And Moyo’s list of aid’s sins goes on-including the crowding out of domestic exports and raising the stakes for conflict. “By thwarting accountability mechanisms, encouraging rent-seeking behavior, siphoning away talent, and removing pressures reform inefficient policies and institutions,” aid guarantees that social capital remains weak and countries poor. She systematically challenges assumptions about the efficacy of the Marshall Plan, International Development Association graduates, and “conditionalities” that require adherence to prescribed economic policies. Pulling us through a quick history of aid, Moyo covers the many ways its intent and structure have been influenced by world events.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the poorest region in the world, where literacy, health, and other social indicators have plummeted since the 1970s. Moyo opens her case by writing, “Between 19, when aid flows to Africa were at their peak, poverty in Africa rose from 11 percent to a staggering 66 percent.” Today, Africa is the only continent where life expectancy is less than age 60. To remedy this, Moyo presents a road map for Africa to wean itself of aid over the next five years and offers a menu of alternative means of financing development. In Dead Aid, Moyo comes out with guns blazing against the aid industry-calling it not just ineffective, but “malignant.” Despite more than $1 trillion in development aid given to Africa in the past 50 years, she argues that aid has failed to deliver sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction-and has actually made the continent worse off. Kennedy School of Government, she is more than qualified to tackle this subject. With a PhD in economics from Oxford University and a master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Although we can all agree that ending poverty is an urgent necessity, there appears to be increasing disagreement about the best way to achieve that goal.īorn and raised in Lusaka, Zambia, Moyo has spent the past eight years at Goldman Sachs as head of economic research and strategy for sub-Saharan Africa, and before that as a consultant at the World Bank. But Dambisa Moyo’s book, Dead Aid, challenges us to think again. Many have called upon President Obama to uphold his campaign commitment to double foreign assistance. As the global financial crisis unfolds, those least responsible-our world’s poor-will be most affected.
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