Over the past thirty years, the most aid-dependent countries have exhibited growth rates averaging minus 0.2 % per annum. The long term effect of the ‘aid injection’ has been to decimate the local economy and make the local population dependent on foreign aid from abroad.’īacking this up with some stats, Moyo goes on to point out that ‘even the most cursory look at the data suggests that as aid has increased over time, Africa’s growth has decreased with an accompanying higher incidence of poverty. Now think of what happens 5 years down the line when the mosquito nets are torn and beyond repair, we have now mosquito nets, and no local industry to build any more. His ten workers can no longer support their dependents. With the market flooded with foreign nets, however, our mosquito net maker is promptly out of business. However hard they work, they cannot make enough nets to combat the malaria-carrying mosquito.Įnter vociferous Hollywood movie star who rallies the masses, and goads Western governments to collect and send 100, 000 mosquito nets to the affected region, at a cost of $1 million, the nets arrive, the nets are distributed and a good deed is done.
He employs 10 people, who each have to support upwards of 15 relatives. Moyo explains this through the following hypothetical example In fact, according to Moyo, aid is malignant, it is the problem!
The end result for the less well informed reader is that they are stuck with a number of ‘easy to understand memorable case studies’ which imply that aid causes poverty – even though Moyo never actually says as much.Īnyway, here is my interpretation of the criticisms Moyo makes about the role of aid in development and a few criticisms that some people might make of Moyo’s work.Ĭriticism 1 – Aid does not bring about economic growthĪt the end of chapter 3 – Aid is not working, Moyo starts to outline her basic criticism of Aid – This basic criticism being that aid has not effectively promote economic growth in Africa – Over 1 trillion dollars has been pumped into Africa over the past 60 years and there is little to show for it. I say ‘imply causality’ because she never actually uses the word ‘cause’ – but the reader is left with the impression that this is what she is driving at. The main criticism I have of Moyo is that she uses statistics that show correlations between a high level of aid receipts and poor economic growth and then attempts to imply causality (aid causing poor growth) by using emotive, highly selective, anecdotal and even hypothetical (she invents a country – Dongo) ‘evidence’ to back up her case.
I’m mainly drawing from her writing at the end of chapter 3 and the whole of chapter 4 – and I offer up a few criticisms all the way through – before you read this through – please note my main criticism of Moyo’s work –
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