Unique among the many recent books about African development, Dead Aid is by an African woman -- Dambisa Moyo, a native of Zambia -- which automatically raises its interest value. It complements, and raises a lot of the same points, as another recent book – an anthology of writing by Africans about development, Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits, edited by Rasna Warah. Both are worth reading, or at least skimming, by those deeply interested in the subject of foreign aid and, especially, foreign aid in Africa.
I’ll confine my remarks here to the former, which has received the greater media buzz. The author’s thesis, in a nutshell, is that not only has development aid not improved the lives of Africans, but it has actually made them worse – through encouraging corruption, repression and a culture of dependency. There is considerable substance to her argument: Some countries that have received large amounts of foreign aid have gone nowhere in terms of real development, while countries like Vietnam and China, which have received essentially no foreign aid, have made enormous strides in terms of ending hunger and poverty. Certainly, when not done right, foreign aid can undermine economies, empower and perpetuate corrupt elites and sap the initiative on which development ultimately depends: commodity food aid can undercut local farmers; massive cash transfers can drive up the value of the currency and discourage exports.
The author distinguishes three basic types of foreign aid: humanitarian or emergency aid “mobilized and dispensed in response to catastrophes and calamities;” charity-based aid, “disbursed by charitable organizations to institutions or people on the ground; and “systematic aid” – i.e., aid payments made directly to governments, either on a bilateral basis or through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.
But, in fact, the distinction between what the author describes as “charity-based” and “systematic” aid is not at all clear. The former may be strictly from one private group to another, or it can involve governments: PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and, presumably, similar programs working with people “on the ground” are grouped with charity-based aid, although they are programmed by donor governments in consultation with recipient governments. It’s just that the bulk of it is implemented outside of traditional government channels. In fact, most U.S. development assistance is delivered in this way, whether for health, education, economic growth or democracy and governance.