Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa, Dambisa Moyo (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), 188 pp., $24 cloth.
Here an economist from outside the West and, for much of her career, outside the academy (having worked at the World Bank and Goldman Sachs) asks tough questions about development policy in Africa. While in recent decades many countries have turned the corner toward prosperity, most African nations remain mired in poverty. What has been holding Africa back? Moyo argues that an essential part of the story is that, despite their good intentions, Western donors, development agencies, and policy-makers have inflicted a “silent killer of growth” on the African continent: foreign aid. Among its negative effects cataloged in the first half of the book—which also contains a brief history of aid policy, from Bretton Woods in 1944 to Gleneagles in 2005—aid is portrayed as locking in corruption and fostering a culture of dependency.
In joining the ranks of such aid critics as William Easterly and Paul Collier, Moyo (who was raised in Lusaka, Zambia) brings to the discussion an apt sensibility to support the case for no longer viewing Africa as somehow “helpless” if not for such foreign assistance. Her positive proposal would cut off traditional aid channels and focus on ways to unlock Africa's latent potential, bringing new, local agents into the economy. In the second part of the book Moyo surveys market-based development options, such as microfinance, intended to increase and free up private capital in Africa itself. Her menu of alternatives to aid also puts a positive spotlight on the Chinese model of no-strings investment and expanding trade.
In encouraging the reader to consider how market-based development might truly take off, Moyo asks what we think would happen if African countries were told that foreign aid would simply be shut off forever in five years time. Would we expect business (or lack of business) to carry on as usual? Or might the stage be set for a dramatic turnaround—one which relies on the determination of Africans to take control of their future?
