated in her book that humanitarian aid, charity and emregency aid can still be kept but over time we should go off it, makes sense if the government get of bilateral aid i.e governemt to government aid then africa would probably begin to see positive increase because for courrut leaders to still money there would have to be money to still. For coup d tats to take place the people taking over will need to do some work as there would be less free money to still so either the african on the ground would some way flourish.
The fact that ONE has decided to attack like this just shows that their not worried about africans but more like job security for them and their fellow agencies arround the world. I f they did this for free if the directors of these organisations and the staff all did this relatively for free then maybe we could have been looking at their arguments from a different angle.
Anyways to sum up my points i think the people at ONE need to go back and read the book and not judge her just by one interview, and this can be seen by the fact that they couldnt even distinguish between the types of aid she was pro and against. And the idea that she should not say that africa should not depend on being able to treat their own and solve their own emergency one day just means you dont have africas best interest at hand. And i havent herad bono come out to speak and say hey im going to move my speech from just look at poor africa to hey why dont you invest in africa and give them a job and not just donate to aid agencies and employ 500000 westerners. Boost our own economy further and leaving behind africa. Now thats a line we should here at the next big poverty festival sing it Bono

March 31, 2009 at 9:52 am

Sorry in a hurry didnt prrof read so excuse my errors

March 31, 2009 at 9:55 am

In paragraph 7 of my post above, I made a mistake. What I wrote: “Did I grow without these things in Africa?”. What I meant to write: “Did I grow up without these things in Africa?”.

The reason why Ms. Moyo is generating so much buzz IMO is because she is making accessible to the wider world, arguments and viewpoints that have been bandied around by educated Africans for many years. Most of us respect the sentiments of those who push aid in the West inasmuch as we believe they want to help the continent. We don’t want to look ungrateful but deep down we know that is not the way to go for sustainable development in the long run. The evidence is around us. Look at the metrics of growth and poverty alleviation, look at the local agents of aid organizations riding around in SUVs with NGO plaques, look at the political leaders who are forever trotting off to conferences in the West but will not deign to visit the villages in their own country.

The key is to see aid a temporary bridge to a better tomorrow. Having a sunset mentality in the aid process and sticking to such sunset provisions will force the tough decisions necessary for sustainable growth.

March 31, 2009 at 10:31 am

I have just received Dead Aid in the mail, I admit I have not read it yet. However, I do not have to read it to know or understand what she is talking about. I immigrated to Canada in 1980 and did not go back to Zambia for 21 years. When I went back in 2001, I found my sister, her children, and her grand children whose parents had died from AIDS and other ailments were starving! I had to go to the nearest town to buy food. On my way back to canada, while in Lusaka, I went to Manda Hill (a modern shopping centre). I could not believe the affluence that surrounded me in that little space. All of sudden, it was like I was back in Canada. My point is that Ms Moyo is right on the money (excuse the pan). Foreign Aid does not percolate to the very bottom as it should.

In the last 9 years working with my sister, her children and grand children, we have started a farm. I pay workers and my relatives directly from here. I was impressed with how much work they had done by hand when I went back again in 2007. Last year they made $7,000 from the sale of maize. I sent them a tractor after I came back. This year they will probably make more than $10,000. These are the same people who were starving 9 years ago. If I had relied on foreign aid they probably would be dead by now. No wonder Ms Moyo is calling it Dead Aid.

March 31, 2009 at 10:37 am

Did I say “excuse the pan” ? I meant “excuse the pun” now it makes sense.

March 31, 2009 at 10:41 am

Dambisa Moyo’s theme and book are both beginning to generate the attention they deserve. Scott Tunde [above] makes some excellent points, which cast suspicion on the agenda of ONE for its obviously blind reactive criticism.

ONE is an immense organization and no doubt many of those involved have good intentions, but there are always questions to be asked and its negative reaction to Ms Moyo’s book generates more of them.

Could it be that people like Edith Jibunoh do not wish to consider the realities underlying Ms Moyo’s opinions because they are too immersed in “aid as an industry” and “aid as a source of income”?

March 31, 2009 at 11:09 am

I worry the folks on this thread are defending someone whose ideas are being questioned without looking at what’s really happening.

First, ONE isn’t an organization that goes around trashing people and misrepresenting their opinions. In my memory, I can’t think of a single time they’ve ever engaged in that kind of debate. The response above is in response to comments like these on the blog that accused them of sending a secret letter to discredit Moyo when in reality they were looking to bring African voices on the ground into the debate.. why? in the thread of comments above “the west”, a generalization as broad as “africans,” is said not to know what’s going on on the ground. They can’t win.

I said this last week and I’ll say it again. If every dollar of aid to africa was cut off tomorrow it wouldn’t have any impact on ONE’s budget. They don’t do aid. I would say they’re above it. It’s why I like them. Unlike moyo, a goldman sachs banker educated in “the west” they don’t profit from either outcome of this discussion. (Yes, I just attacked her credibility.. notice one isn’t doing that… that’s what that would look like).

Scott I agree, and I think ONE would as well, that Africa needs a strategy that brings about long term economic growth. While your disaster relief metaphor is colorful, I don’t think it has any bearing on either the state of many african economies and the problems they face nor do I think it does justice to how aid is actually implemented on the ground much of the time.

The other thing I’d suggest everyone keep in mind is that while a good policy debate is something usually welcomed by all, Moyo has taken this to the mainstream media. That was what she said on the ABC interview. At best, she’s taking herself out of context (at worst she means it). But what’s important is that changes in policy happen more often as a result of sound bites and less often as a result of thoughtful policy conversations, which is what makes what Moyo is saying dangerous. In america, someone saying cut off all aid because it’s good for africa.. gives folks looking at an already tight budget the excuse they need to do just that. ONE just sent me an email talking about cuts to the International Affairs Budget if you need that to be any more real.

Whitney, I am sorry to hear about the experience you had returning to Zambia, but I question how a pocket of wealth and continued poverty proves moyo’s point. It could have been much worse without it.. moreover your family’s success, while clearly private aid, represents a form of aid that made affluence possible for your family. Not everyone has a wealthy relative like you.

I think the discussion is good less I come off too harsh, but I am surprised to see so many folks agree with someone on the fringe.

March 31, 2009 at 11:15 am

“I would like to know, would she like to live in an Africa without the basic healthcare, clean water or education that is now being provided by foreign donors?”

I have issues with this statement and as long as donors have this perception about us Africans, they still have got to think their heads straight cos such an attitude is not acceptable. So what should we do? clap hands and dance for you because we are not good enough for anything other than your aid? What we are saying is-we are tired of receiving your aid cos it is not a solution but a problem. If you are telling us that aid in Africa is the only way to address the continuing crises, then give us evidence to prove that foreign aid has achieved economic growth and reduced poverty in Africa. I think that is exactly what Dambisa and other Africans are looking for, some evidence that your commodity is worth selling. I am yet to see that evidence in my lifetime.

What I have witnessed so far, is the money going to offshore accounts of corrupt leaders who invest in arms, luxury holidays and presidential jets. Aid has benefited the already stiff pockets of corrupt tyrants while their population starves to death. Giving more aid fuels that problem because aid does not benefit poor people on the ground. Let’s not be ignorant when we have enough evidence right before our very eyes.

It is high time that One and other donors admit that aid is not a solution for Africa because it has failed Africans. It is time that such donors speak a trade language and not aid language. We don’t need aid with protectionist conditions; we want to trade on a level playing field. Aid should be a temporary measure and not a permanent one. When Aid has gone dry, there will be no private jets and no arms to fight with. Then our leaders will wake up and stop acting like the West owes them anything.

March 31, 2009 at 11:35 am

Zandile Gabela:

“So what should we do? clap hands and dance for you because we are not good enough for anything other than your aid?”

That’s a heartbreaking thing to say, and a hideous insult to all those who love and have fought for the people of Africa.

March 31, 2009 at 11:38 am

Zandile, ONE is not a donor.

March 31, 2009 at 11:47 am

Henry W. I am not wealthy by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. $500 a month pays workers and gets to the people who need it, as compared to millions that end up benefiting very few. That is the point I am making. If anybody wants to help, skip the middleman!

March 31, 2009 at 12:12 pm

A more sinister effect of Aid/NGO’s which Dambisa does not talk about is the effect of Aid on Africa’s most precious commodity-it’s Human Capital-Young,Ambitious,Highly Educated Africans.
Today,many young,educated Africans, who could be starting ventures have resigned themselves to working for an NGO or Aid Agency. An excert of a recent conversation between me and my fellow African collegue(a top 10 US MBA Finance graduate):

Me:Hey so about that land,are you going to start the Farm back home in Africa like you said,look even corn can make money these days.

MBA:Oh yes,the business plan is out there,these guys even want to fund me

me:Lets do it,i am in

MBA: aaah…you know,i am actually thinking of going to work for an NGO instead

me: Why

MBA: NGO’s are where is the money is man!I know another African guy educated in the US who went back joined an NGO-he has 2 SUV’s now and gets paid $100K.Look if you want to be rich in Africa,you gotta work for an NGO.

And there went a possibly profitable venture that may have provided jobs,fed and lifted people out of poverty. A sad consequence of Aid indeed.

March 31, 2009 at 12:48 pm

So much Aid has been put into Africa for so many years; what does Africa have to show for that Aid? More begging!!
Why is the above situation repeated over and over again? Poor Governance.
Poverty in Africa has always been a result of poor governance, the best example is Zimbabwe! You can put billions of “AID” dollars in Zimbabwe but as long as Mugabe is there poverty will increase.

The only “Aid” needed in Africa is to get rid of people like Mugabe, not professional “Aid” providers driving around the dirt roads of Africa in their air conditioned SUV’s doing work which African despots should be doing in the first place! Stop the Aid, let us go hungry and then we shall kick out the Mugabe’s and Museveni’s of Africa.

March 31, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Henry W
For starters you keep saying ONE is not an AID organisation what exactly in a short sentence do they do and do the staff there get paid or do they do it for free. Also when they campaign to raise money they dont campaign on the basis of how well Bono can sing do they, they raise money based on how poor little africa and africans are starving. So call it what you want what ever it is the staff and people who work there get paid from the donation made.

You also said that whitney gave her family some form of aid well guess what, what whitney did is completely different to what aid is doing in africa she went straight to the root of the problem the people and funded them. She didnt give them just a cup of water she built them a tap and taught them how to build one too. So now when she isnt there and when she can not support for what so ever reasons they can do it again on their own. AID has clearly not done this, because in 60 years africa has gotten worse, so when people like you speak i dont know what exactly your seeing or defending and i say this in the most respectful way. What aid agencies whom byu the way are all westerners are in africa all they do is give cups of water and nothing else. The only people with sustainable growth are the aid agencies and their staff ( who by the way arnt africans.) A simple example to prove that aid is not working well look at the recession has the 60years of aid given african leaders the strength to try and solve their problems no they are now glorified beggars asking the world to rememeber them in the crisis. A crisis in which countries affect across the globe are doing what they can to rectify the problem by THEMSELVES. What can you say about this.

“I would like to know, would she like to live in an Africa without the basic healthcare, clean water or education that is now being provided by foreign donors?”

The quote above i got from Zandile who stated that this is bad and not the right thing to say. I support her completely.

If you look in africa today the so called children your raising and sending school are graduating and when they graduate where are they going to work, well we dont have to guess in the west, so what economy is actually gaining from their education clearly not africa. Theres no point send a child to school if there is no work for them in their country thats just a waste of time they might as well stay illiterate and go and farm and be garanteed food for their stomach.
Also as an african i would not like to live in africa with the current aid program because its still not doing much for me other than sitting down and begging only difference is i wouldnt be begging on an international scale like the african leaders and i wouldnt be doing it from an SUV with prada shoes. The devil does wear prada lol.

Also people against dambisa keep using the healthcare card and clean water crap as an excuse to stand against her, when she has clearly stated that she has no problem with humanitarian aid or emergency aid so ONE and all their supporter need to drop that argument and come up with something new and effective.

JOHAN you state that the foolowing comment was bad or insulting

“So what should we do? clap hands and dance for you because we are not good enough for anything other than your aid?”

Well it may sound harsh but thats the truth, its not working, instead of taking it as an insult ask the question what can i do then to help and make this work, well for instance you could donate money directly to people give them the capital to kick start a business if every one did what whitney above did for her relatives i dont think africa would be where it is today. If the trillions of dollars over the last 60 years was used in this way i think we would have gone further than this in africa. Switch off the mentality of im here to save poor lil old africa and turn on how can i trade with these intelligent people who are will to work, how could i raise money to start a business that could emply lots of africans or even just a few to create job opportunities. There are 15 countries in africa with credit rating and africa is open for business.

You might say i dont know any one with a business in africa well there are sites out there were you could donate money to people who are trying to kick start businesses examples are
http://www.kiva.org

Finally Ngozi Kolangos story line above is the harsh realities of africa everyone knows that working for an ngo is big money and can give you good holidays how does that look to the people who are in need of that money.

many africans who graduate either dont go back home because well theres nothing to go back home too or join these aid agencies once again no jobs are being created for the african they claim to be helping

March 31, 2009 at 1:33 pm

There are 5 main problems with the aid industry:

1. Aid is irrelevant. Aid has never been more than 1% of Africa’s GDP. And obviously, Africa’s GDP is maybe 100th of the level needed to sustain decent living for Africans, So even if you doubled or tripled or even quintupled aid, it would still not do enough.

2. Investment is far superior to aid when it comes to getting people out of poverty. If you’re ready to give the money away as charity or aid (if you will), then you might as well decide that every aid dollar should be invested. That way, aid will be subject to discipline, would be more sustainable, and would allow for prioritisation.

3. Aid makes the discussion about African development, and the world’s policy about Africa to revolve around aid. Unfortunately this promotes the notion of Africa as a hopeless continent instead of the correct narrative of Africa as a place of great opportunity, however challenging, for capital. This contributes to Africa not getting as much investment as it should given its being the region with the highest returns on investment in the world. More than anything, what holds Africa back is its lack of integration with the rest of the world. Africa is the one continent that is isolated from all the others.

4. Aid focuses on what does not work in neglect of what does work. While 300-350M people in Africa might live in extreme poverty, whatever is the fashionable definition of that, There is a larger number who do not live in this kind of poverty. Resources should go towards this people, especially crucial foreign capital and knowhow, etc. If those who do find a way to prosper in Africa are supported Africa is more likely to find growth and development that way.

5. The aid industry is unfortunately a waste of time involving sending 20 year old Canadians to build fences in Africa. African human resources should power African development. This is fundamental. Western missionaries can not save African and should not earn cushy salaries in Africa doing things Africans could well be doing.

Those three points taken together dictates that African must simply forget about aid and focus on other means of finding resources for development.

March 31, 2009 at 1:38 pm

From my experience, the African wakes up every morning thinking of how he can generate enough from his labour to eat and to sustain his/her family. I am certain that there are very very few Africans who wake up and think; “I better get to the aid dole line so I can eat”. Where there are such people, they are profiting from emergency aid.

The other type of aid does not touch the lives of real Africans. I am 32 years old and I grew up in a city of 15 million and I have never seen, heard of or known anyone who ever benefited from an aid programme. Except for the people I know who work for NGOs or aid organisations.

March 31, 2009 at 3:37 pm

To Henry W’s comments above:

I don’t believe most of the people chiming against the Aid-Recipient complex are attacking ONE or any one particular organization. It is the very concept of Aid as a driver for economic growth and poverty alleviation that is being examined.

As has been said elsewhere, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This is the context of the argument against aid. Look at the metrics of growth in Africa over time (a time in which aid flows from the “West” continued to increase) and one cannot but come to the conclusion that aid hasn’t helped and IMO it has actually hurt in a number of different ways e.g., by fostering a dependency culture, by removing accountability on the part of leaders, increasing corruption etc.

I also disagree with your assertion that Ms. Moyo’s views are on the fringe. In my world, what she is saying is something that has been bandied around in numerous occasions going back 20-30 years. She is saying what a lot of Africans with the faith in our capacity to develop are thinking and saying. The big difference is that she has superior marketing and is getting in front of the mainstream media. Wouldn’t you agree it is a good thing to get a different perspective on aid, a viewpoint different from the typical West donor viewpoint?

Finally, can you tell me where and when the “thoughtful policy conversations” on aid will take place in order for me to participate? If you are so worried about an open dialogue on this matter, even if it is conducted largely in sound bites, methinks you don’t have strong arguments for your case. In any case, this debate has also being happening in forums that are not addicted to sound bites e.g., quite a few magazine reviews and interviews, TV shows like Charlie Rose etc. Plus, let us not forget blogs like this.

Cheers.

March 31, 2009 at 3:51 pm

I would hate to cast aspersion on many of these African who have posted up their comments here but it is clear that they are not currently experiencing the pain many of us who live and work in Africa are. So it is very easy for them to sit in armchairs with thier white proffessor freinds and their natural propensity to pride and say Africa is not that bad….things are good……we don;t need aid.

The fact of the matter is that there are many Africans who do need aid. That there are disastrous consequences to cutting off aid to Africa- and yes even government flows. (a million Somalias could be on the horizons if African countries lack the ability to maintain a monopoly of force) And it is also true that while aid to Africa indeed hardly reaches the larger population (majorly because it returns back to the West via private bank accounts, Moyo is blind to this reality), the little that does has an appreciated little impact- without which many of us would be dead. So lets cut this optimistic crap you western African academic are propounding. Little has gotten better, the rich (and the Chinese) are now billionaires the poorest still die from hunger and war.

I just read Moyo’s book and I am very sorely dissapointed with it. It proves sadly that the Africans in diaspora are not living in the same reality as their brethren back home. Moyo’s entire thesis as I understand it says that aid is the root of all the troubles in Africa. Nothing could be further from the truth. No doubt aid has caused its own share of confusion, (just as free market exploitation that make the Chinese our neo-colonial masters has) but there are other factors, some even more important that aid that has blunted aids effectiveness.

One of the most important for me is its lack of co-ordination. The scenario has played out a thousand times in front of my very eyes: Aid agency comes to Nigerian village, builds well. No one monitors it. Few years later, well is broken…no one fixes it. Another money must be spent. There is no program for aid….and even when there is, they are all acting multilaterally. Some of them are even clueless. As for the governments, let us just agree that they are a lost cause until all these intellectuals enjoying life in the west determine to come home and fix something.

There is also the question of quality education. I finished high school only a few months ago. At a USAID and Jesuit funded institution that ferries its graduate to the west. I was lucky, I had the good fortune of a scholarship. Now I am in Canada where I have found better opportunities to learn what I must. I know you accuse me but what should I do with a university that lacks a library. Or even worse with libraries that do not have a copy of “the communist manifesto” or “wealth of nations” or “power of the powerless”. What do I learn when every other week is a strike and the lecturers cannot speak properly and discourage intellectual discourse. What do I do when my grades are simply a function of the professors limited understanding and how much he likes or hates me or the amount of money my parents give him. Every year, we churn out half literates from our “universities”. The corruption extends even to the high schools where females must have sex to get grades. I learn nothing. Now I am in the same line…. waiting for a Western education to enslave …sorry educate me. I have made a promise to return home. God knows if I will keep it. I read somewhere that most of Africa is under the age of 24. God knows all these young people need education…..a GOOD education.

ONE is an important organization Ms Moyo and you intellectual Africans do not like because they are not ready to sit in armchairs with you while your brothers and sisters die of starvation, because it insists that smart aid is a solution that can jumpstart African development, because it knows that poor people cannot depend on fallible financial systems for their livelihood, because it knows that to end poverty we should be acting as ONE.

But let me be clear. Aid is definitely not the panacea to Africa’s problems. It needs to be phased out at some point. However, at this time, there are fundamental questions that must be answered at this stage.

The China and India that Moyo makes so much noise about had significantly literate populations before their growth ascents took place. How many Africans are illiterate? They had conscientious governments with the interests of the people or at least the states greatness at heart. Where are these governments in Africa? They had intellectuals who came back home despite the risks and uncertainty associated with such moves. Where are our intellectuals? (I know- they are in the west littering Goldman Sachs and the Universities with the knowledge they have gained by their people’s sacrifice). They had citizens, dutiful citizens who loved their countries and wanted the best for it. Where are our patriotic citizens? (half of them have dual citizenships and only care for their nuclear families good).

Lets be frank, Africans especially those in diaspora have not done well for their own continent. So I think it is highly hypocritical for them to criticize foreigners with good intentions. If they can stop pontificating from the West and come home and tell their people what exactly it is they should be doing…maybe we will trust them again.

Good luck to Moyo as she makes millions off our sweat and tears……..She is very smart and Zambia needs her more than these American Television hosts and Goldman Sachs do but whatever she does is between her and her God.

PS: Please I am about to sell my copy of Moyo’s book so I can use the money to fund my colleagues’ education in Africa. If you disagree with her ideological “out of touch” solutions to African development please be encouraged to do the same.

March 31, 2009 at 4:45 pm

Also if you ask any african, what is the problem with your country they will say their leader followed by lack of jobs and facilities. You never hear them say were not getting enough aid i.e they know have to work if they want something productive in their life time and im not even talking about educated africans we are talking about illiterates

March 31, 2009 at 6:10 pm

The number of people who are alive and self-sufficient due to ONE and all the humanitarian organizations abroad are the true testament as to why we need to continue and increase funding. We are making a difference, but still have much ground to cover.

March 31, 2009 at 7:19 pm

Greg S
I take it that since it taking 60 years to get to where we are with the use of aid in africa then we can expect another 100 years before africa begins its own trading and then maybe another 40 for the continent to get self sufficent. In the mean time we can make due with the aid, the corrupt leaders and the civil wars.
Also out of curiousity what do you do. If you dont mind me asking.

March 31, 2009 at 7:35 pm

Interesting debate.

:: Who’s Right?

Maybe the dissenting African and other voices here are correct.

Maybe those of us in the West, and we ONE supporters — who, like ONE itself, do not raise or accept money — love Africa … well, a bit too much.

:: What is ONE?

ONE is an advocacy group, for those who are interested.

Meaning, 99% of us are volunteers.

Ultimately, we volunteers here in the U.S. have very little to gain by advocacy for Africa.

And boy, do we have to deal with our share of fellow Americans who tell us to stop wasting our time and leave Africa’s problems to Africa!

:: The Cost

So maybe the dissenters are right. Maybe all aid, except for emergency aid, should be cut off tomorrow, as a risky, potentially extremely dangerous but inspired and possibly ultimately successful sociological gambit.

But if that happens, I pray you are right.

And let’s consider the parable of the baby and the bathwater.

Let’s hope the costs of this extreme gambit have been properly weighed.

March 31, 2009 at 8:52 pm

What about Phasing out Aid, especially starting with African countries that are “improving” and reducing extreme poverty. This work has to be multi-faceted, and not in competition. Come on intelligent people….no one thing can last forever. Man, where is the African Union? Where are the regional trade groups? I still think that Government accountability and initiatives are key. But things are changing….there are more innovators and entrepreneurs popping up. People just need Capital. Let’s stay positive, productive, and promote best practices. Besides, it’s getting crowded and cramped in the West….things are not all that stable here either. The whole world has to start thinking and doing things differently.

March 31, 2009 at 9:06 pm

I agree with you, Yeamah. Things are changing. Aid is improving, approaches are becoming more transparent, more accountable, more intelligent.

It’s not that Dead Aid contains no good ideas. It’s that they’re framed in an extremist, i
manner. Like all good sensationalist writing, the book hits the correct emotional notes while blending good ideas with extremist conclusions.

Continued reform is needed. If the book hastens this, I’m on board. But it is a perilous path that’s being taken here.

March 31, 2009 at 9:21 pm

Paul
I dont think dambisa said pull of aid tommorw she uses the word whin off aid gradual process but by 5 year and maybe 10 africa should be completely off it. So what is she saying with the resource being provided over the gradual process of letting go of aid africa will gradually be come self sufficient that cant happen with continual increase in aid its not going to work if the african leaders were getting comfy well guess what increasing the aid would send straight to sleep. And why are u One supporters making her sound so extreme with thte whol remove all aid and let it be done by tommorow.
And why arent you one people fighting for increasing jobs etc and not taking pictures of poor kids.
Im not saying your work is bad or you are bad im saying how about a change in approach to the way you help africa

April 1, 2009 at 2:06 am

Sofphlames,

I am becoming very impatient with people who are trying, in vain, to humanize Moyo’s rascally development proposals. In fact we would either 1. laugh it off or 2. claim racism, were she not African.

Moyo particularly states in her book, which I HAVE JUST READ, that we should call all the African leaders and tell them the aid flows end in five years. Then she imagines, they will scramble to “save” their countries failing economies by searching for more aid sources (instead of the more realistic reaction which is that the 20cents on the dollar that Africans are currently receiving will evaporate to Swiss bank accounts at alarming rates)

Unfortunately., I have just sold my copy or I would have actually quoted it for you regardless of copyright laws.

Lets just agree that this is a really smart economist who attempted in vain to simplify an important discussion for the masses and ended up getting it all wrong. Bottom Billion will sell less, but it is disconcerting that a foreign intellectual would be more honest about issues surrounding Africa and development than a daughter of our soil. Shows where the true allegiances of our “intellectuals in diaspora” lie.

PS: A change in approach in the way we help Africa is not closing the tap to development aid that provides the groundwork for development. It is improving the channels of this aid so that it is effective in getting people up on their two feet and leaving them to continue walking

April 1, 2009 at 2:37 am

And by the way…for a change…..I think Ms Moyo has flip flopped enough on Aid that works (or is not dead) and Aid that does not.

Thus her willfully blind fans might want to ask her a few specific questions:

Is the 50million Euro aid that helps to immunize children in Northern Nigeria against polio and other diseases, dead Aid?

Are funds (USAID) especially that invest in the education of young people all over Africa, Dead Aid?

Is aid that funds micro credit activities and infrastructure development in Africa without the costs of selling Africa to China piece by piece, Dead Aid?

Is aid that focuses on controlling the devastating effects of an endemic virus, Dead Aid?

There are many other questions in the same vein.

When I read her book, my interpretation (and I may be wrong, its English after all) of humanitarian aid which she supports is aid that comes during natural disasters (she mentions Katrina like that could happen in Africa, shows how out of touch she is). What she fails to understand is that most of Africa is in perpetual disaster. In her book she infers she is against aid to Zimbabwe even though she can see very clearly that there is a huge humanitarian crisis there. It calls to question what aid she really believes is necessary. she needs to come clean on this because it is confusing. Every one of her interviews has a new definition of aid that should stay and aid that shouldn’t stay.

This idea that all is well in Africa is what infuriates me about you “western-African” economists. Nothing could be further wrong headed. Africa is filled, even today with epic fails, especially in light of the financial crisis. Every country has a stimulus plan, but Africa cannot afford one because Africa has a dutch disease that means that low commodity prices which the budgets depend on has plunged many a government into the financial crisis.

Someone says we are begging…I don;t think we are. We are saying that the countries who have exploited us thus far (whether through senseless economic policy directives or colonialism) have a responsibility for our development. We are experiencing a slight hitch in growth and they are again responsible for it since they recommend for us economic prescriptions that tie our economies so closely together. What exactly is wrong with subsidizing the costs of these stupid experiments (another of which dead aid recommends) for our people?

Dambisa Moyo is visiting presidential palaces and television houses to promote her book, perhaps instead she should be driving around villages and towns, pondering its implications.

As always it proves again….books written in the comfort of goldman sachs air conditioned offices always fall short…..Moyo needs more than statistics (all of which we cannot even adequately verify) to make a reasonable prognosis…she needs to join the one team and travel around Africa….and see the small strides aid is making and the many more lives that remain to be saved by it.

April 1, 2009 at 4:48 am

Mr(s). Aboyeji, I would ask you the following questions:

1. Can you give examples of ‘developed’ countries who developed by receiving aid?
2. Just axiomatically; If you and I encountered homeless people living under a bridge in Ijora, Lagos. Which approach would be a better solution to their problem? A. Give them charity. B. Give them a job? It seems to me that fair trade, investment, and engagement with the African continent is a superior approach to these aid projects where a lot of the money still go to paying expensive foreign consultants, buying up huge SUVs, and chasing foreign as opposed to local priorities.
3. Does aid encourage more people to invest in Africa or to do the opposite?
4. Why is ‘aid’ central to the foreign policies of Western countries to Africa?

You seem to have confused the existence of needy people, and poverty in Africa as the existence of a need for aid.

April 1, 2009 at 6:09 am

BRAVO, Iyinoluwa !

Here is the hidden truth of Moyo’s book that no one yet – except you – had the courage to state:

“I am becoming very impatient with people who are trying, in vain, to humanize Moyo’s rascally development proposals. In fact we would either 1. laugh it off or 2. claim racism, were she not African. ”

If Moyo was not an African but Caucasian of from any other part of the “developed” world and spouted such inherent racism toward African People, this book would be kicked out of publication ASAP!

What Moyo in intimating is that Africans can’t properly govern themselves or that African politicians are all inherently thieves (remember, there are a lot of U.S. & European politicians who also fit this category) or that African people are too dumb to elect the correct sort of politicians to office – this is inherently the thesis underneath Moyo’s words in this book.

HOW CRUEL! HOW INSIDIOUSLY PREJUDICED ARE MS. MOYO’S CONTENTIONS AGAINST THE AFRICAN CONTINENT!

It is her that does not credit African people with the ability to make good choices, it is her that ends up portraying African People as not smart enough, not capable enough to help themselves out of poverty.

This is the underlying thesis of Moyo’s book – the inherent DISRESPECT FOR AFRICA’S PROUD PEOPLE – and I appreciate Iyinoluwa for uncovering this most DISTASTEFUL aspect of Dambisa Moyo.

SHE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HERSELF FOR PORTRAYING AFRICAN PEOPLE IN SUCH A FASHION.

GOD BLESS AFRICA.

April 1, 2009 at 6:14 am

Debbie K,

That’s a ludicrous comment, a complete misrepresentation of what Moyo is saying.

What’s remotely racial about all this?

April 1, 2009 at 6:29 am

Dan,

I am entitled to my opinion as much as the next person. I do not have to defend my opinion to you or to anyone else.

GOD BLESS AFRICA – debbie

PS: I need to go to my job right now, Dan. Sorry – no time for debate. Have a good day.

April 1, 2009 at 8:31 am

Iyinoluwa,

“What she fails to understand is that most of Africa is in perpetual disaster” – this is incorrect and are the sort of sentiments that lead to muddled thinking. There are some parts of some countries that are indeed mired in trouble e.g., Darfur, eastern Congo, Zimbabwe etc. The majority of Africans do not live in disaster areas. They may be poor and lack access to a lot of basic necessities e.g. safe drinking water, electricity etc but they get up everyday determined to survive and do survive in some fashion.

“We are saying that the countries who have exploited us thus far (whether through senseless economic policy directives or colonialism) have a responsibility for our development.” – NO, they don’t. Yes, the European colonial era has harmed Africa but not necessarily through resource depletion. Given that most African countries have been independent for close to 50 years, one could argue that the resource depletion by African leaders overshadows what the colonialists did. Africans must take responsibility for its own development. If you look at economic history, almost every case of broad based growth and development was endogenously or internally driven.

The real damage colonialism did was to our psyche or mentalities (and your remark illustrates my point) to make us not able to think for ourselves. On the elite level, our leaders were groomed to work for Europe and not Africa something that was pointed out as far back as the sixties by Kwame Nkrumah (see his Neo-colonialism book). Do I fault Europe/the West for doing that? No, it was in their self-interest. Africa should also do what is in its self-interest.

The problem we have today is that our rulers don’t have a vested interest in seeing broad based development of their countries. Their self interest does not coincide with their countries self-interest. They can ensure personal profit and continued power by doing the minimal work required to keep their country a going concern; they are helped in this effort by the continued flow of aid money. You see how this comes full circle.

Regarding Iyinoluwa /Debbie K’s comments on Ms. Moyo being a racist. Look in the mirror first. One of things that has become clear over the past 20 years or so since the Berlin wall came down is clarity as to what works or doesn’t work when it comes to economic growth and development. Go back to the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries to examine countries that were successful (and those that were unsuccessful) and you will be able to discern certain patterns. Governance, rule of law, better quality human capital, capital surplus, deferred consumption etc are all elements of a successful growth strategy. Can some aid i.e., “smart aid” play a role? Most definitely but it can’t be the tail wagging the developmental dog.

When people make Africa to be a special case that cannot follow the development principles that have worked for other people, they come across to me as being intellectually dishonest at the very least. If I am feeling uncharitable, I would say such low expectations are derived from their feeling that these poor Africans are not going to be able to cut it anyway. Yes, we can!

As Sese said so eloquently, “You seem to have confused the existence of needy people, and poverty in Africa as the existence of a need for aid.”. What we need are proven strategies of development in Africa. We know what works. Let us focus our collective energies on that. Instead of yet another campaign driven by pictures of poor children, why don’t we have a campaign that ties the poverty of tomato farmers in Northern Ghana, some of whom are driven to suicide when their harvest rots for lack of a buyer, to the subsided Italian tomato paste that undercuts the price of local Ghana tomato farmers. If we can build energy in the US and Europe for reducing agricultural subsidies, we will accomplish more in terms of sustainable development in Africa.

April 1, 2009 at 8:38 am

I don’t have time to respond to all of these comments, many of which have huge merit, regardless of which side of the fence they’re on. But a quick point:

Many comments have a kernel of truth – and that’s the problem. So many people in this debate take their own micro experience and extrapolate to a conclusion that aid either works or doesn’t. This is wrong. It is commonly done, and leads to unconstructive, even obfuscating comments.

I’m a 28 year old Canadian, working in Ethiopia to start an NGO office. We focus on developing and disseminating low cost potable water, irrigation and energy technology, often through free market systems (i.e. people have to buy part or all of the technology).

I have seen firsthand the individual transformation that can happen when this type of work is combined with people’s drive, ingenuity and creativity. I’ve also seen where it can fail, having negative effects. I’m not about to extrapolate either experience to draw a false conclusion of whether ‘aid’ works.

It’s like claiming the free market works to improve our lives because I can choose between a PC and Mac. Sometimes it does (competition fostering better solutions, efficient delivery, etc.) and other times it doesn’t (incorporating environmental and social costs, valuing things like art, education, and so on).

Let’s stop using our personal experiences to falsely justify or dismiss the incredibly complex system that is aid. Maybe then we can have a more nuanced discussion and actually get somewhere.

Both sides of this argument are partly right, and partly wrong.

Cheers from Ethiopia,
B

April 1, 2009 at 9:00 am

You might not feel the responsibility to defend your opinion, but I also have the right to underline just how ludicrous and extreme that opinion is.

The fact that you try to make it a racial issue says more about you than it says about the author. This kind of ad hominem attacks suggest that you can’t find intellectually sound rebuttals of her points.

April 1, 2009 at 9:17 am

In the last paragraph of my previous post, I meant “undercuts the price of local Ghana tomato products”

April 1, 2009 at 9:47 am

ABOJEYI
To be honesnt i really dont know where to start with you, your comments give me jokes. Not only in writing but in her interview dambisa has stated that humanitarian aid should stay but the africans shouldnt get too comfy with it because our government should be able to support us if they do their jobs right. So im not even going to bother with you on that one. On trying to reverse the race card thats just so funny and weak game to play.

If you dont mind me asking who exactly is your sponsor for education in canada. Im guessing an aid agency of some sort might be behind this but i maybe wrong.

“And it is also true that while aid to Africa indeed hardly reaches the larger population (majorly because it returns back to the West via private bank accounts, Moyo is blind to this reality),”

That comment makes me question your motives and why you are truely against this book. Because dambisa has continually said both in her book and in interviews, that aid and bad leaders can not be de-linked in any way. She has also stated that if you cut of aid the only person who will lose significantly are the aid angency directors and the 500000 western staff some africa even in the west who are paid to do it and the corrupt leaders with swiss bank accounts. So where do u get this weak fact from.

“Little has gotten better, the rich (and the Chinese) are now billionaires the poorest still die from hunger and war”

Also this comment you stated has major floors in ethopia and im not say the chinese are god and dont have their own agenda but welcome to a capitalist world my friend, the chinese have employ 100s of ethopian graduates to help in the building of infrastructure and what ever renovations been done in the country along side the trade. This give the graduates not only knowledge and skills but money and food on thier table can you say that aid is doing the same. NO

“One of the most important for me is its lack of co-ordination. The scenario has played out a thousand times in front of my very eyes: Aid agency comes to Nigerian village, builds well. No one monitors it. Few years later, well is broken…no one fixes it. Another money must be spent. There is no program for aid….and even when there is, they are all acting multilaterally. Some of them are even clueless. As for the governments, let us just agree that they are a lost cause until all these intellectuals enjoying life in the west determine to come home and fix something.”

The comment above also has to be addressed based on the fact that the reason they are not well co ordinated is due to the fact that most time there are no africans involved in it as well because the jobs are to busy going to the westerners which in return help further develop their countries show another floor in the aid model. I have nothing against the west but these are the truths of the situation aid staffs and SUV’s.

April 1, 2009 at 9:49 am

You also complain about the education in africa well that has nothing to do with the aid no it doesnt it just has to do with the poor leadership and governance of the nation due to the fact that leaders in africa depend on aid for their holidays to milan and their wives shopping sprees in london. Aid is free money and thats why we have so many wars poverty and people looking for power and access to a place where they dont have to know a thing about leadership, they just have to be yes men and take the money do what they want with it and what ever change is left they send it out to the people

If the canadian government was dependent on aid do you think you would have good education over there i highly doubt it.

“ONE is an important organization Ms Moyo and you intellectual Africans do not like because they are not ready to sit in armchairs with you while your brothers and sisters die of starvation, because it insists that smart aid is a solution that can jumpstart African ”

Well i also guess now that ur in the west u can join us africans in our comfy chairs while the west does all the hard work using the smart aid that hasnt not left africa any better in last 60 years but in fact has mad us the only continent on the earth that is in reverse on every level.

You say we are getting comfy in the west littering the companies and universities but if we go back home what are we going back home to do the so called education you say aid is giving the africans has done nothing but let them graduate and fly out to the west to continue to improve its infrastructures and way off life. So lets see once again the aid model works against africa as it has it creates graduates and also uses them for it own personal intrest creating huge brain drain in africa. Last time i checked Drs across africa are fleeing to the west in search for jobs why is that people graduating from our poor universities are being given jobs in the carribeans without them thinking twice. Why is this happening because when a person gradutes in africa they have no economy to graduate in to simple as that these a true fact that bith u and i western africans both know as true.

You say foregn brains would support and speak the truth of africa well most of those foriegn brains have a lot to gain from africa under aid. Because if africa trades then it means no more quick money no more cheap africans you begin to get equals on the global stage just as india and china are doing

April 1, 2009 at 10:18 am

DEBBIE K
Sorry for some reason my last part of the post didnt go through and could be bothered to write it again
but to debbie you are the reason that people look down on africans im not sure your even african to begin with.The wait of your comment is so bad how can you think she thinks that africans cant elect and make good choice for leaders. Well to be honest i cant argue with you because your statement has an element of truth and its this
AFRICANs can choose good leader because first of all their votes dont matter and so they dont bother voting instead the candidates pay people probably with the aid money to come n and vote for them the true african has no say.
Aboyeji ur comment about dambisa being racist or not is quack and says alot about you i love
Nana
i love your last quotes as it speaks truth completely of africa Aboyeji says african in the dispora lie and paint aperfect picture of africa, where as im been in the uk for 5 year and im yet to meet one who has any thing good to say about the continent and its leadership in terms of money and stealing of it.
Abojeyi is one of those people with the idea that the white man is god and he has for some reason has has something to pay us back for well this is a dog eat dog world everyone is out for themselves and until africa wakes up and joins in their going to continue to be like scavengers who wait for the lion to have their share of the food and have the remains.
Our leader are now glorified beggars so Aboyeji dont try to color it any other way. If they had enough money in their reserved if they had invested in other ways they wouldnt need to beg. Switzwerland has no resouces but human labour andyet they are still one of the best economies not to talk about africa with lots of people on it.

April 1, 2009 at 10:19 am

Hello, my name is Matthew McAllister, I’m a volunteer for ONE in Colorado.

I greatly appreciate Brendan’s comments that pointing out one example of aid working and extrapolating it or finding one where it doesn’t and doing the same is not productive. I also have greatly appreciated Nana’s contribution to the discussion in talking about the greater economic issues that revolve around development, which is what I would like to talk about as well.

ONE is not just about getting more aid money to go to the developing world, it wants to make sure that the money is spent in an effective and transparent way. This is the type of aid reform we are advocating for along with many groups in the development community. This effort is aimed at addressing many of the stories people on this blog have talked about where aid is ineffective and has gone to the wrong places. So to be clear, we’re not looking for a blank check, we want to see where every penny goes and be open to ideas as to how to make it better for the people on the ground.

While we’re on the subject I do sympathize with the concerns earlier about aid breading dependency. I’m an economics student and do believe that our end goal should of course be a developing world that is self-sustaining, and I believe aid does have a role to play in getting there. If we use aid effectively in infrastructure investment then the future yields of that investment should outweigh what was initially put in, creating self-reliance not dependence.

But to return to my main point aid is only a fraction of the full effort required to bring about development and improve the quality of life of those living in poverty. Many people in these posts call for investment and trade, and so does ONE. If you look at the top of this website and click on “The Issues,” you will see one of the main topics we advocate on is trade. I remember one statistic about aid that really has stuck with me was in regards to Nigeria (I believe), which stated that we spend $70 Million in aid and deny $170 Million in trade potential through domestic subsidies. So a very large aspect of what must be addressed is the way our trade policy is structured.

So while I understand that people don’t want Africa and the developing world to be dependent on western aid, I do think people can appreciate that the world is very interconnected and that while everyone wants the developing world to find financial stability, there are aspects of policy in the developing world that hinder that process. This is what we help advocate on. Social equality is not a quick fix, add more money process. It requires looking at the whole picture and seeing what works and doesn’t.

Matthew-

April 1, 2009 at 11:30 am

I, for one, am excited to see so many posts on this blog about the aid issue. ONE must be doing something right if so many voices are this passionate about the subject!

That said, aid is a big idea, and a complicated one. There are many types of aid, and they can’t all be lumped into one basket. We all know that rogue governments and selfish leaders, as well as political and civil unrest lead to instability within African countries and a subsequent misuse of funds. And we also know that this type of misuse of funds is a stereotype and that not all African countries fall into that category.

While I don’t disagree, in theory, with every point that Moyo makes in her book, in reality, aid is not DEAD; it can be a lifeforce, and is helping millions of people who might otherwise languish or die.

To Matthew’s point above, I think the question of whether aid is the “great enabler” of Africa is a valid one. The experiment Moyo proposes (to cut off all aid to Africa in five years) is interesting; what would happen if the Western world just said, “Sink or swim” to Africa? I can understand how Africans take offense at the notion that they’d be helpless without “us.” They wouldn’t, but the issue is too complex to be a “yes ” or “no,’ “on” or “off” situation.

As a Christian and a mother, I don’t want to take a chance on Moyo’s experiment. I don’t want to let helpless children die in poverty while the rest of the world stands back to see what happens. If we can help, we should, and we should never give up on the world’s poor, no matter which continent they inhabit (including North America).

I have invested a great deal of time and a number of years advocating for the world’s poorest people, and I don’t take that responsibility – I should say privilege – lightly. It’s not about deeds, it’s about results. It’s about making this life as good as it can be for those who have less than we do. And by “good,” I mean, the chance to live and breathe and eat and survive childhood and have clean water and be able to go to school. The basics.

And as far as the basics go, the numbers don’t lie:

- If only 50,000 people were receiving lifesaving antiretroviral drugs in Africa in 2002 compared with 2.1 million people in 2007, what does that tell you? Aid is working.
- And what do you say about the 34 million increase in the number of children enrolled in school in Africa since 1999? Aid is working.
- And the drop in malaria rates thanks to increased awareness and joint ventures like the one between a Japanese bed-net manufacturer and a local fabric maker in Tanzania? Aid is working.

Aid is work. But aid has worked. And aid is working. Private investment and microfinance are imperative for long-term results, and so is our continued commitment to providing the kind of targeted aid that makes strides, however small, each day.

As US citizens, our ability to help other countries is about so much more than money, but – even in these economic times – it’s never less than money. So, keep making those calls to congress for foreign assistance … aid is working!

April 1, 2009 at 12:47 pm

This debate is an interesting one. I asked a guy from CARE Canada once, way back in the 80’s, what he was going to do when the whole African was developed. He had no answer. He had no exit strategy. My point is that NGO’s have built a gravy train for themselves under the guise of aid. It is passport to see the world and come home and speak in paternalistic language what a great job they are doing. Well I have news for guys. Your game is up. Plan for your exit now.

On the big picture aid, the government to government stuff. The Canadian International Development Agency, the one and lofty source of aid to Africa ( by the way I was a CIDA student ) has somewhere in its mandate-to promote Canadian goods and services. Go figure. Now here is the kicker sometime in the 70’s CIDA or its surrogate had an ambitious wheat project in Tanzania. Guess what? (Continued)

April 1, 2009 at 12:53 pm

(Continued from previous) They had air heated Canadian combine harvesters the whole works. As if tha t was not enough, they also built an automated bakery where you put wheat at one end and get bread from the other end. I will let you figure for yourselves the ramifications of such misguided aid. Oh did I tell you about the FIAT plant in Zambia. I will leave that for another day.

Cheers

PS Whitney is a boy.

April 1, 2009 at 1:45 pm

Kristi York Wooten,

Your unashamedly claiming any progress in Africa as successes of aid programmes is wrong. The truth is much more complex and that, and not as you blithely state it.

1. An aid programme can achieve some goals. Let’s assume that you are correct that the number of people receiving lifesaving antiretroviral drugs in Africa increased from 50,000 to 1 million people in 2007. Let’s assume this is all due to aid. The question is how has this increased the ability of Africa to deliver drugs to people suffering from serious diseases? Unless that capacity or ability is improving, then aid is failing as a path to development. If an Aid agency gives free lunches to 100 million Africans today, it does not mean it has solved the problem that caused those 100 million to be hungry. This is where aid is an abject failure and not designed for development. While the poverty industry or aid industry, or whatever label you prefer, are right in engaging “civil society”, the fact is that the way civil societies have historically increased socio-economic wellbeing is through market actions. A social enterpreneur offering affordable health services does more by far to increase Africa’s development, and capacity than somebody giving 1000s of vaccines that wont be given next year.

2. It’s ridiculous to claim increases in school enrolment on aid. This is intellectual fraud. That’s how wrong that claim is. Aid is 1% of African GDP and perhaps also 1% of expenditure on education in Africa. If enrolments are increasing, aid should only get a small share of the credit. This very much underlines what’s wrong with aid. It is driven by the missionary instincts of foreigners who want to claim credit for doing good.

3. In the end any positive outcome from aid activities is welcome. Any good done is great. But I am still waiting to learn of any one country that developed by receiving aid. Instead we find many more countries that developed by receiving large amounts of foreign investments, or by the domestic governments successfully improving access to health, education and security to millions and creating large middle classes. We see countries that arrived at development by activities happening in the country in the civil society, using markets.

4. Countries need your help much less than you think. And no matter how much you can help, their ability to help themselves is much more important than anything you can do. Aid is 1% of African GDP. Obviously it is not enough to sustain economic life in Africa. it is in fact irrelevant. It is a tragedy that a large part of the forex receipts into Africa is in form of aid. Why is more money not going into supporting that other 99% of GDP?

April 1, 2009 at 4:40 pm

While tabling for ONE at last year’s Valley Fest at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA., I found myself in the midst of a conversation with a man who would on the surface agree with some of Dambisa Moyo’s arguments in her recent book entitled “Dead Aid.” One in particular connects with her point that aid comes with strings attached. She points to abstinence programing and abortion restrictions, while I heard from my conversation partner about the USA expecting recipients to embrace cultural changes that reflect our nations way of life and economics, and more so submit to the USA’s strategic needs. My Egyptian conversation partner would agree that ideological strings must be cut, but I think would disagree with her conclusion that aid should be cut off.

I began volunteering with ONE for reasons which I could agree with both she and he about “strings,” especially religio-political ideological strings. But one must differentiate between strings and life-lines. ONE and those of us involved in foreign aid know the bath water system of aid needs to be changed, but that one must avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water. One nation should not be expected to accept another nation’s moralistic demands nor become a platform for USA militaristic advantages. That turns aid into enslavement. However, aid without the practicality issues of responsibility and accountability, turns aid into big bucks for a few who benefit from high and multipul administrative costs, and money ending up in unaccountable government pockets. ONE has been a leading voice in the struggle for aid reform, recipient accountability, and debt relief/forgiveness. These and others are vital to the MDG’s and aid success.

ONE staff, and its volunteers and partners work to free aid from the problems of the past so that aid can be one part of the solution for the future. That the MDGs focus on efforts of sustainability and has set a target date of 2015 points to a time when developing nations are beginning to stand on their own feet and function not as aid dependant welfare countries but as viable, productive states needing less and less aid–maybe someday becoming a nation that sends aid to other nations still struggling.

Before Moyo gets out her scissors, she would do much better by clearing her vision so to be able to differentiate between strings to be cut and life-lines to protect. Strings need to be cut away from aid for sure. But cutting off aid is cutting the life-lines for those who are victims of AIDS, malaria, and hunger. There are many African lives in the balance.

Dan Donmoyer
ONE Volunteer in Central PA

April 1, 2009 at 9:09 pm

Dan
I just wanted to ask the number of people helped by aid are they more than the number who arent to what fraction or % is it if u do know i ask respectfully.
Also do you realise that the biggest slum in africa in kenya is not to far away from about 2 aid agencies and and ngo with one of the agencies being THE U.N yet it the biggest slum.

April 1, 2009 at 9:44 pm

JOHAN

“So what should we do? clap hands and dance for you because we are not good enough for anything other than your aid?”

I do not understand what is heartbreaking and insulting about this statement. It simply means should we dance to your tune simply because foreign donors provide us with basic healthcare, clean water or education. Should we dance to your tune despite mounting evidence that aid is causing more poverty in Africa? Are Africans not worth more than aid or do you want us to beg forever? If my statement is insulting, maybe you should consider how insulting it is to be told that life would not be worth living in Africa if it was not for basic health care, clean water or education that is now being provided by foreign donors cos that statement is not only directed to Dambisa but to all Africans who are against dead aid. In other words, One is saying it is not worth living in Africa without foreign aid. You project yourselves as “African Saviours” who must be worshipped for having done an excellent job. Hence, I retaliated because that mentality is insulting. We have had enough decade of poverty and we cant dance to your aid tune anymore.

PAUL

I understand your lament and feel your pain but ask yourself this question for a moment: isn’t time that volunteers like you in the US, who have very little to gain by advocacy for Africa as you put it, take a break from this useless struggle cos aid is a hard earned sweat and Africa is yet to show for that Aid? Just a thought! You erroneously stated that dissenters are saying, “aid should be cut off tomorrow,” whatever that means-that is not what Dambisa or dissenters are saying. Dissenters are saying in 5 years, Paul.

And if the costs of this extreme gambit have not been properly weighed, people like me are looking forward to live in poverty and vote for leaders who are accountable to me and not to donors. After all, I have lived in poverty all my life, except for my leaders who have fattened their wallets on aid. Maybe I would have supported foreign aid if I was a president and had benefited and invested in private jets, but I am not in power. My people and I live in abject poverty. I cant even vote for an opposition leader because it is a waste of time. My president has enough aid to rig elections and buy votes from the electorate. My vote will count the day foreign aid goes dry.

Debbie K

Forget the emphasis on Moyo because Africa’s crises are not only about Moyo as a person, but people of Africa, including myself. Yes, she is an African speaking for some of us Africans who are tired of poverty caused by aid but we, Africans are speaking the same language she speaks cos we are tired of aid which benefits few individuals. This is not just about Moyo, this is about Africa and its people. If that makes Moyo a racist, then all Africans who support her ideas have become racists. If refusing foreign aid makes one a racist, then I am happy to become one.

“What Moyo in intimating is that Africans can’t properly govern themselves or that African politicians are all inherently thieves.”

You have read the book well, Debbie K. As long as my government is permanently dependent on foreign aid and is accountable to foreign donors, that’s not a proper government as far as I am concerned. As long as my government invest in private jets while the citizens have no access to housing, healthcare, water, then I have a DEAD government which remains permanently in power with the assistance of DEAD aid. Imagine if the US government was dependent on Africa for aid and was accountable to African donors and not US citizens? Would you call that a proper government? Or maybe we should say African leaders are proper leaders in your eyes as long as people like you benefit in the process?

“It is her that does not credit African people with the ability to make good choices, it is her that ends up portraying African People as not smart enough, not capable enough to help themselves out of poverty.”

IF THAT IS WHAT MOYO DOES BY REJECTING AID- Are you telling us that receiving aid portrays African people as having the ability to make good choices? Does aid portray African People as smart enough, capable enough to help themselves out of poverty? YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF FOR PORTRAYING AFRICAN PEOPLE IN SUCH A FASHION AND GOD WILL INDEED BLESS AFRICA IF YOU LEAVE AFRICA TO AFRICANS.

April 1, 2009 at 10:03 pm

I could nt have said it better than Whitney Lukuku “My point is that NGO’s have built a gravy train for themselves under the guise of aid”. I met a Swiss in 2005 who admittedly confessed that he moved to Africa (Rwanda) just to start an NGO and make money. He admitted that if it wasn’t for poor Africans, he would still be broke. When he said that in 2005, I did not understand but now I do. What a shame!

April 1, 2009 at 11:38 pm

this link is for all the aid supporters especially aboyeji and debbie k first hand information from an african in governement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8GG81mb41U&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkinguhuru%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

April 2, 2009 at 12:43 am

Sofphlames,

I need to respectfully ask you if you have actually read this book because some of your comments are revealing an ignorance of the most salient facts in Ms Moyo’s book.

The video above is an indictment of the governments in question and not aid. It does not say, end aid. It says improve these channels. I am also against excessive bilateral aid (since it is still necessary for governments to maintain a monopoly of force an inefficient government bureaucracy mean they cannot do this with taxes) and I am more for multilateral aid. In fact, I am of the opinion that foreign aid is better channeled through multilateral channels eg. NGO’s civil society etc. (Pending a permanent definition of “humanitarian aid” according to the “gospel of Ms Moyo”, I assume she is also against this)

No doubt, there is no question about the fact that the aid system is riddled with corruption. But that does not mean we should turn off the taps. If your gas is not working,,,,,,,do you tell the gas company to end the gas. Or if your water supply or electricity is faulty, do you unsubscribe from the service for a choice you cannot afford. Ms Moyo pretends to be offering alternatives to aid. But these alternatives are not only imaginary, they have huge costs if at all an implementation effort is begun.

Once again, Ms Moyo’s thesis is simple: Aid is the root of all the economic evil in Africa. Turn it off.

I disagree

April 2, 2009 at 12:45 am

PS: How do I view previous comments. Is it possible.

April 2, 2009 at 1:02 am

“Isn’t time that volunteers like you in the US, who have very little to gain by advocacy for Africa as you put it, take a break from this useless struggle cos aid is a hard earned sweat and Africa is yet to show for that Aid? Just a thought!”

Ms Zwindile,

I am taking huge gulps of breath to stop myself short of a comment I would later regret. But I would just like to ask you a few questions you should reflect on very carefully?

1. Where on earth do you live? (I assume this is not Africa…so you are in effect a runaway academic)

2. If you lived in a small village with no communication with the outside world, you had no food, you had a high fever as a result and you are near death. Would you hear about Moyo’s book in the first place? Would her recommendation matter to you in the state that you are in? What would be your needs?

3. If Paul had been the volunteer that would have saved your life, would you reconsider asking him this question just as he is about to help you?

Paul,

I thank you for your service to our people. Our people, like any other, can be ungrateful. I plead forgiveness on our behalf. It is true you have little to gain personally from your work, but the very fact that you recognize the human dignity of your African brothers enough to help them says a lot about you. I thank you again. Forgive our ungratefulness. The same goes for the other foreigners who have made the burdens of our people theirs.

For the deserters who parade themselves as sons and daughters of our soil, just live on as second class citizens in the west or wherever you choose to make you living. Beyond the economics of this issue, the real issue with African development is a continent of people who do not care. I am beginning to sense that at the heart of this proposal (if there is at all heart in it) is a selfish desire of African elites to assert themselves on the global despite the commitments that call from home.

If there is anything you really want to do for Africa, go back home and battle the corruption by yourself at whatever cost. That is our imperative. The west cannot do it for us. Stopping aid will not stop the problem of corruption in Africa. It will only increase the need and speed for it. This is just an abdication of responsibility by irresponsible Africans. Should I be surprised?

April 2, 2009 at 9:52 am

Your attempt to disqualify Dead Aid is laughable as it is tragic. Firstly i don’t believe you have read beyond the preface of the book and have simply followed the misleading propaganda against the book.

You cannot use examples of Malaria and AIDs aid programmes to disqualify Dambisa’s hypothesis mainly because that is not what she is talking about. She is referring largely to ECONOMIC AID.

Dambisa gives a chronology of Aid from conception to consequence showing how it has been applied in many African countries since end of the colonial rule. She compares and contrasts between ECONOMIC GROWTH MODELS of Asia and AID DEPENDENCY MODEL of Africa.

She thankfully gives detailed and precise solutions that can be implemented tomorrow if African governments decided to pursue real development. Happily this model has been used to some degree in Kenya which in 2006 had reduced AID dependency to 5% of its Budget and was growing at 7%.

Rwanda is the best example of a country trying to wean itself out of this problem so let us observe it as a case study.

Lastly Africans in the Diaspora have been remitting billions of dollars which unlike AID do not come with strings attached. This should continue hence the reason we should respect this people.

April 2, 2009 at 11:15 am

OOpsie – my bad – these comments should have gone to a different blog! Apologies!

April 2, 2009 at 2:04 pm

Aboyeji
I really dont know what to say to you to be honest and that the truth, the clip was to show how aid moves through the system and like i have said many time and dambisa has said as well you can not de-link aid from corruption.

I am human and yes it nice to now there are people like paul but the truth is if we keep living on emotions and feelings then guess what a 100 years from now africa will still be where it is, no wait further back from where it is today. I mnot saying that no good has come out of aid or that all the workers are evil there are religious people in there who do it for the greater good and the good of which they are made of thus i respect people like kristen and paul above. But like the america and the west you now comfortably sit in as well their economies are collapsing and thety are taking risk that if they fail could be severe and the out come horrible but have they choosen to take these risks yes.

look the truth is and ive also heard dambisa say this is that her idea is open to a little modification 5 years could be extended to 10 she is not dictating and i believe according to the situation and results shown we could make alterations as we go along if we decide to take her approach. Sending 34 million people to school is a good thing but the thing you fail to answer and you have been doing this whole time is never giving what suggestion you have in return.

Back to the 30 million people getting education when they graduate where will they work or do they go back and join the aid line and get food and drugs. The funny thing about this picture which make me look at you in a weird light is that you are so right winged on the issue, you even have trouble with the idea of china in africa sounds very western to me for someone complaning about a girl writing a book with western views. You see how easy it is for your 3 fingers to point right back at you as you point at her.

Seeing you didnt answer my question about your sponsor i take it that it is non of my business and i respect that view. BUT would you rather have africa on aid for the next 150 years or would you take a risk and save our grand children from the life we live in africa today. And let me remind you there are more people in africa who are not recieving help from aids than there are who are and the ratio is ridiculas.

The largest slum in africa is in kenya and you know what its right next door to a U.N centre an 2 NGO’s should they not be the best area in africa you tell me.

Your making it look like us africans who dont agree with the aid models are hateful and spiteful towards the people helpping out well i beg to differ i respect them and they are good people but good and good deeds might not always be the best thing for you because the good might be your poison.

Remember africa is the only continent in reverse at the moment .

God bless and God bless africa

Remember no one is saying through the aid money away but instead of increase it we should start working on reducing it and making our governments more responsible. There are thieves in the western government as well but the difference is if they still with out doing the jobs they have to do as well there would be no money to steal. But if they are guarantteed that the money will keep coming wether they work or not then they will do nothing and europe will look like africa 2

April 2, 2009 at 3:43 pm

As a ONE volunteer member, I was very concerned over the ongoing debate over Dambisa Moyo’s “Dead AID” publication, Therefore I dedicated my day yesterday with Moyo’s book.

One thing that has stood out with as I moved through book includes the fact that Moyo and ONE share some common goals. In addition to each recognizing that micro financing is a clear and excellent path for entrepreneurialship, on page 149 Moyo writes “thanks to the 60,000 ordinary Americans who wrote to their US Congress laying out their desire for freer trade access for African Countries that the AGOA was board. It is this type of activist that is needed to help jump start Africa’s develop agenda and set it on the right track”. As an ordinary American and a volunteer ONE member, this premise that she is referencing is exactly the purpose behind ONE. ONE members are calling upon our elected leaders for a number of things that she is seeking, including a more equitable trade policy that does not hurt African producers and in 2006, our ONE actions also included sending 100,000 letters to congress in support of renewing the third country fabric provision in AGOA.

But the similarities end there and much of the book rehashes the past, outlining things that have been “dead” and put aside within the international foreign aid community some time back. On page 8, Moyo accuses that we (Westerners) believe that all aid is good, and her mood throughout the whole of her book is that all foreign aid is evil. Those understanding of the scope of international foreign aid would understand that neither is true, that aid can be good or bad, and that corruption occurs on both sides. Thankfully both donors and recipients are addressing this.

While often our calls for action are not immediately recognizable, sometimes they are. This was such the case in the fall of 2007 when ONE members and partnering organizations effectively rallied, emailed, and convinced the IMF to clear Liberia from over $842 million dollars owed in debt. This action released the money back to the county, and ripples towards opportunities like health and educational access. Because of actions and results such as this, I am convinced that ONE and friends are on the right course. However it appears that Moyo can not differentiate between her old school ideas of charity and alms which she solicits at the brining of her book in lieu of social justice. The book wholly overlooks this idea.

Additionally, Moyo chooses to run around in circles with her outdated information and inserts valid facts out of context which misleads and provides a disservice to the aid programs that are partially responsible for the success she cites – including increased growth rates, an increase in democracy, and a decrease of HIV/AIDS in areas. I think most informed readers would recognize that in addition to the reasons she claims for success, other factors are also responsible. This includes updated ideology and methods in providing aid, through programs such as the MDGs and MCA. Programs that she is giving the narrowest consideration in her discussions. Programs that are developing the honorable, meaningful, smart, and respectful conversations between donors and recipients that she claims do not exist.

In regards to the discussions of other countries who have pulled themselves out of poverty without aid reads very well for Moyo’s purpose, however failing to come to attention is that these rises out of poverty did not have to address such issues like HIV/AIDS , which leaves behind vulnerable children and a weakened labor force, both of which are a multiplier for poverty. Organizations like ONE and its member volunteers are advocating to ensure that programs exist to halt and provide treatment for HIV/AIDS, giving people and governments the chance to pull up, develop, and stand on their own. Again, I would call this social justice, not charity.

In addition to misrepresenting and just plain non-reporting of the facts, Moyo shocked my mother’s sensibilities near the end of the book on page 144 when she asks “would many more millions in Africa die from poverty and hunger? Probably not” and calls for Americans to seek an end to international aid. To me this reads as a selfish position that is made without regards to millions of lives that rely on aid and furthermore, this position clearly demonstrates that she is living the very ungrounded life style which she alluded to and disdained in regards to others at the head of her book. I think if you were to ask any woman in any country who is watching her children suffer from hunger, her husband from disease, and wondering how her daughter might have a better opportunity than herself, most would not choose to put their family’s future in Moyo’s hands.

If there was a doubt to my mind that women in African and other developing countries were not being aided towards being lifted up to a better life for themselves and their families, I would not participate as a ONE member volunteer, nor would many of my volunteer colleagues. What I and many others advocating with ONE understand is that it takes a community to raise a child, and the community, as it has never been before, is global. That Moyo repeatedly knocks down the actions of the US, yet embraces the very same things under a collaboration with China (“trade, agricultural cooperation, debt relief, improved cultural ties, health care, training, and yes, even some aid” – page 104), reminds me of a petulant and spoiled teenager, and makes me wonder what kind of “community” she wishes for her motherland.

In my lay opinion, the whole of “Dead AID” is deep in generalizations without any substantial or original research, which she has mingled with truthful facts that are used out of context in an attempt to explain why things are not working today, even though things are working. Sound confusing and without substance ? That essentially sums up her book. While we can simply dismiss these types of publications, the fact that she raises a dangerous idea is what has compelled me to share my opinions and thoughts. While I feel that America’s foreign Aid Policy is in need of rework, calling for removal international poverty focused foreign aid is not the solution.

Aid removal undermines the programs and success that have been achieved through international foreign aid and even more dire is that this proposal is a death sentence on a grand scale.

As a ONE volunteer member, having read her book, I am standing strong in ONE’s beliefs and goals and remain convinced that foreign aid can be a part of the solutions which provide effective opportunities out of poverty for millions.

April 2, 2009 at 6:08 pm

Well, it appears ONE is now censoring my comments on this topic! Very disappointing and doesn’t really speak well of the ONE team since all of my posts have been well within the bounds of civil dialogue.

Censorship is really a bad thing especially in the African context where it has led to all kind of horrific outcomes. Seeing it on this site leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.

Ironically, if you read both Dead Aid and the ONE position papers on this site, you will find a whole lot of common ground. Are there critical differences? Yes. Are people passionate about these differences? Yes, and that is a pointer that we should be looking to debate vigorously in order to arrive at well thought out and tested solutions that work for Africa (if that is our reason for doing what we are doing). Dismissing “opposing views” that seem to have a lot of support (especially among Africans) out of hand and trying to characterize them as extremist views makes ONE look like an organization that feels its existence is threatened. The need for self-preservation becomes paramount and overrides every other imperative.

I will move on but hope to meet open minded individuals with “opposing views” on the aid issue in other forums for civil but vigorous debates on the best way to move Africa forward.

April 2, 2009 at 10:28 pm

Thank you Brendan,

You are absolutely right. We will get nowhere in this dialogue, or any other, if we do not remove the ego first.

Karen

April 2, 2009 at 10:55 pm

“Remember africa is the only continent in reverse at the moment”

I know I am just being mischievous but I don’t know if you have realised but the whole world is in reverse with the current global economic crisis. Correct that erroneous impression please!

Second, I agree with the commenter who says we might be arguing at extremes. I actually do agree. Dead aid is an fringe novel built on statistics that hardly communicates with the realities of the situation on the ground.

I am all for ending AiD to Africa in due time…..but I insist that time is not now or in five years….and that aid still has a constructive role to play in Africa’s sustenance and more importantly its development. I think it can and should be phased out but only when certain specific benchmark targets have been met. Until we establish a phased plan to co-ordinate all aid efforts in developing Africa, we cannot expect to experience radical growth. Aid should work as a stimulus plan and be directed towards investment primarily in education and business infrastructure. This I believe is the function of ONE and its many partners and volunteers.

Lastly, with all the finger pointing at the West everybody is doing about these agricultural subsidies, I think we should be pressuring our governments not to cut aid but to end all trade barriers within Africa…while using aid to balance our economies in this process. Africa is a self sustainable market of 900million people, it has its own natural resources at close proximity, it has the man power and can concentrate on developing this manpower through education…..all it needs is capital (which aid can provide at a far more subsidized cost than the Chinese would anyway). This is where I think the 30million newly educated would go…right into these structures……The first step as always is to end the trade barriers within Africa….(I must admit this is one of Moyo’s brilliant ideas…sorry she ended up with fringe people).

All these people shouting at the West to end aid should consider also shouting at their governments to break down the trade barriers in Africa!!!

April 2, 2009 at 11:39 pm

“That comment makes me question your motives and why you are truely against this book. Because dambisa has continually said both in her book and in interviews, that aid and bad leaders can not be de-linked in any way.”

I had previously thought it a rather burdensome prospect to answer the thousand and one questions that stem from willfully blind supporters of Moyo and her radical proposals. Clearly, they are not reading my comments as I am theirs or they would have found obvious answers to their redundant or sometimes irrelevant questions.

But the above comment by Sofphlames depicted an ignorance of the facts of Moyo’s claims (a sign that makes me wonder again if she has read the text this discussion is based on) that is so glaring that I was momentarily confused about whether to 1.be shocked or 2. laugh.

I would answer her because I think it is important that supporters (or even critics) of Moyo who are supporting (or distorting) her ideas without even looking at the facts she presents in her book, take the time to learn them in however gradual a manner as opportunity would allow.

When Moyo says that aid and bad leaders cannot be delinked in anyway, she seems to be insisting that it is the aid that props up the bad leaders and that if aid were to translate to “free market” revenue flows like taxes or bonds (a concept I consider very ironic for certain reasons I would assume the politically aware amongst us understand) that increased the accountability of leaders to their people or foreign investors, corruption will cease. Thus she implies that aid is the cause for the corruption rather than another sad effect of the corruption of our governments.

The truth remains that corruption is a sad characteristic of many a government in Africa and that it is an independent variable not dependent on aid or any other necessarily economic factors. The relationship she attempts to make in her book is thus a fundamentally flawed one. It assumes, wrongly, that Africa’s dictatorial governments can be assumed to be “accountable” to anyone but their greedy stomachs and their foreign bank accounts. These are not governments that believe or respect democracy or the rule of law. They are governments that do not respect property laws and (as it is already happening in Eritrea) would not hesitate to seize their citizens foreign exchange to perform the more self serving functions of government like prop up armies and maintaining a monopoly of force. Africa’s leaders are feudal lords not democratic or republican leaders. For many of them, their countries can go to hell so long as hell is a few kilometers away from the presidential palace. So for Moyo to assume that it is even possible (at this point) for them to be accountable to anybody taxpayer and bond holders alike is sheer naivete.

The final conclusion is simple. The root of much of our troubles (there is still undue foreign government interference) with aid is corruption. But for corruption, even with inefficiently or insufficiently allocated aid, we should have made far more progress that we have already. That Moyo has skewered this relationship between aid and corruption is great cause for concern. Corruption caused aid’s ineffectiveness. Aid did not birth corruption in Africa even though it may have increased the opportunities for it.

As for the person who was asking how I got to Canada. I got here through the generosity of many organisation, the most important of whom is CIDA, an aid agency that regrettably now seems to be following Moyo’s prescriptions. It just cut its aid funding to Africa last week. Perhaps we should watch and see the results. My high school back home was also partly funded by the generosity of a venture patnership between the Jesuits and USAID. The school they produced (Loyola Jesuit College, Abuja) is one that has gained the acclaims of many Nigerians. Many of our graduates went abroad to study since the universities are terrible in Nigeria ( a fact that pains my heart) and many of them are coming back to the country and are very concerned about issues of Africa’s development. Thanks to an education model that never ceased to remind us of the purpose of our education, our graduiates only stay abroad for as long as it is expedient. My ears are soring with stories of many of them who left huge commitments and opportunities abroad (we are all really smart) to return home to participate in a start up of some sort. It is these start ups aid should be funding. Aid should also be ensuring that many other less fortunate kids in Africa have access to the same high quality education that I did.

April 3, 2009 at 6:51 pm

I would hate to monopolise this discussion but I just thought it was important for me to say this. I am somewhat sceptic of this “FDI from China” model that has been bandying around for two reasons

1. It will make us a debtor nation. Not that we are not already one but I think the real idea of progress should not be to be another economic basket case run on foreign debt (like one powerful country I know)……and I think that is what this FDI thing might eventually into. Besides even China has taken steps to limit its FDI…and it is not even very clear that there is a causative effect between FDI into China and its economic growth…primarily because it seems all their growth is home grown (government investment) rather than the product of this golden valued FDI….ofcourse I will avoid coming to fringe conclusions that say “end foreign investment into Africa” as I would sound too much like Moyo, a prospect I am not too keen on.

2. Looking carefully at all the countries who have developed without aid (eg India, China…etc) and all the countries that have developed with aid (Germany after WWII, Ireland…etc), I can see a pattern. All the countries that have survived without aid have been largely cohesive states without large scale civil wars within the 60 year period that Moyo speaks of. The countries that have developed with (no doubt structured aid which I am all for) are countries that were war ravaged within the last 60 years. NowAfrica has been war ravaged….most of its countries have had large civil wars….so I think this is why foreign aid has such an important role to play at this time in development. We are seeing how foreign aid is changing Iraq already and the world is contemplating using it to change Afghanistan…..Thus while I agree that no country can actually fully develop into an economic powerhouse on foreign aid, post-war ravaged countries such as ours do need the aid to set up the structures that are prerequisites for economic growth. The most important of these is to maintain a monopoly of force that suppresses further attempts at fracticious societies such as Somalia’s.

My 0.02….would appreciate responses and questions…remeber I am still researching (even though I am way to young to put out a best selling book)

April 4, 2009 at 4:32 am

Aboyeji
HELLO again lol, your comparism with ww11 was also used by dambisa as well the difference was the aid was used only temporarily not as a constant as i have also said and u have read in dambisa’s book she wants africa of aid over time. And she has stated that she is open to suggestions on how this can be done even thought modification maybe be needed to fit each countries situation as all countries in africa are not on the same level e.g rawanda is not on the same level as sudan.

Secondly in your head with a wild guess or with what you actually understand how much longer do you think africa should rely on aid for.

Also aid my friend is not working in iraq as you claim funny you said that because right before coming into this forum i was watching a video on iraq and this is what happens with aid and corruption when people dont have reason to work and money is free.

Its an idependent video but of course we cant expect fox to air this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYvg2er64AE

But when people get free money they cant be controlled. All im saying is if africa start working towards getting of aid and the only way to gradually get of something is to gradually reduce it. Have you ever tried to stop a habit, by increasing the amount of times you did it.

The video is just to show you a world you probably already know only with a lot more black faces.

And africa was and is and if nothing vital is done will still be in reverse by the end of the recession. So my comment still holds. The only thing that guarantees africas 3 % growth estimated fot the year is trade and personal development from countries. What do you say about botswana and S.A which are reducing aid and moving forward.

And india has had it wars like nigeria it happen in the 70s so that doesnt make any sense your arguement.

April 4, 2009 at 9:46 am

Sofphlames,

I am somewhat annoyed that you did not take the time to fully read my comments before making yours. However I will take the pass and make a few important points:

1. If you had read my comments, you would find that I completely agree with structured aid…aid that will be phased out as specific development priorities are completed. However Dambisa wants aid out in five years…she has been very clear about that (in one of her interviews she says maybe ten…but big difference, she wants the aid out whether or not it can be effective) She is not “open to suggestions” on that.

2. I would not fall into the temptation of being what I call a “prophet economist” like many other economists have. There is better value in defining parameters or specific goals and then meeting them because Lord knows an economic tsunami that could slow things down is very much on the horizon in these issues. Putting time rather than target limits to aid is somewhat counterproductive for the reasons I have mentioned above and several more (like it makes the leaders desperate to steal urgently all the aid instead of to work for their peoples and it leaves this crucial part of nation building in the hands of fate…it also ignores the situational constraints you speak of differences between sudan and somalia and the possibility of sudan becoming somalia)

3. On Iraq, I don’t think I am saying aid will make everything perfect but compared to Sadam’s Iraq when the people were starving thanks to the west’s sanctions, things are far better. Ofcourse Saddam’s government was only propped up by the fact that he had oil revenues but imagine if he didnt, Iraq would be the somalia of the middle east. Foreign Aid played a huge role in bringing Iraq from the brink of political collapse. This medium is hardly adequate for informing you of the huge gains that have been made in Iraq partly due to Western aid but this I can tell you………investors can only invest in a place where ther is security and law and order (especially property laws), Paul Collier will tell you that and this is what foreign aid has helped achieve in Iraq……I believe it can also do this in Africa.

4. As for attributing the 3% growth to only trade and DFI, it will interest you to know that commodity prices are down and countries who are huge traders are facing a down turn in the market (ie negative growth). Besides remmitances (and investment it seems) are also down. Perhaps you should read the IMF’s convoluted report before jumping to such conclusions on that issue (I can’t say anything because I do not understand how they came to that conclusion yet and I think its a lie anyway).

5. If YOU had read my comments, you would see I was refferring specifically to large scale CIVIL wars…….I said that particulalrly because I was aware that India had been in a lot of cross border wars….but so have most of the world’s countries…so that is a non starter. Nigeria has never been involved in a cross border war so its not a “war like Nigeria”. Civil war in Africa and cross border wars elsewhere are entirely different kinds of war for all sorts of reasons I can trust you to deduce on your own.

Besides that cheers

April 4, 2009 at 2:26 pm

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and all others, thank you for being here, and to everyone who cares passionately about those who deserve help.

I take a lot of comfort that we’re all on the same side, even if we often have passionately different points of view about how to achieve the goal of a self-sustaining and prosperous African continent.

April 4, 2009 at 4:27 pm

Post-WW2 Germany can not by any means count as a nation that developed with aid. Germany was already a developed nation.

Does any serious person think that Ireland or Germany developed because of foreign aid?

April 4, 2009 at 5:20 pm

Oh no! LOL

And I was thinking I was gonna be spared the history lecture!

Well, no one should be denied knowledge. So Owen here is for your reading pleasure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

http://www.finfacts.com/irishfinancenews/article_1012675.shtml

There are many more reports which I only have access to through sage and other research journals……will pst them up when I find them but these are the most readily available.

By the way, I did not say Ireland and Germany developed BECAUSE of Aid. I said Aid played a substantive role in allowing them fulfill the prerequisites for achieving economic growth such as security and the rule of law

April 4, 2009 at 6:07 pm

The article I wrote in my college newspaper to address this issue is now on the web. Here it is:

http://tinyurl.com/dclbea

It comments on the reasoning behind Moyo’s crunching and my objections to it.

April 4, 2009 at 6:48 pm

Aboyeji
I read your article pretty interesting you stated your mind like you do on here but i just wanted to comment on ur statement about who feels sorry for china. China is a communist country or type country africa is supposedly democratic. I think her point there was stop feeling sorry for africa and start doing whats right for them to move forward. Sometime to get the message across you have to drop it out there raw.
Ithink this is what she was trying to say. i have seen that interview and thats what i understood straight away. The truth is i know what kind of leaders we have look at mugabe celebrating and parting using aid money and what has broken him to come back and begg well i guess he is hungry again. That the bright side of removing aid or reducing it, it would make our leaders choose to do something. Are we guaranteed well no, i wont say we are but we will continue in the same cycle we are in for the next 60 years.

The world is looking for how to fix themselves up and africa is look for how to increase their free welfare incomes and pocket money for shopping sprees in the west. They dont even invest it back on the soil in building houses or opening businesses that would at least create jobs.

Also in some of your comments above cant remember which now but i just , wanted to know what you ment when you said that the 30 million educated people can fill that sector with aid.

Also do you think that in the 60 years and honestly dont be bias by the fact it worked for you, do you really believe that in this time aid has actually been as effective as it should be and has actually been productive. Because these are the things im looking at the number of people gaining from aid and we both know this are by far less than those who arnt so if you pull the plug will it really make much of a differnce for the people at the bottom.

And most important the 5 years plan was the original master plan for aid its been multiplied by 12 now lol

April 4, 2009 at 6:54 pm

And also what do you have say about the fact that theres no country on the planet that has suceeded solely on aid. It this that scares me the fact that 40 years from now when im 60 something i would still be looing at the same africa is aid really worth it.

And you havent answer the question on the fact that the so called educated people are flyng out of the continent as soon as they graduate. What do you think the reason for this is. Do you think they do it because they want to meet celebrities no they do it because they graduate and cant find jobs and dont have an economy to work in which will keep happening.

I stated before im pro going home to africa as soon as im done with my qualifications etc but i am scared that im might be going back to nothing and even a govornor of a state asked me where are you in a hurry too.

April 5, 2009 at 10:01 pm

Wow, what a debate here, I really didn’t expect to receive the ire of Moyo’s supporters, but I think hearing from all sides can be constructive.

I just watched the Cspan Q&A interview, and ONE made a big impact in the debate, the moderator Brian Lamb had the point by point argument ONE published in his hands. Unfortunately, that allowed her to target ONE as advocating type of aid she is against. She says we are negative; isn’t her title “Dead Aid” negative? One person’s pessimism is another’s realism.

Actually, on her main point, the two “sides” are really in agreement: ONE doesn’t want to give money to dictatorial governments that will pocket the money, and we don’t want it to be permanent. Bono has said he hopes he is working himself out of a job. Moyo made it clear in the start that she is only talking about government to government aid, not charitable aid that the NGO’s provide. ONE could take that as a constructive criticism, because I have heard from others working in Africa that aid, to be effective, should not go straight to the governments, but to local organizations on the ground. The kind of aid that ONE is advocating now is like that coming from the Global Fund, PEPFAR, which works with locals, or the program that the US has instituted to benefit proven, reliable governments: the Millennium Challenge Corp.

But when Lamb pointed to the 2 million Africans now on ARV drugs thanks to aid, she seemed to infer that that aid, coming as it may from NGO’s and the UN, is not wanted either. So Lamb made the point, didn’t you get a scholarship, wasn’t that aid? She doesn’t think so, because she had to attain the education. Well, isn’t saving someones life so they can continue to work their farm and raise a family, producing something too?

Frankly, not to sound patronizing, but I think that all ONE supporters want the aid to be targeted so that Africans will once and for all get out of the neediness of abject poverty, and have a real voice on the world stage as functioning economies. That is our vision. There are many obstacles to overcome to get it right, to provide the assistance in just the right way to preserve African dignity. Everyone in America can understand the humility of having to accept charity. But when you are at death’s door, your perception of aid is different. So I still differ with Moyo if she thinks that those who are suffering from treatable diseases be left on their own even when the government is unwilling or unable to provide for their care.

Moyo is very lucky to be able to come to America and get an education at Harvard. She should know that Jeffrey Sachs, once her teacher, is working on the ground with Africans IN THEIR COMMUNITIES to lift them out of the poverty trap and set them on a road to independent development (The Millenium Villages project). The people in those communities are getting a chance to succeed, too, though assistance coming from outside. If development happened through Investment aid, such as from big business, it would be coming from the outside as well, with strings attached. As it stands now, companies don’t want to invest in many African countries because they lack the prerequisites for a business climate, including a healthy, educated population. If there are no jobs, then one solution would be for those who receive an education to be entrepreneurial and start new businesses themselves and so hire the locals who need jobs.

In America, it’s known as pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps. Does Moyo think that that would work in Africa?

April 6, 2009 at 12:35 am

I think both sides are flinging mud at each other that its hard to really elevate from the situation and objectively look at the situation.
I do disagree with her on many levels and I am Malawian. So not all all Africans agree with her. Aid has helped a lot in Africa. I think where she should have gone with the book is has it been enough to enable African countries to help themselves. There I can see her point, maybe we could evaluate that and find areas of improvement. I think of Maslows hierarchy when we talk of development in Africa it first starts in making sure every person has access to the basic needs first before we can talk about trade and free market. So One.org and Bono please keep doing what u all are doing and Americans and developed countries please continue to support Africa. Once African countries can support themselves then aid to Africa should end. Self reliance is a good virtue that all people who have the means should work toward. Thats the last step in Maslows hierarchy.

April 6, 2009 at 4:17 am

@ Darls: I think your perspective on this issue is one that I share(even though I have a tendency to put it in very strong wording). Thank you.

@Debra: Please do you know if its available on the internet. C-SPAN does not show in my residence. If it is please post up the link. PS: I am a little skeptical of Mr Sachs social experiment though…….he’s one shifty expert (never sure how he comes to his conclusions, cost my country with his SAP thing in the 90’s)

@Sofphlames: You keep asking me the same questions that I have answered repeatedly. I never said there was any country on earth that has developed solely on aid…….I said there are countries where structured aid has made the difference…particularly war ravaged countries like Germany and Ireland (and I am in the process of studying exactly why this is even though the conclusions make sense to me). Also to be frank, if it was a quick solution you were looking for to Africa’s problems, Moyo should be the first to tell you you are dreaming. First, we have an economic crisis that should extend for another few years so forget the bonds market. Second, by the time regulation sets in and the world begins to recover, all the rage would probably be care….extreme care. So no risky investment choices (ie Africa). By the way, even with how a lot of African countries are in great political turmoil…no sane investment will invest in Africa now. (just being honest) Thirdly, I can be assured some foolish dictator will default on one countries bond (if they take the bonds option) and that will be the end of the “bonding” adventure for African countries…because no one else will want to buy. Lastly, unless micro finance expands its lending capital, it remains a slow development procedure……(except you are a yahoo yahoo boy (fraudster), we know $25 takes some time to turn into $2500)

As for educated people flying out of the continent never to return, I will tell you the truth, it is because they are not patriotic. I was reading a paper by a Chinese economist at MIT who was detailing the action the chinese government took to build its economy and one of the principal factors he mentioned was that there was a reverse brain drain before China began its development. The same thing has to happen in Africa. With a reverse brain drain, Africans in diaspora can bring with them their capital and their expertise to work for Africa. But they are not stupid, I doubt that people like Moyo that scream bloody murder about aid and trumpet Africa’s ” emerging market ” think it worthy enough of their investment (and I am not talking $25 rubbish in Kiva). If not Moyo has a Bsc in chemistry, I am sure there are industries she can invest in within Zambia instead of globetrotting with white men talking about ending aid. They know like foreign investors do that the risks of investing in Africa overburden whatever possible benefits. But I think that if anyone should be making that sacrifice, it should be Africans. Moyo and her cohorts screaming bloody murder from the west when they should be at home investing at home to give jobs to our people. Instead of trumpeting stealthy FDI from China that takes advantage of our people and our resources, they should be the ones putting in their own capital (financial and other capital) into Africa and taking the investment risks that creating jobs for our people and increase our profile in the world. Aid should be helping them hedge these risks in a variety of ways eg, healthcare for their workers, quality education for their workers children (an admittedly disingenuous idea: even keeping the tyrants busy and blind so they cannot steal from these people by violating property rights). The few Africans who are doing this in Africa are earning huge profits, Dangote and Femi Otedola from Nigeria are billionaires because of this. Instead our diaspora people are in universities “studying” Africa’s problems instead of doing something about it. Aid or no aid, it does not matter. They will have come back if they really wanted to. They are flying out and staying because 1.) they can afford it and 2.) lets not lie, they want that green card. Many Africans are not patriotic, they want to reap where they have refused to sow and I reject that in line with the laws and forces of natural justice.

As for that governor that asked you that foolish and unpatriotic question, tell him you are rushing back to do his job……….only better! And the knowledge (and I am sure you have it from our discussion here) you have and will gain when you have the necessary qualification and capital (make sure you are taking something tangible back because your books are worth little back home) is not “nothing” ….in fact it is all you really need. So take it back to Africa my sister and work for our people.

As for the making employment opportunities with aid, I am referring to micro credit (which I want to increase as the borrower gains more credibility). There are other programs out there too that can help to do this. I think aid when it is properly, strategically and freely directed can actually be used as development capital which we need to wake up our sleeping economies. They are far less costly than FDi which comes with lots of strings attached (like the lopsided deals China is making for Africa’s resources when it does paltry though beneficial infrastructure projects)

Lastly, I have stated repeatedly what I think should be a priority in this discussion about Africa’s development. This is the one thing I believe will increase aids multiplier effect and create jobs for 30 million educated Africans. I hope ONE takes it up too (especially because I believe ONE has to start asking more of Africa’s governments in return for this help they are providing in advocating assistance from developed countries to Africa and this will be a good starting point). It is simple………..TELL AFRICA TO SET A PRECISE DEAD LINE FOR INTEGRATING ITS ECONOMIES! We have a large market of 900million people to sell to. Once we can very easily move human and other resources across borders we will undoubtedly make a huge leap. THE FIRST STEP IS TO BREAK DOWN AFRICA’S ECONOMIC WALLS!!!

April 6, 2009 at 9:33 am

The interesting thing here, is people have become overly sensitive and are missing the point. I saw Dr. Moyo speak a few days ago, and one of her clearer points is that with all this aid being pumped into countries, the governments have completely relinquished their responsibilty to provide basic necessities (healthcare, clean water, education) to their populace. Thats the direction the debate should be going in, how the heck a conitnent so rich and talented can continue to live in abject poverty. Unless someone out there can tell me that African are somehow second class citizens and thus are unable to run their own affairs. Otherwise, this is UNACCEPTABLE!

April 6, 2009 at 6:04 pm

Ridiyen
Thank you for your comment thats the big question, how is it that africans have ran themselves into the ground well at least our leaders. Well guess what it free money, if the money was worked for the leaders will still probably still but wont do it in the heartless way they do now, after all what country on the planet doesnt have lying, stealing politicians.

Aboyeji you made a point about them stealling more if the aid was going to go away soon, as an african i totally agree. But what else can be done africa is out of options, and aid is clearly doing nothing cause last time i checked, when the leaders are given the aid, it is given on certain conditions. Now this has been going on for 60 years and steal no sign of improvement in the government to gov aid. Look at mugabe the west gave the dude million of pound in the height of his evil, my question is TO DO WHAT! thats what happens with aid and now he is willing to bend and obey them now that the money is gone. To be honest even though i know there is no way a country in that state could rise out with out aid i would say leave them to figure a way out themselves. And you would see the difference it would make. We know mugabe is running dry on money, not i said dry not poor cause the dude has looted like hell burns. But he need more to sustain. This is my reason why i think aid should stop. If the west had been strict in the 1st place he would not have continued to the stage he got to. I say this with a shaking voice though because i know there a possiblity he still could have lol. But you get my point

Anyways your arguements are very strong, yet i still think africa needs to be strangled to wake up or atleast a bucket of freezing cold water. Cause iF YOU THINK WE CAN CHANGE OR OUR LEADER WILL in the comfort of their palaces well then you have to think again.

April 6, 2009 at 8:37 pm

Iyinoluwa, here is the link to the CSPAN interview (I think you have made many important points, btw):

http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/?ProgramID=1226

I encourage everyone to watch it (a transcript will be available soon to read, too).

I think that African leaders NOW need to be held accountable for addressing the social needs of their countries. Why set them up for failure just so you can oust them? That is what free and fair elections are for, to put someone in office who will do the work needed for their people. And,as ONE and many other organizations are calling for, there needs to be demand NOW that the governments show transparency in their dealings. Africans can point to the problems now occuring, and act for change within the system, rather than going through constant cycles of violence and destruction born out of destitution.

Actually, since receiving debt relief (which ONE championed) many govenments are on a better path toward providing social needs like education and healthcare. They are using their own country funds for this, rerouting money that would have gone to pay down the debt to social services. These governments shouldn’t be overthrown at all, they are learning better governance, and are not corrupted (more than any politicians are) by the supplemental aid that reaches their country through NGOs. So what would taking away aid and leaving many without basic needs do to foster the kind of stability necessary for fashioning a civil society, now or in the future?

On the other end of the scale is Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who may have gotten aid in the past, but I doubt he is getting any now. He has refused all interventions from the West, including humanitarian aid. The result of his autocratic rule is 10,000 percent inflation, a breakdown of the education system and a cholera epidemic. So, following Moyo’s logic, will the population now rise up to overthrow him? Many have tried, and he has used force to keep others down.

Clearly, the West has learned it’s lesson about giving aid to despots. We won’t waste our own money that way again. A lot of the money that reached Africa in the 60s and 70s was based on the Cold War, and propping up leaders that were friendly to the West versus those that allied with the Communists. That reason for aid is no longer, and the ways and means of aid have changed. I think it is too early to say whether this new model, that targets real needs, will produce results. I don’t think it should be dismissed as more of the same (that previously only benefited rich rulers).

April 8, 2009 at 12:52 pm

GOD BLESS THE WHITE MAN. WITHOUT HIM, LORD KNOW WHAT WE WOULD HAVE IN AFRICA. LOOK AT THE GOOD HE’S DONE OVER THE YEARS. YES YES, THANK GOD THE WHITE MAN LOVES US SO MUCH. I LOVE TO SEE THEM DRIVE BY IN THEIR SHINY CARS IN AFRICA, I LOVE HOW THEY OWN MOST OF THE BEST LAND, AND WITHOUT THEM WE WOULD NOT HAVE MADE IT IN SUCH NUMBERS TO THE WEST…LOOK AT THE MILLIONS OF US IN THE CARIBBEAN AND THE US. THANK YOU SO MUCH. AND WE TRUST YOU SO MUCH, CAUSE YOU HAVE DONE SOOOOO MUCH FOR MOTHER AFRICA. ….SIGH!!!

April 8, 2009 at 11:17 pm

God Bless the black man……without him, Lord knows what we would not have done in Africa……Look at all the good things he has done over the years…….yes all those wonderful wars where he just uses an axe to kill his brother……..its better than all the video game violence…….I like to see his shiny machete raised against his brother in meaningless anger……and ofcourse without his love for money and other senseless things like mirrors and useless guns, you could not have made it to the west….all the millions of you in the carribean and the US…….thank you very much and we trust you so much….you have not done much for us….but ofcourse we owe u…ur our brother…..

Comon cut the bull sh**

We can trade this blame thing forever…….we were not the only ones that were colonised and the white people that colonised you are long dead and gone puhleeeasse! If Africans want to come home and develop their home, they will……they have not chosen to yet……and until we do, it will do for us to STOP blaming the white man……………………

Now this does not mean that they are completely without blame but I think the many that have helped us altruistically and conscientiously deserve our gratitude…….there are many others who see Africans as a means to an end (ideological or other ends) and those are the enemy……these racist generalizing statements have no place in our reasoned discourse……

E

April 9, 2009 at 11:09 am

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji – you have an African name but could never be African, for every machete weilding act you claim was the direct cause of greed and western intervention in Africa…i.e. the white man…so what’s your point, you further go on to state that, “Now this does not mean that they are completely without blame”..if those responsible for slavery are long gone, then why are the power entities in Africa still largely controlled by whites…you are not African, nor are you Black….so you cut the bull sh**…doesn’t take long for an open, liberal, do good organization like ONE to syc their dogs on Ms Moyo and on anyone who dares to speak the truth….YOU COULD NEVER BE AFRICAN

April 9, 2009 at 12:44 pm

There’s no point having an anachronistic “culture war” of sorts right here.

So I would make a few assertions and hope we return to the topic of our discussion:

1. I am African….I could not be any more African. Yoruba is my first language. I was born in Lagos and I live there for sixteen years of my life and I eighteen. I don’t have any other passport or citizenship but my Nigerian one. And I don’t even have an English name. Lastly I dream in my mother tongue. So on any imaginable metric ……..I am African (except you want to throw at me some vague definition of being African)

2. I watched some of the worst violence with my own eyes (the Niger Delta crisis, firing squads on bar-beach, burning of robbers in the streets, I have seen everything) and even though I am not saying foreign intervention and manipulation of our people is without any blame, I did not see any white man come and shoot someone in all the cases I saw. It was one black man, matchet raised in passionate but senseless anger, or gun pointed in the absoluteness of belief and obedience in a failed leaders commands against another black man, often unarmed innocent undeserving of the fate of death he was to meet. There were no white men in between when the victim pleaded and the agressor still went on shredding his brother to pieces for no apparently logical reason. I saw it with my own two eyes, I saw no white men in between.

3. So lets not blame the white man for everything…….we failed to unite in our own interests and we were taken advantage of. So this defeatist mentality that allows Africans everywhere to hold someone else responsible for their misfortunes (even when the blame is rightly apportioned) should stop. Its stupid, its dumb and it does not help us……in the blindness of our bitterness we lump together friends and enemies. If we keep doing this we will be fighting with everyone and alone….I don’t want to fight for my people like that.

4. Ms Moyo echoes this general point that this past blaming mentality is dangerous and unnecessary. However, her arguments in this respect ignores the need for justice. That we do not hold this grudge against a people that oppressed us does not mean we do not deserve justice for their wrongs. Our friends in organisations like one clearly realise this and that is why they feel the need to be partners in Africa’s development……verbally attacking them as you (and some others here have) exhibits the shallow thinking of ingratitude which is an unforgivable sin in our cultures.

5. Ms Moyo might think she is speaking the truth….and it is possible that she is but I think this is the reason for this discussion. So we can critically examine the truth in what she is saying. We are not given into thoughtless and complete faith in untested ideas (or hypothesis) so we look at her ideas critically so we are sure we can avoid the pitfalls of blind and absolute belief.

6.Personally, (and this is very strongly worded), I think if there is any “dog” in the hands of the West, it would be Ms Moyo. Her ideas are ideologically laced with subservient facts and do not subscribe to the real situation on the ground. It shows where she gets the most support for her ideas- the Cato institute, the ayn rand institute…etc…all conservative or libertarian institutions. It frustrates me when Africa surrender solutions to their continents problems to failed western ideologies (and I am referring to all of them) that certainly do not apply especially in our social construct. She didn’t think deeply or originally in proposing solutions to her valid concerns about aid, instead she is using the west’s free market ideology which has seen plenty of trouble in recent times and absolves Africans of their responsibilities to each other.

6. Lastly, I thought I should tell you a story that partly explains why the white man cannot be used as a trump card for our self inflicted pains. In 2005, I barely missed a plane that crashed in Nigeria. It was the plane that most of the kids from my US AID funded high school used because it was very cheap (we got good rates) and all the more appealing because it cost the same as a bus trip home and most of the roads in Nigeria are bad, they are also very insecure. It seemed simply a cheap and safe way to travel home. In the ensuing plane crash, sixty of my classmates died. It was not that they died that gave me lots of goosebumps but WHY they died:
a) The airplane had been registered as four years old instead of the thirty four years old it really was. Some official had collected bribes to have that done.
b) The airplane crash landed because its wheels were faulty…they would not come out for landing. (the plane had been certified to be in good flying condition just a week before. (read: another bribe)
c)The plane had to manually land without help from the control tower because there had been a power outage for 2 WEEKS at the airport. (we have put in almost 350 billion dollars into generating just 6,000 watts of power: guess where it all went)
d) The fire trucks came late (about 50 minutes later) and then they came with little water in them. There was a stream a few hundred meters away from the scene of the crash and parents and other people at the scene had started to go with buckets to get water to douse the crash fire but the fire truck was using the little water it had on the parents to push them back. (the flames was doused by citizens when the fire truck left while the fire was raging)
e)Somehow, people miraculously managed to save a handful of kids. But for the one who survived because she was well enough taken to the corporate hospital a few kilometres away, all the others died. They were never given any medical attention before they died. (the doctors were on lunch)

It was from this day, I realised that this is not just about white men oppressing us from afar. This was about Africans who did not feel a responsibility for each other…about black men and women who killed and oppressed each other. Our societies were destroyed by Africans, we have to take the primary responsibility for this destruction. Our societies need fixing…….we, not the white man, have a primary responsibility for this.

From start to finish that sad December , I saw the full weight of corruption.

There was no white man in between.

April 9, 2009 at 1:32 pm

If you want to have a discussion about corruption, by all means lets do that. We can talk about Western corruption all day….a la wall street, Madoff, etc…corruption is not unique to Africa. We find it EVERYWHERE…. correct??

In general change will only come when the masses decide they want change. When they have a reason to care about their future. When they see hope for their children (life expectancy, education, jobs) Lets find solutions to the following questions:-

- Multinational corporations who need Africa’s resources, contribute nothing to development, rape the land and payoff corrupt leaders —– HOW DO YOU STOP THAT?

- White legacy land owners who for years own the best property and lands in Africa. Leaving drought ravaged lands to locals —- WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT THE INEQUITY THIS CAUSES?

- Legacy cultural and tribal conflicts inflamed by western division of lands without regard to historical customs, etc… —- LETS SOLVE THAT

- A never ending stream of aid for years. When your life is lived based on waiting for that next aid truck to pull up…when you are the guy running the local warehouse…when you are the government official who has to give the ok for imports, transportation, etc….when everyone is dirt poor…u create a natural environment for corruption, u create a disincentive for young males to go out and create, to work…HOW DO WE SOLVE THAT??

- How do you solve the new culture of mendicants…they sit and wait and beg, beg, beg, swindle, beg, beg…and I’m not even talking about the corrupt govt officials…I’m talking about the man in the street who has been suckled on the milk of aid organizations…

- Governments which have completely abdicated responsibility for education, healthcare, etc..because they know if they create enough havoc, aid will come…more and more and more….

I’ll share a story with you. I watched a show on TV showing white western “environmentalist” who had created a hotel in the wilderness…in the midst of Maasai country. What struck me was the fact that she volunteered to provide them with food, in return they would cease and desist from selling their Maasai wares to tourists….since the tourists wanted to see them in their “natural habitat”…SOLVE THAT PATERNALISTIC MENTALITY

As long as you have a nation of young males (and females), unemployed, uneducated and pretty much living in poverty, they will create HAVOC, they’ll turn into adults who solicit bribes, who perpetrate more evil than good…we see it here in the US, in Brazil, in the UK, in the middle East…EVERYWHERE…

Stop apologizing for white folks, believe me they are smart enough, powerful enough and connected enough to defend themselves and besides its BORING. Let me hear your solutions for solving Africa’s plight…

April 10, 2009 at 2:10 pm

Wasn’t Germany already one of the world’s economic powerhouses after WW2?

Mr(s) Aboyeji seems to be confusing investment with aid. In fact, a substantial part of my problem with aid is that it crowds out investment as a lot of studies show.

What Africa needs is investment not aid. If all the money given away as aid were to be invested, Africa would be doing a whole lot better.

We hear about 100s of billions gone into Africa since the 1950s. One thing we are sure of, is that if those funds had been invested, since Africa has for decades offered the highest ROIs in the world, Africa would be doing much better than it is now.

Stop wasting money on aid. Invest it instead.

April 10, 2009 at 2:23 pm

Mr Bashir,
I don’t think you are reading the history right.

After World War II the German economy lay in shambles. The war, along with Hitler’s scorched-earth policy, had destroyed 20 percent of all housing. Food production per capita in 1947 was only 51 percent of its level in 1938, and the official food ration set by the occupying powers varied between 1,040 and 1,550 calories per day. Industrial output in 1947 was only one-third its 1938 level. Moreover, a large percentage of Germany’s working-age men were dead.

In 1945, it is safe to say that there was no German economy whatsoever: the country was destroyed utterly and almost completely. No heavy industry, no agriculture, no light industry, and no commerce, wholesaling, or retail selling occurred outside of the black market, rationing, etc.

By 1948, however, the German economy had begun to rebound thanks to the Marshal Plan and proactive help from the victors of the war to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Europe. By the 1950s and 1960s, one speaks of the “economic miracle” of Germany as it became the leading industrialized economy in Europe and one of the top 10 economies in the world (ever since).

Now on to your second point. Development aid = investment. At least that is what I am advocating. Foreign investment just gets us new masters i.e the Chinese. This is because after the capital comes into the country….and it only produces wages. The profits (and in cases of trouble the capital tooes) go away back to where they came from…that I beleive is a slow and arduos way to build a viable economy. That is why aid has a role to play in ensuring that investment without ties come to Africa and stays there.

I think its only when we link aid to investments that we will achieve concrete results….aid that does not do this is wasteful

April 10, 2009 at 2:31 pm

The question we should be asking is where did the money go? Why was it not invested?

The money went back to the West via swiss bank accounts. Of course corruption was why it was not invested.

Which is why we must now monitor aid very closely or find improved multilateral channels for ensuring that it gets to the people who need it.

You should read George Ayitteh’s “Africa Unchained” for a better understanding of how this could be done and why only “the hippos” (corrupt elites) have to be cash starved rather than Moyo’s development strategy of starving “the cheetahs” (African entrepreneurs who have a valid contribution to make) with “the hippos”. Or even worse having “the Cheetahs” be subservient to a foreign hegemony by way of FDI

There is no doubt about it, foreign aid delivery and strategy has to improve and I think this is why ONE is here to help. The parable of the baby and the bath water appropriately applies in this situation

April 12, 2009 at 3:33 am

Aboyeji,

Could you please take care to spell my name correctly?

Could you also drop the ridiculous idea that Germany needed aid to develop. It’s nonsense. Germany was an industrial giant already, and even devastated as it was after the war it was surely one of the most developed nations on earth.

Understanding something that basic would be a prerequisite for understanding the point under debate here. It’s no surprise therefore that you think that creating a fund that invested in European industry and infrastructure is remotely the same thing as what we call aid in Africa. In fact, it is the difference that is criticised.

If there were a fund created to invest in African industry and infrastructure, then that’d be very different from this business of sending 20 year old Canadians to Kenya to build school fences, or giving various kinds of free lunches.

One is a free lunch programme that has no hope of medium talkless of long term success. The other is much more sustainable and substantial. The last decade of growth in Africa has lifted many-fold more people out of poverty than 40 years of aid.

And this rhetoric of “Foreign investment just gets us new masters ” is revolting. It shows how you see the world. Anyway, the key takeaway on this topic comes from the following question; which is a more a master, the one from whose table you find crumbs to eat, or the one who invests in your business?

April 12, 2009 at 8:21 am

Sir,
I am very sorry for having mis-spelt your name. Your opinions are your own….especially if you choose to ignore the facts that I have been careful to make available here.

I just thought I should correct too grossly erroneous perceptions you may have had about this debate.

1.) We are talking government to government aid flows here, in the form of development aid. If you had read Ms Moyo’s book, you would realize that this discussion is far from any business of sending “20 year old Canadians to Kenya to build school fences”. It is important that we remain on topic more especially in a debate like this (where there are fuzzier lines as to what aid Ms Moyo is directly referring to).

2. A more appropriate question we should be asking is Who is more the slave; the one who is paid for his hard earned labour in crumbs from the table, as the Chinese have been doing to our East African brothers; or the one that saves up his diligently gathered but freely obtained and deserved crumbs and then remakes them into bread?

If the person who invests in your business is guaranteed more of the cuts in profit than you who own and do the sweat for it…..are you not a slave to this “investor”?

April 12, 2009 at 8:31 am

By the way, “a fund created to invest in African industry and infrastructure” is the alternative to the present that I (and I believe ONE) is advocating. These funds were siphoned in the last forty years and that is why we have not seen development. No doubt as the channels become improved to even bypassing these corruptocrat state structures, there will be more of a potential for growth in Africa……

However, I very much prefer development aid assistance (which comes free of any strings as we hope to make it) to foreign direct investment that allows the state corporations of the Tigers and western multinationals to divide and rule Africa and its resources in some colonialesque fashion whilst giving our short sighted leaders pittances in return.

April 12, 2009 at 1:02 pm

1.You’re still way off on this point I am sorry to say. Before making this next statement I want to stress that I am not holding brief for Moyo. I dont much like her arguments but I think she got to the right conclusions. The right conclusion being that aid can NOT lead to development, not her rhetorical device of calling for the end of aid flows. Now to my point. The reason Moyo in her book talks up China as an alternative to Western aid is that they do invest in infrastructure and in other sectors that directly address Africa’s economic potential. They are not pretending that free lunches can cure poverty or hunger. I, personally, have advocated an aid exchange. What that would do is to invest aid funds in African ventures such that selected projects are based on local priorities, are focused, subjected to market discipline, and occur in Africa’s private sectors. Read an outline of that here: http://200milesup.newsvine.com/_news/2006/03/12/129958-developing-africa-without-foreign-aid

2. Your revised question had nothing to do with aid. You revised my original question perhaps because it struck a little close to home. Charity is what creates servitude. You perhaps know of the rankadede culture in Northern Nigeria where whole towns depend on the benefaction of one wealthy patron. That is dependence. That is indenture. A man who earns his own living in exchange for his labour and creatiivity is either free or will soon claim freedom.

3. You have to first admit that aid is very much inferior to investment. Aid as it exists now is very much about sending 20 year olds to build fences in Africa. Aid agencies hardly ever give money directly to governments. In fact, enhanced aid governance which you are advocating, dictates this. So the actual aid comes in form of “projects” which unfortunately are too often as I describe.

4. What you prefer is irrelevant. Fortunately the empirical world is not restrained by your opinions. Every single developed country developed by investment, technology, education, rule of law and trade. Not by aid. All those other aspects I enunciated can be had by Africa, except investment. When people talk about how Malaysia, China or South Korea were as poor as Africa in the 1960s they never mention how much more FDI those countries have received in the 1960s compared to Africa which always offered a higher ROI and despite the well-documented fact that the most unstable countries are not necessarily the worst growing. Aid crowds out investment. Because the west thinks of Asia and thinks “Investment!”, but thinks of Africa and thinks “aid”. But aid offers no Economic ROI and the social ROI is not to be taken for granted either. Free lunches will cure hunger this afternoon but not this evening. So, the money that people want to give away as aid, they might as well put into risky social ventures that are sustainable because the goal of a business is to stay in business.

4. If you’re against colonialism and you are a thoughtful person, you’re unlikely to be supportive of the current system of aid. What says colonialism more than the fact that some people 10,000 miles away are the ones setting priorities for Africa!? Aid is about conditions. CIDA or USAID or DFID are the ones who decide on which foot the shoe pinches Africa. They decide the solution. They pretend to implement the solution and even try to claim any local successes as theirs. That is foreign control. I mean, how is that any different from when the British or French just outright dictated what to do in Africa through their colonial administrattions?

In a true system of aid, CIDA says to Rwanda. Here’s 500 Million, spend it on what ails you. That’s what my rich uncle did back in the day when I was a poor student and charity made for good vacations and the odd luxury. The notion that the West knows African problems and has a monopoly of solutions is something that Moyo touched on which I will give her credit for.

April 15, 2009 at 8:39 am

Why is my last comment under moderation? is the One blog censoring contrary viewpoints?

April 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm

Sir,
It refreshing to know you not just another die- hard fan of Mrs Moyo or even worse an ideologue. I defintely do agree with you that she has the general idea. Aid is no doubt a catalyst of development and not necessarily the solution for poverty

Now to your points. My worry with China and the Asian tiger is that I have read briefings on their deals. All of these deals are very heavily lopsided deals where the shortsighted government agrees to sign away their precious resources for years on end in the future for some paltry project. I don`t think this is a fair shake we are getting. In Malawi, they are building stadiums for a fifteen year concession in Steel mining. What kind of deal is that. By the time commodity prices recover, we will no doubt be losing. In my country in fact, there is a case of a South Korean oil company that was allocated an oil well in return for building infrastructure. If the government was serious they would do it themselves. These are the way that this trade approach to development is ripping African off. Africans have to slave for another country and then watch most of the fruits of their labour leave their borders everytime pay day comes. Its greatly unfair.

With all due respect sir, you make plenty of assertions without the wherewithal to back them. From the example you have given here, I doubt you have ever been to the north of Nigeria and I do not know of any such culture such as you have described here. I lived in the North for seven years as I was doing boarding school. People have their own lives. The dependency of which you speak simply does not exist.
Same applies to your assertion about Chinese FDI“. It appears that China did NOT develop on FDI. It developed on their people`s savings and an active government that was ready to invest. Here is the link that backs up this finding . Thus the idea that FDI does more than ascribe one new masters is a fundamentally erroneous one peddled by the Western supremacists. It is a proven fact that when one allows too much foreign investment into the country, he becomes a creditor nation, which has relatively the same economic impact as a country that is servicing public debt. You should do much more research sir.

However, I am happy that you brought to light the other factors that contribute to Africa’s problem as opposed to Dambisa singular and foolhardy insistence on aid as the root of all our troubles (as though aid came before poverty rather than the other way round). Now, I also think that certain forms of aid crowd out investments. However, when aid becomes investment, the results are remarkably different. How can aid turn into investment? The current stimulus plans of developed countries act as enough of a model for us: Build schools, build infrastructure, establish and refine instruments of law and order, improve security. Aid is a funding alternative for all these projects which comes at by far less a cost to us than foreign investment. Using foreign investment to build infrastructure only entrenches our cycle of poverty. How? We use their capital to build infrastructure. Of course its trade so they take something in return. Whatever they take goes right back to their own countries- we only get the slave wages. That’s a long and painful road to development. As opposed to a development model where aid (not loans or tied aid) is used to build infrastructure. Nothing leaves the country…its just a transfer payment that stays in our country and grows. There is no cost to us in this approach to our development.

No doubt, the current system of aid is repressive. Which brings me to my final point.
I think what many people have been failing to appropriately consider in this aid or no aid issue is the idea of JUSTICE AS DEVELOPMENT

There will be little dissent as to the extent that our peoples have been wronged by foreigners. How our people have been deliberately manipulated, deceived and repressed by the developed world and their interests. How they have grown their economies literally off our backs. Thus I think more than this idea of aid as dependency is Africans willingness to disregard the more important point of development aid as justice. We have to make it clear to the west that we DESERVE this aid and that they are not just doing development because they have a moral obligation to help the poor or because it is in the long term national interests. It is because they owe us and this is a good way to pay back.
Thus, I am all for the idea of African government and western governments being partners in development. (I have echoed this elsewhere on this comment roll) This master-serf thinking that accompanies aid has to end and the West has to understand that development is its way of doing penance for its past sins and it indeed deserves to do this penance. I think that even well intentioned Africans like you and Moyo who have a lot of pride in your people miss this salient point. The point that the west owes us and we are NOT begging. We are demanding justice. To throw our hands up at justice in the name of “self-esteem” and “a rejection of a culture of dependency” insidiously and ironically pushes the assumptions that it attempts to battle. Africa is not a dependent of the west. We are equal partners and the only reason they must help us is because they owe us. It is now time that we shoot the west of its high horse, read them their rights and let them understand that this is not about being kind hearted benefactors, this is about doing time. If they choose not to co-operate, then we ask for our repatriations- simple.

PS: I have read your blog and I surprisingly agree with most of the ideas postulated there (even though you seem to be speaking from both sides of your mouth- you advocate abolishing aid and then you turn around to consider fixing it- you have to pick a side my brother!!). Unfortunately, there was just one small problem. I have to ask you a question that I hope you don’t find at all demeaning: What do you think development aid is?

April 15, 2009 at 4:32 pm

Here is the link to the paper that adequately sums up the case against this ìmaginary “influx of FDI“ into China that all these miscalculating developemnt economists imagine is responsible for their development. China`s development was home made- their citizens came back from their sojourns abroad with their own capital and determined to develop their country.

http://tinyurl.com/dnjzpf

April 16, 2009 at 3:16 pm

I will retire from this conversation at this point.

It’s not just that you’re randomly finding misleading articles and branding it research while asking me to “do more research” it’s more that you won’t engage my actual points. If some obscure Masters thesis (not directly about your subject) is what you’ll use to counter the established view of both academia and just any Jack or Kwame you ask, then I’ll have to wonder….

Your aid as reparations idea can be discussed on its merits. But even if Africa merited reparations, and there are strong arguments for that, reparations would flow to Africa as reparations, and would not be aid.

You complain about colonialism and supremacism but are unfortunately comfortable with Paris, London or Washington dictating to Africa what it’s problems are, how it must solve them and in which order of priorities. If you advocate that Africa should seek to develop through aid, you’re asking Africa to outsource actual governance because we know that what we’ll get is conditions and priorities set from outside. In that sense aid can actually be seen as subversive and a tool of control. Talk to people in the policy circles of aid donor countries and they talk, often earnestly about “influence”, how to make sure that they are able to influence results and happenings in recipient countries by their actions. From the donor’s viewpoint, that’s fundamental to aid effectiveness.

The notion that FDI makes a country a “slave” seems ridiculous given how much FDI the most powerful country on earth receives, and has received right from its inception.

While FDI is not cost free, it is a proven path to growth as we’ve seen in Africa in the last decade. On the other hand there is not one single developed country that became so through aid or any other kind of dependence.

About my stance on aid. I am not by any means arguing both sides. I am saying, Africa needs financial resources. So I am not opposed to countries which are willing to put capital into Africa. What I am certain of is that aid as it stands is not set up to succeed. free lunches can not cure hunger. Creating jobs, educating people and expanding productivity will. So I say don’t give the money away. Invest it.

I am saying to CIDA: If you are ready to give away $100 in Africa, then you should be ready to simply make sure that those $100 are put into a project that generates an economic return. That way you do 4 things. 1, you get $100 back to put into another project next week. 2, the recipient, if he is successful in giving CIDA a return of $100, would remain in business since he’d be generating more economic value through his activity than $100 which would much enhance the sustainability of that activity. 3, You’d actually boost how much the recipient’s government can collect in taxes. 4, you’d actually be putting your money where locals see both a need and an opportunity.

I do not think that FDI is the only way to go. In fact, I strongly believe that if African governments will simply collect taxes which their citizens owe they’d raise a whole lot more money than they can raise from aid AND FDI based on today’s levels. I also think that if the capital in the informal and black economies in Africa were mobilised you’d find a deep pool of resources for development. But Africa needs all the resources it can get. As I said before the problem with aid is not that it exists, it’s that it’s not and can’t be substantial, and it does not directly boost Africa’s economic potential.

All I want is for money to be invested in Africa as it has been invested everywhere else in the world.

I think you’re wrong, even misguided, but I wish you the best. Cheers!

April 16, 2009 at 4:43 pm

I will assume you are retiring from the conversation because you have nothing else of value to say.

So I will respond by first debunking certain insinuations (incorrect of course) you have made about my position on this issue and then moving on to engage your viewpoints as I always have.

1. I do not support aid as it is now. As I have repeatedly stated, I have posited views in my previous comments about how I believe aid should be reformed to make Africans stakeholders in the development project rather than the present case of beggars without choice. Thus I am not as you say, “comfortable with Paris, London or Washington dictating to Africa what it’s problems are, how it must solve them and in which order of priorities”. That is the system that organizations like ONE and Africans need to work together to change.

2. Ironically you are the one who has refused to engage my points especially on the level of facts and clear logic. You make sweeping assumptions and do not care to look at the fine print or even provide facts and figures to back up your positions. Clearly, your idea of fact and logical arguments is majority opinion. Fortunately, the two are not always necessarily interchangeable. So it is possible that these many Development economists or “Jack and Kwame” are wrong. It is important for you to examine the merits of every argument on its own merits and not on the whimps on misguided academia or even worse”Jack and Kwame”.

3. On your point about “how much FDI the most powerful country on earth receives”, it will perhaps interest you to know that on many levels, it is this level of FDI that has wrought its present destruction. Its theatrically comical that you would use America’s failed model of development to push a point especially in these financial times. However, it is a good thing that you agree that FDI is hardly the only way to go. But I find your insistence on taxes rather naively thought out. Who will pay taxes in countries where there is no law and order? In Nigeria, there are countless examples of foreign multinational companies who evade taxes because they can bribe tax officials. More so, there is the salient issue of further impoverishing the poor and unemployed. The idea of taxes as a spur for economic development in Africa is one that is in fact dead on arrival. As for the other funding sources, I find them to be creative alternatives but I doubt their feasibility in the face of incompetent governance. It is necessary to consider why development aid (which I consider to be the most practical fulfillment of this concept of Development as Justice) is important not just for its low cost economic benefits but for the message it sends to a world that finds it a sport to take advantage of Africa.

4. In the course of my studies, it has become rather obvious to me that much of the resource transfers from Africa to the West have already occurred during and after the period of colonization. In fact there is a case to be made for this resource transfer still presently continuing. Thus, what we are witnessing as present day poverty in Africa is a manipulation of the free market system. We gave them resources, but we never got enough in return. The little we got, we were manipulated into giving even more for in the name of trade. Of course the reasons for this abound. Short sighted, illiterate leaders…etc. The idea of development aid is in my opinion to effect this balance of trade. There has to be that return transfer before we see concrete development in Africa. However, the last thing we want in this payback for resources is some sharing program where each person gets handed worthless paper. Therefore, the most concrete way for the west to do this is to invest in OUR infrastructure. This means we tell them where the shoe pinches and they fix it. That is how I believe it should work. Sending more resources to the west in the absence of this principal fix is operating in a market of inequilibrium. This is not how even the revered “free market” pretends to allocates resources. An extension of this thought is the idea that people have to return home. Human capital has to return to base for any significant development to take place.

5.I believe the only reason aid has not succeeded is because it was used by the west as a tool of subversion and control. If Africans reclaim development aid as repatriation for the resource flight that took place a long time ago, the attitude the West has to aid will fundamentally change. They will have to realize that Africans have to direct the development aid agenda, not just because it is the only way to achieve real development but because we deserve to. Or have you ever seen a debtor dictate to the creditor the terms of payment? It is always the other way around. I believe that we ARE ENTITLED to aid as a reparation for the past (and present) resource flights from Africa to the west.

6. During the last decade in which you claim FDI has made the difference, there has also been the highest aid flows from Europe to Africa thanks to debt relief and other initiatives sponsored by ONE. I believe that these factors deserve as much credit as FDI in the decade of growth we have just registered. No doubt corruption has been an obstacle but still our resourceful people have made the best of the little that has trickled down to them.

In conclusion, I also want money to be invested in Africa and I think development aid presents that opportunity to us with the added advantage of time as well as reducing capital flight out of the country.

PS: The CIDA idea looks good and I think this is one way aid can be managed. But why should CIDA and not this individual determine where the “$100″ we would “put into another project next week” should go?
Replace CIDA with say Goldman Sachs and we can rightly assume the money would go to Ms Moyo’s bonus. Capitalism eh?

April 17, 2009 at 12:17 pm

A lot of red herrings trapped in all that text. Here’s what I’ve managed to extract from it:

1. You, for some weird reason, think that Africa is able to dictate the terms of aid which is fantastical. The donors will always set the terms. Investment is different because it’s always negotiated, at least more so than aid. If I decided to send money to my aged grandmother, I set the terms, however altruistic my action would be. i’ll simply call my gran and tell her hos much I am sending her and how. If I was investing in my cousin’s business we’d have to discuss it. The notion that Africa can demand aid as a way to balance off Africa’s exploitation is nonsense.

2. I’d have expected you to understand the point about the US. The point was not to hold the US up as a paragon, but to illustrate that receiving FDI does not make a country a “slave” as you so ridiculously claimed. If a powerful country developed and retains its power through FDI, it’s quite clear that your claim was puerile.

3. Aid can not be reparations. Reparations are reparations. If you broke my windscreen and sent me a cheque of $200 to fix it, that’d be reparations. If you saw my broken windscreen and you sent me a cheque for $200 then that’d be aid. But the dynamics in the real world is even more different. The reparations Jews got for Nazi crimes is theirs to invest as they please. The aid Malawi receives, most of it doesn’t even get to Malawi. A lot of it goes to paying donor country workers. But whatever is the case, that can’t be a reason to keep a bankrupt and fundamentally flawed aid model. Whether Africa deserves reparations or not, it certainly does not deserve aid with all it’s negative effects, and its inability to deliver development.

4. Debt Relief is not aid. It might be classified as such but is not aid. But if that’s what you’re claiming for the aid side. I’ll give you that one. But debt relief is a one-off, and can’t be an approach to development. Aid unfortunately has become a misguided approach to development. But debt relief was a big boost. What wasn’t a big boost wasn’t buying retroviral drugs from US companies to give free to Rwandans. That did not contribute to growth directly.

5. Taxes: The Canadian government does not leave you the choice to pay your taxes. It comes and collects it. To consider it naive that African countries have to do the same is amazing. Taxes are the cost of having an orderly society. And it has many economic advantages. And I only laugh that you dismiss any other ways to recruit resources for African development. it’s a telling sign, that you think Africa should not try to develop but should just lie postrate, wait for aid money to come, and fool itself that this will lead to development. This is a very important point. Aid will never be enough. FDI will never be enough. Africa has to tap into its own resources because 99% of what Africa does have was created by African resources. It has to find ways to tap more into those resources and deepen them. There is no excuse for not collecting taxes that are due. No excuse whatsoever.

April 29, 2009 at 5:16 pm

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji made an interesting comment that makes Ndabis moyo right in the end.He writtes
“Is the 50million Euro aid that helps to immunize children in Northern Nigeria against polio and other diseases, dead Aid?
Are funds (USAID) especially that invest in the education of young people all over Africa, Dead Aid?”
I think the above questions by Iyinoluwa just concur with Moyos assertions that AID is dead and ought to be cut.
How in this World can the whole Nigeria have to depend on 50 Million Euro Aid to treat her citizens?.
We are talking of an Oil rich exporter of OIL whose top Five Citizens cas easily pay off that 50 Million Euro
with Billions more stashed away idle in Foreign Accounts.
And this is what Moyo is talking about.
We need Shock therapy to hold our evil leaders to accountability.
Had Northern Nigeria gone without those drugs and no foreignor to meet their needs,the citizens would have forced their Govt to act but with some one to take care of our mess,our Govts find no reason not to fleece us.

April 29, 2009 at 5:27 pm

Edwin,
You are only saying that because its not you or your child in any of those situations. Infact I am deeply offended at your comments. Shock Therapy indeed. I hope you will be in tow to lead that revolution.

Even if this what Moyo meant, she greatly undermines her point when she says in her book that we need a “benevolent dictator”. So how will we hold leaders accountable without a democratic process except ofcourse you are talking about more wars……

You should go read the whole book and then proffer a sensible opinion on it not just prescribe the death of millions when you are not involved in that struggle.

May 1, 2009 at 9:29 am

As a matter of fact,iam from Rwanda.And it is in Rwanda that one can ably see the urgent need for Benovelence Dictator ships in most parts of Africa.
While Rwanda is no Democracy,its accountabilty,corruption levels and impunity are no march for her more democratic Neighbours.
This is the “Democratic Paradox” of most African Countries.
Dependant on mis-informed,ignorant and secterian ideology motivated peasants,the regime of Uganda continues to stay in power though a manipulation of Democratic ideals like Elections.
The Goverment cant impose simple regulations because of the fear to lose votes.A soap bar or a round of beer drinks can win the hearts and thus the votes of many.
politicians easily fleece their constituents as long as they will share the loot with them.And all this is done in the name of Democracy.

The same would be the case in Rwanda had it attempted forced Democracy.
All time would be spent in empty politicking where the themes are all personal and ideologically bankrupt

Democracy in Africa should be postponed untill we are able to create the middleclass society that can support it.
At the moment all we need is benovelent authoritarian .Leader ship to push threw reforms and policies for the good of Society.

From where i come from in Rwanda,citizens have to be “forced” to wear shoes,”forced” to wear Helmets and sit belts,”forced” to pay Health Insuarance. Employers are forced to avail protective gears for their employees.Citizens are “forced” to not throw litter in the streets.

Citizens are “forced” not to drink local brew in the morning working hours while others are now being forced to use contraceptives.
It has taken a decade to explain to no avail until coercive methods were intrroduced and the benefits are there for all to see.
Like a sick Child who is forced to take medication,his gratitude comes when he is recovered from the ailements that he suffered from.
Uganda, thanks to elections and abused Democracy and Human rights is one mess of a Country gone to the Dogs while Kenya cant conduct an election without secterian Violence.
This is where Moyo Ndabisa comes in. What if democracy is a liability itself, she asks?

To hold Leaders accountable through democratic means in Africa has totally failed. The whole continent is a recycle of Politicians who change Parties now and then and depend on tribal loyalities to win the votes.
No different ideological difference is their characteristic and secterianism is their commonality.

The A.N.C in South Africa is one manifestation of that. Corrupt and failure in gringing the goodies to the masses the impoverished majority masses of Africans continue to vote for it as long as Mandela says so and Zuma sings for them his favourate “Bring my Machine Gun” Classic.

May 1, 2009 at 12:47 pm

Arguments against democracy are often fraught with paradoxes. We all know that. And I hope the inadequacies in your argument against democracy are clear for all to see so I will not further indulge them.

But the this the question Dambisa fails to answer: If the problem with aid is that it makes governments less accountable to their citizens, and ending aid will “automatically” bring about this accountability. If there are no elections, how are the people supposed to register their displeasure with a non performing government. If this “benevolent dictator” cannot be held accountable by way of elections, then how do we hold them accountable?

Now let me say that the “copy and paste” attitude Africans adopt to elections is clearly unhelpful and it is what leads to the situation we are experiencing now everywhere. Africa clearly needs its own uniquely crafted democratic institutions instead of the current practice of just adopting what we see from the west. However even with this perspective, there is no credible argument for placing the destinies of even a few million people in the hands of one “benevolent dictator”. What if your “benevolent dictator” is misinformed or plain incompetent? By what process will he come to power, or will we just await the coming of this messiah whilst encouraging as many army men as possible to try out for the role? How will we know he is benevolent?

If Moyo is trying to make a point about the need for democratic reform, that is a different matter. But she goes on all out to endorse a benevolent dictator. That is asking a question, that is stating and opinion and the central question is this:

Does it make sense for Dambisa to slam democracy in a book that urges more accountability for governments will be achieved by cutting aid?

It seems to me an argument that is clinging to straws–any straws….it undermines her central point and it makes her work even less logically coherent or credible.

May 8, 2009 at 3:34 am

Can anyone give a name of a country that has been pulled out of poverty by Aid and now is a first world country the Europe, US, Canada, Japan, Turkey, or etc.

I can understand if you could name a country “XXX” and now they are a 1st world nation in the same ranks of the EU, then you have a case. Most nations do not start off as “poor” nations they have a long history of change. The countries than can change are the fastest one to improve the lot for their people.

Its one thing to have a person on welfare for a set time period where they can improve their job skills and re-enter the market. I mean really re-enter the market with credible skills. Once they are up to speed they can be a productive member of the community and with their tax money help others. The point is a set “time period” with “set goals” if there isn’t any option for the said country to get the skills to get out of poverty or worse they are unable to get a job (market their services to the world) then they would be stuck in the same place.

What nations in Africa have the same living standards as a EU country and did that said country do it on aid or in investment?

thanks.

May 21, 2009 at 9:13 am

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1607602