Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo says it’s time to rethink aid to Africa.
Photo Turkairo
For years, aid to Africa has been a staple of many western nations’ foreign policy, and more than a few famous actors and musicians.
Most of us assume that this aid in necessary for the survival of the African people, especially in the devastatingly war-torn countries, places that experience extreme drought, and the areas most affected by AIDS.
So my ears perked up when I recently heard Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo discuss her book, Dead Aid on America’s National Public Radio (NPR).
She relates a shocking statistic:
Between 1970 and 1998, when aid flows to Africa were at their peak, poverty in Africa rose from 11% to a staggering 66%.
Moyo, who has worked for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs, describes how foreign aid actually hinders self-sustainability and innovation by African people. One example she gave was when a Hollywood star donates a large batch of mosquito nets to be given out for free, it disposes the local business selling these same nets.
Worse, she says, is that much of this aid breeds corruption in African governments, as “pity” from western nations puts money in the hands of corrupt and tyrannical leaders while turning a blind eye to their actions.
She also says that the world’s view of Africa plays a major role in the issue of aid:
The largely unspoken and insidious view that the problem with Africa is Africans – that culturally, mentally and physically Africans are innately different. That, somehow, deeply embedded in their psyche is an inability to embrace development and improve their own lot in life without guidance and help.
What African nations should do instead, Moyo says, is invest in bonds and the sale of African food and goods on the world market, and work more closely with China, who at least gives the impression of business between equal partners.
She adds that current aid could be funneled toward microfinance.
Yet critics say that her focus on market investments as the answer to Africa’s problems falls flat in the current economic crisis. There is also the issue of China’s not-so-impressive-stance on human rights.
What do you think of Moyo’s take on aid to Africa? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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10 Comments... join the discussion!
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The idea of foreign aid killing Africa feels right – it is nice to hear this, for it is a first-glance paradox that makes sense when you consider it. So-called “developed” nations and their pathological influence is Africa’s only problem – it has always been this way from slavery to colonization. Most likely, the fine print on foreign aid comes with many conditions that actually makes everything worse for the people and better off for the corporation that funded the aid to begin with – just like most bills in America that become “law.”
Meanwhile, I think it is naive to believe that the misery in Africa isn’t orchestrated in one way or another. Civil War and genocide serve their purpose while the resources of the Motherland are raped and pillaged. The World Health Organization did mass immunizations during the late 1970’s in the same places where AIDS broke out most prevalently. Now, people are forced into slave labor as the only means by which to get their medication. Africa has become a 500 year experiment in human bondage, population control, and resource extraction – the enslavement and manipulation of an entire continent.
Today, African nations suffer from genocide, starvation, poverty, and disease. Therefore, it sounds “funny” to hear someone talk about African nations investing in bonds and getting their products out into the world market. So, I believe this to be a ridiculous idea. And I would be weary of any western nation’s ideas or plans for “development” – especially any advice coming from the World Bank. Africa has been under “development” for many hundreds of years. Africa needs leadership, empowerment, and inspiration and a reconnection to its culture more than any outdated economic models that help it participate in the global economy. It needs to become self-sufficient and sovereign from foreign influence. The cultures in Africa that have thrived – the ones you don’t hear about – are the communities who have kept themselves off the globalized economic grid.
Otherwise, all this African hardship might be an opportunity to be creative and experimental as well – to try something new. Imagination is the key.
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Hi Christine,
Thanks for the thought-provoking article. I’m not sure if I agree with the argument that withdrawing aid will encourage Africans’ “creativity;” I don’t think people are too worried about being creative if they’re starving. Also, when many African countries are continually exploited by the first world (take a look at Nigeria’s history with oil, for example) the suggestion that Africans should somehow come up with their own creative solutions to poverty seems to be irrelevant at best and insulting at worst.
But I can also easily see how aid in Africa, like in so many places, ends in the hands of corrupt leaders and ends up doing more harm than good.
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Thanks for the comments, all. I wanted to add what struck me about what Moyo was saying–though I don’t necessarily agree becoming more involved with the world market as the answer–was the underlying notion that everyone needs to take their hands off of Africa. The exploitation goes hand in hand with aid, and only serves to keep corrupt governments in charge (Zimbabwe, anyone?). Moyo even said that humanitarian aid–short-term help for natural disasters and such–didn’t need to be eliminated, but rather the over-arching World Bank funds that are given directly to these oppressive governments.
And I do agree with Moyo’s point that much of the world thinks that Africans can’t take care of themselves, when in reality it is the rest of the world that has destroyed their land, culture, and contributed to the immense suffering many face on a daily basis. As in the Middle East, much of western involvement on the continent has to do with our own interests, not the people’s.
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It’s odd that Zimbabwe would be suggested as an example – there have been serious political sanctions in place for awhile that have been fairly detrimental and haven’t ousted Mugabe. Zimbabwe is actually one of a few countries where it’s arguable corrupt leadership has been maintaining control without aid, in fact Mugabe expelled a lot of organizations in the last decade and it’s relatively difficult to even do relief work there as a foreigner.
That’s the thing about Africa. It’s huge and diverse, the problems are complex and multifaceted and often arise from the unique history of a particular country. Aid is equally complex. It’s not always funneled into corrupt governments directly – an NGO may harm more than it helps by allowing a government to avoid providing services, placating people so they don’t seek political action. The fragmented nature of foreign aid makes it unstable in regions that require stability and coherent government strategies to deal with problems.
And honestly, the only successful NGO I’ve visited was constructed by people from the nation to deal with the problems of the nation and used articulate representatives and strategies to attract funding. It’s been running for thirty years and is the difference between success and despair in that community – and it’s training young people who grow up there to be political activists. It keeps foreigners out, training Africans to help other Africans.
What Moyo gets right is trade, although I’d focus more on lifting barriers. Few in North America are aware of the way trade agreements, negotiated by stronger Western governments, tend to negatively impact African development. If you study GATT and other binding agreements African nations are required to sign in order to sit at the negotiating tables you start to see the problems (cotton subsidization is a prime example). The deals the IMF cuts with nations in crisis have been no better – the restrictions placed on the money resulted in the “debts” that were so kindly “forgiven” by those who had profited from them. We don’t need to tell our governments to devote more to aid, we need to tell them to engage in large scale fair trade.
The result are frustrated resource economies that allow Western governments cheap access due to a lack of other imports and exports – keeping African economies immature helps us to live inexpensively and keeps the taps on. Even South Africa – leader in Southern Africa – relies heavily on gold.
Combined with “food aid,” the Western world actually ends up profiting from “assisting” nations while ensuring they are unable to develop the economies and infrastructure necessary to grow and survive. The NYTimes actually did some great work on this one last year. For yet another example, the disaster that has been state HIV/AIDS antiretroviral provision is largely perpetuated by intellectual property trade agreements and complex licensing procedures – protecting profits for North American pharmaceutical companies.
Trade agreements matter.
Bonds matter – they insulate against currency volatility.
I realize the concepts are difficult but they should come as no surprise in a country where fictional asset trading is currently wreaking havoc on the economy. The information is out there. If you want an African perspective on what is happening you can start by reading allafrica.com, reading information by African political theorists and economists, and talking to friends who’ve immigrated.
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That smug comment about “China’s not-so-impressive-stance on human rights” was quite nauseating coming from a USAian. China has 4 times more total population than the USA, but fewer total people in prison. The USA has more people in prison than any other nation on earth, and most of them are there for trifles and thought-crimes like possession of a harmless plant, a plant the founding fathers grew on their plantations, or for belonging to the wrong ethnic group, or for disrespecting some MegaCorporation’s “intellectual property rights.” The USA even arrests and kidnaps foreign nationals for violating US laws outside of US territory. What next, will the USA start sending people to prison for disrespecting “human chattel property rights” like they did in the 19th century? Alabama already brought back the chain gang, and Wackenhut runs private prisons and farms out prisoner labor for profit. Remember, millions of Tibetans are still around to protest for more independence because over the centuries of occupation, China did not slaughter and exterminate the Tibetan population like the USA did to most of the nations on US territory. Why don’t we hear about, say, the Massachusetts Indians protesting for more independence from the USA? Because over 99% were exterminated, so they aren’t around to protest. The list of contrasts goes on and on, and China comes out looking better over and over again. Is China perfect? Of course not; no nation is perfect. But if you start comparing human rights records and history of attitudes towards African people and other “colored” peoples, China looks much better than the USA, much better than western Europe, and much better than Japan.
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@ Political analyst – I completely agree that the U.S human rights record is pretty atrocious, particularly in the past 8 years. But I completely disagree with your reasoning. Living in China I heard this argument so many times–”well, who are you to say China’s human rights record is awful? The U.S is just as bad!!” It is such a grim race-to-the-bottom way of thinking that defeats the ultimate goal–improved human rights everywhere. I really don’t understand the logic of saying that simply because one’s own country has a shitty human rights record, one has no room to criticize other countries. If we follow this way of thinking to it’s end, it’s essentially saying that because the U.S exterminated other people’s, China can do it too, and we can’t criticize them. This is the ultimate case of history repeating itself–shouldn’t we be doing something to prevent this from happening again?
Also, I don’t understand the reasoning of saying “no country is perfect” or “China is better than the USA”–this is a sort of comparative logic that says, “Well, hey, the U.S is pretty awful, but it’s better than Zimbabwe, so hey, don’t criticize it!” And China’s record of human rights violations towards many types of people, from Falun Gong practitioners to homosexuals, is pretty awful. While I was living in Beijing a Chinese journalist was thrown into jail for criticizing China’s AIDS policy (or lack thereof) and his wife and newborn baby were put on house arrest and denied milk formula.
Now, I do not think that it’s a very intelligent or helpful strategy to say, “well, sure, that might be bad, but it’s better than torturing prisoners in Guantanamo”–both are awful and should be changed. If anyone affiliated with any negative regime lacked the ability to speak out against human rights violations, what would the world come to?
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Thanks for your thoughtful responses…
Just wanted to reply to a couple of points. Fortuna, aid has not completely stopped to Zimbabwe–in 2007, China loaned Zimbabwe 100 million pounds, and was negotiating a 1 billion dollar loan (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-503694/Cameron-calls-China-stop-providing-aid-Zimbabwe-despot-Mugabe.html). And some blame the 1.6 billion dollars loaned to Zim between 1980 and 2000 (http://web.worldbank.org) for Mugabe’s ability to take total control, with his infamous ‘land reform’ occuring “with British development support” (http://www.reason.com/news/show/117402.html). Although World Bank aid has been halted, it’s hard not to see the connection between Mugabe’s seize of power and the vast amount of funds going directly to their government for years.Political Analyst–the comment about China was not made with smugness. Trust me, my mother is 100% German, a country that obviously had the worst human rights record of the 20th century. I know very well that the US was founded on the backs of many broken people due to racism, sexism, classism, and the extermination of many natives, and continues to spread its seed throughout the world. But my argument was not that Africans should work with the US or other western countries instead of China, but rather they should have a chance for automony and freedom. The reality that human rights violations are happening to an extent that the Chinese government refuses to discuss the subject with any world body does not bode well for a relationship free of these abuses between China and Africa.
And the crackdown and killing of Tibetan Buddhist monks just last year does not bode well for your statement “China did not slaughter and exterminate the Tibetan population like the USA did to most of the nations on US territory.” The numbers (which we do not know for sure because of China’s control of the media) may not be the same, but the intent was.↵ -
The problem isn’t aid, it’s how it is being done. Instead of simply giving things out to the population, there needs to be involvement by the community. For example. let’s say you build a bridge for a community and donate all the labor and materials. The bridge is finished, it is a success and everyone is happy. But what happens when the bridge starts to crack or if the bridge isn’t large enough to accommodate a new need? If no one in the community knows the first thing about bridges, people will sit around and ask that the nice people come back and fix the bridge. It’s a vicious cycle. What needs to be done is to have programs that require community involvement and awareness so that the community has a personal stake in the success. Of course this won’t solve all the problems, but it is a better way of doing it than just simply handing out aid.
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Which is why capitalism works.. China treats Africa as a potential growth partner, not as some sad sodden has-been to be saved. The savior complex has wrecked Africa. Instead of developing infrastructure, education etc – ie. teaching a man to fish, money has been spent feeding the man.
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