Comments on: Is Aid Good for Africa?

By: Brown muuz

Brown muuz — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:38:59 +0000

Sure, it does help! no question about it. ***** But **** these “aid” are corrupt themselves, not to mention the recipients “governments” are far more corrupt. IMF is one huge example of these aids thats corrupt. So everything we talk about that aids are being given to the african nations time and time again, do not necessarily true in its arrival to the proper recipeints. I dare somebody does a documentary on this matter.

prove!…. africas are the same for centuries.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:21:15 +0000

Fascinating debate. As someone who doesn’t know this area very well but cares about Africa’s future, I had 3 takeaways:

1) I was hoping for there to be more discussion of Ms. Moyo’s proposed solutions. I’ll concede that there’s probably truth to her argument, but her tone is so severe that I think it’s hard to get past the actual argument to talk about solutions. The entire show got bogged down in the back-and-forth (with Tom egging it on a bit) but I never heard what her proposal was. How would this free market approach be administered? Doesn’t Africa have some unique characteristics that would make this plan harder than it sounds?

2) At one point she mentioned China as a (admittedly unperfect) model for private investment in Africa. From what I understand, China has not exactly acted with the African people’s best interests at heart (see: Sudan). Using China as an example of how private investment can work in Africa probably isn’t helpful.

3) At the end of the day, this seems to be a very conservative pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, let-the-market-decide attitude, which is fascinating given that most people who care about aid to Africa would probably describe themselves as liberal. In a domestic context, this conservative argument towards, for example, inner-city education would be anathema to liberals. Funny to see that some of them are so much in favor of it in an African context.

By: Alpha Thomas Bangura

Alpha Thomas Bangura — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:15:18 +0000

I am from Liberia, West Africa, but a resident of st. Louis Mo. I do agree with Ms. Mayo that Aids sent to Africa put Africa on a life support! We (Africans) have more than enough resources that the entire world depends on-; Liberia for example has the world single largest rubber (latex) plantation owned by Firestone, Liberia, a couple of years ago used to run the world largest timber cooperation owned by OTC, I can go on and on and the list will be infinite ; but the question is where does the wealth of these nations end up? Well, sorry to say but in the pockets of the politicians, foreign exploiters and the so-called aids givers. The situation is as such that the countries in Africa are plunged into these situations by a few handful of local bandits( politicians) and their international “ bosom associates “ who maliciously pretend to like Africa. They come in bring “aid” and take gold and diamond, and timber and oil and …..
Secondly, if aid to Africa is important at all why not have the people who need this help suggest to whosoever that provides it what they need? Do you want to go in with a billion dollar project for road construction when the inhabitants of that area don’t owe cars and will never use that road to transport anything? Do you want to build hospitals in a village where there are no nurses, doctors or health practitioners? Do you want to build schools in towns where there are no teachers, or trained teachers? The so-called philanthropists go in with these spurious and ill-planned, un-researched projects which by the end of time yield no positive results- it is like siphoning liquid in a container that has hole at the bottom. Honestly, Africa does not need any of that now, yes we do need help, but help in the form of empowering the folks who will then take the lead in using their own resources directed to internally determined needs of their community. Include the locals in your feasibility studies and then come up with projects that will be meaningful to the people, not paved roads for pedestrians or high schools when there are not even kindergartens. Government should be responsible to make all of this happen because we do know that the wealth (resources) are huge and that we are able to pay for the expatriates that would come to help make this happen. But again it is a shame to see how people think that the West has this big burden, “Africa”, and to be able to ease its burden is by siphoning this wonderful miraculous thing called “aid”. It has not helped and it will never help until the real needs are addressed.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:12:09 +0000

Her arguments sound great unless you know what you’re talking about, at which point, the only logical conclusion is dismiss the book as another attention seeking public relations exercise catering to the uninformed pessimistic right wing looking to escape moral culpability and justify inaction on Africa.

By: Dambisa Moyo — msgnet.org

Dambisa Moyo — msgnet.org — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:33:13 +0000

[...] that it’s high time to cut off aid to Africa – within 5 years. I recently listened to Moyo’s appearance on NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook. Her ideas are radical but they make perfect sense to me. Here are some points I picked up from the [...]

By: …My heart’s in Accra » Where Dambisa Moyo’s right, and where she’s wrong

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:03:36 +0000

[...] argues that aid has been a very bad thing for Africa thus far. It wasn’t until I got to hear an hour-long interview of Moyo by Tom Ashbrook on On Point that I got a more complete understanding of her views. I came away from that experience agreeing [...]

By: Cathy

Cathy — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:54:41 +0000

Kudos to Chesire11 and Judith B! I couldn’t have articulated it better! Thanks!

By: GM

GM — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:09:34 +0000

I firmly believe that aid is not good for Africa. My belief is within the larger context that perpetual state of dependency is not good for anybody, the giver or the recipient. To me, Africa’s dependency stifles innovation and promotes laziness and demoralization on the continent. As well, so many years of foreign aid and untold billions of dollars in aid have yielded not much results, if any at all. Obviously, there is something wrong with this picture; a manager of a properly-run organization will not sink billions of dollars into a project, with no returns or hope of any, unless the manager has an ulterior motive or is using that business as a front for something else. I believe it is time for a new thinking that will see Africa on the road to self-sufficiency, and if this means Africa going it alone, so be it. I am not an economist but maybe there is a need to reorganize the world trade order. Aid has not worked in Africa and will never work. It only appeases the conscience of countries which exploit Africa; aid keeps Africa in perpetual bondage.

By: Whitney Lukuku

Whitney Lukuku — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:01:47 +0000

Listen up people. Dr, Moyo is advocating self reliance. She is saying Africans should create their own wealth. They should be masters of their own destiny. To do this she has provided some prescriptions on which Africans can build. Africa at this time is like a person on social income assistance.If they get cut off, they will find a way to earn money. So will Africa. If aid is cut off, Africans will be more aggressive in pursuing ways of attracting investment.

By: Ed Hiheta

Ed Hiheta — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:12:24 +0000

Dambisa Moyo made a clear analysis of the Aid impact on Africa and suggested financial tools and solutions that will help African countries. African Leaders and African ordinary citizens should read her book and embrace her ideas and suggestions and put them into practice to build the continent. Dambisa Moyo is telling you something that you don’t hear from the media.

And I would add ‘The best time to read Dead Aid was 50 years ago. The second best time is today’

By: Al

Al — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:43:19 +0000

Moyo is right; most of this money goes right down the drain. It is shocking that behind most of the NGOs are people from elite institutions like Harvard, Oxford and the like who seem to not really have experienced the realities of these countries. Also, they complain about how our government does not allow these countries to develop, but they rub shoulders with rich people socially everyday. Why aren’t they doing anything?

By: Judith Baker

Judith Baker — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:46:08 +0000

No, she is wrong on almost every point except that corruption is bad.
1. The IMF won’t allow African governments to spend adequately on services to their people – ed, health, housing, water,etc. Even if remittances from families rise, govt spending is forced to go DOWN to make up for it as inflation fighting.
2. While US is stimulating its recessionary economy, Africa is being told to save, and it’s not working.
3. Job creation is the goal of almost every aid program – but you can’t work [or find employees] if your young people are uneducated or dying of AIDS. The average African govt spends less than $25 a person on health care and a woefully inadequate amount on education — and she wants us to deny health and education aid? Do that and no job creation program will go very far.
4. True, aid is very tricky – that’s why aid professionals are constantly trying to figure out how to do it better. Go to their conferences and you will hear this ongoing work.
5. ‘Aid workers’ these days are mostly local people hired with donor money. This is one huge change from 15 years ago – the era she seems to be criticizing.
6. No aid for Darfur? Let 3 million people starve to death or die of meningitis? Let the 1000 year culture of moderate Sunni Islamic richness disappear?
7. Removing trade barriers and stopping the net outflow of capital from African countries would create jobs – so let’s do it. But it is advocacy, activists [funded by 'aid'] who work to accomplish this. No one in power in the ‘first’ world will do it without a huge struggle – and someone has to lead the struggle.
There is so much more wrong with her ‘thesis’ but enough.

By: shea macaran

shea macaran — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:49:03 +0000

um, i’m tired. i meant this comment, not as a self-aggrandizement, but as a comment that it is not only people in other countries that we treat like this, but our own citizens too. i am so grateful to have been able to hear ms. moyo’s analysis – it really affirms that our problem lies in our attitudes towards what constitutes success and worth, as well as our (extremely shortsighted and nose-cutting-off-to-spite-face) priorities. i totally agree with the person who mentioned the similarity to the policies and attitudes towards welfare recipients. as a former recipient myself i can wholeheartedly confirm that that was exactly my experience – i was even encouraged to have more children despite my lack of ability to support the one i had!!

By: shea macaran

shea macaran — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:12:55 +0000

i worked for a number of years here in the us with different social service organizations doing grassroots organizing, legislative advocacy, grant research, information management and pr. i worked for an independent living center, an aids servcie organization, a community action center, and a tenants rights organization, and a women’s shelter. at the end of 5 or 6 years of this i had to face myself in the mirror and accept that every single organization i had worked for had, as its primary goal, not independence for its clients, not reduction of the need for its services, but quite the opposite. all of the organizations, working on all of these issues, were first and foremost vehicles for exploiting people in need as a way to procure power, prestige and just plain money for the people who organized and ran them. and all of this was done, quite callously, at the expense of the people these organizations were supposed to serve. ‘empowerment’ was absolutely NOT the intention of these organizations. ‘empowered’ people couldn’t be exploited. therefore, deliberate, and often even blatant strategies to ensure the continual erosion of self confidence and self worth were the status quo. so i quit it all and haven’t been involved in a single “helping” organization since.

By: aytal

aytal — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:27:21 +0000

The result of supporting “friendly tyrants” in the past years has benefit some corrupt elites but not the majority of Africans. Read and reread John Perkins books and attend his seminars to understand what is going on in the name of development assistance. To quote from his book entitled “The Secret History of the American Empire” -”If you want to have children, and want to live prosperous lives, you damn well better make sure that we control the African continent” and this is possible by installing “friendly tyrants” like Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia who is the enemy of his people and hate the country he governs.

By: Lesl

Lesl — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:51:12 +0000

Tom–Great show. This is why I, and I’m sure others, like you. Not only are you willing to take on the controversy, but you handle it well and intelligently. This is what our liberal-dominated NPR and national media really really needs: intelligent engagement of paradigm-smashing topics led by extremely intelligent facilitators who try to see all sides. Kudos! Keep’m coming!

By: Chesire11

Chesire11 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:35:38 +0000

…of course, the only ones spending money on large aid programs are westerner as well, so that’s a wash.

By: Brick1

Brick1 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:59:39 +0000

A truly remarkable program. One thing that rang true above almost all else was Ms. Moyo’s comment to the effect that “The only people making money off the large aid programs are westerners.” In other words, there is a whole aid industry that self perpetuates as long as the system is kept in place. I was also struck by the similarities of our own welfare system: giving money to people keeps them enslaved; those who make money for themselves will always be their own masters.

By: Chesire11

Chesire11 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:34:57 +0000

Also, I’m not sure exactly how PEPFAR represents a well-intentioned tyranny, though I mut confess, I’m not terribly well informed about the program.

By: Chesire11

Chesire11 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:26:05 +0000

Frank-

Although the Eurpean colonial powers relinquished political control over their former colonial possessions, they still retain de facto economic control. The extractive infrastructures they left behind perverted trade patterns to favor the export of cheap raw materials to the developed economies of the west and retarded the natural development of domestic, wealth creating industries. In addition, the western powers have used their wealth to prop up and arm tyrannical regimes more responsive to our economic interests than to the needs of their own citizens.

Just handing the keys to a local, but leaving and in many cases reinforcing the exploitative relationship does nothing to end or to expiate the evils of empire. Metaphorically, the west is like a driver that intentionally ran down a pedestrian then, in a fit of remorse, drove away, leaving the victim bleeding in the street, pausing only to steal his cell phone.

I would argue that the burden remains and if anything has grown heavier. For what it’s worth, I think the proper means of redressing the situation would be for the African Union to impose a hefty, continent wide regime of hefty tarrifs upon the export of raw materials to non-AU states and the import of finished goods from outside the AU. The west could support them by first, not opposing them and retaliating against them; second by ending subsidies to agribusiness; and, third, by directing aid toward the development of intra-African transportation networks and to alleviate any short term disruptions caused by the redirection of demand from imported goods to goods from African producers.