Despite more than $1 trillion Aid from the West, Africa in dire economic straits.

Despite receiving more than $1 trillion from the west over the last half century, Africa remains in dire economic straits. Dambisa Moyo in her book Dead Aid, which was published this month, and in which she argues that foreign aid is to blame and has been bad for Africa, and must stop now.

Others have taken her tack, that aid simply doesn't work: William Easterly, for example, in 'The White Man's Burden' and 'Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good' : Peter Bauer, the Hungarian-born economist to whom Moyo has dedicated her book, was arguing that large transfers of aid were a mistake as far back as the 1960s.

In her new controversial book Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo argues that, so far from helping Africa, foreign aid has impeded economic growth and made poor countries even poorer. She notes that Asian economies have flourished with little foreign aid, while Africa has stagnated despite billions from Western governments. Aid, she argues, is the problem.

Dambisa Moyo points out that, since the second world war, around $1 trillion has been transferred from richer countries to Africa. But it is hard to see what benefit this has brought to a region that remains trapped in failure. Why, Moyo asks, “is it that Africa alone among the continents of the world seems to be locked into a cycle of dysfunction? Why in a recent survey did seven out of the top 10 ‘failed states’ hail from that continent?” Moyo, a Zambian economist educated at Oxford and Harvard, who has worked for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs, believes that foreign aid is the root cause of the spiral that has led Africa into its present situation.
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Moyo believes that dependency on aid “undermines the ability of Africans, whatever their station, to determine their own best economic and political policies”. She is rightly angry about the way Africa’s elected officials and policymakers have often been excluded from the debate, and had little opportunity to argue the merits and demerits of aid, and alternative answers: “This very important responsibility has, for all intents and purposes, and to the bewilderment and chagrin of many an African, been left to musicians who reside outside Africa.” Since the situation remains bleak, western activists tend to press for further aid in an attempt to make things better.

Dr Moyo advocates the complete elimination of foreign aid. Her suggested solutions for Africa’s economic underperformance rely on free market mechanisms: micro-finance, reduced international trade barriers, borrowing through bond markets, and strengthening property rights.

The book’s title is an obvious slap in the face for Bob Geldof and the jet-setting celebrities who performed at Live Aid.