Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid (2009) provoked new controversy in the aid debate. In this third contribution to The (Dead) Aid Debate blog series, Lindsay Whitfield looks beyond the hype to tackle Moyo’s arguments.
Moyo states loudly and clearly, so there can be no misunderstanding, that it is time to stop pitying Africa. Pity has not helped the continent, and has actually hurt its external and self-image. Everywhere today, we see the image of an Africa that is poor and needy, unable to help itself. It is time for that to end. Likewise, she points out the excesses and hypocrisy of the aid system, which benefits the most those who work in the aid industry. Lastly, she provides a call for Africans to start representing themselves on the world stage, rather than leaving it to Western rock stars.
All this is true, but Moyo says it with such fervour to wake everyone from their slumber. She has injected new blood into the aid debate, stimulating it and putting the critical voice out front. Unfortunately, that is where her contribution ends. The fact that her arguments against aid are not very convincing, may even be a liability for the critics. She also does not highlight what I think are the real issues regarding the problems with aid—which I take up later in this blog series.
The reader is also let down by her solutions. The solutions offered are not based on an empirical assessment of how aid works, nor on an assessment of the economic challenges facing late ‘late industrializers’ in the contemporary global economy. Moyo implies that economic development in Africa can come about through borrowing on international capital markets, plus Chinese investment, plus microfinance, plus remittances, minus ‘systemic foreign aid’. These ingredients might be useful, but they will not turn into a cake by simply mixing them together in a bowl. This is not to say that foreign aid is the missing oven.
The economic challenges facing African countries as late, late industrializers are serious and complex, and need to be analyzed in both domestic and global contexts. Moyo’s solutions just change the source of capital (through bonds, microfinance and remittances instead of foreign aid), but she does not talk about the structural constraints facing countries and how they may be overcome. This is not really her fault, since according to her argument aid is the cause of poverty and needs to be taken away, so her only challenge is to find other sources of capital. It is this type of framing of the aid and Africa debate, in particular, that is not useful.
Lindsay Whitfield is Project Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and editor of The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors (2009). This blog was published as a Danish Institute for International Studies working paper. For more on the (dead) aid debate, visit GEG’s resource page.
