 "Eye opening view of aid" | 2009-10-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: A4E751LLMCJRF |
| If you are involved in church mission work or other charitable programs, this book is a great help in understanding why the need in Africa seems to go on forever. Written by an African who understands the functional aspects of aid, the book should open your mind and lead to searching for a better way to support the development of a sustainable recovery program for Africa. The author shares her ideas about change but leaves room for the reader to engage in serious consideration of the possibilities. |
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| "I have a simple review." | 2009-10-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1L5I1QXQK8R6P |
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Chinese Proverb |
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 "Dead Aid Is At Odds with the Evidence" | 2009-10-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2ARNSWJOPHTOD |
This book is riddled with errors and misleading conclusions, resulting in a simplistic and even dangerous prescription for African countries. Here are just two of the biggies:
- Foreign aid has increased poverty: This is wrong on three levels. Firstly, Moyo aggregates all types of aid in making this assertion. However, much aid given during the past five decades was to corrupt leaders for purely political or military purposes, and should not be expected to reduce poverty. By and large, this has changed, though there are still significant exceptions. Secondly, poverty actually HAS decreased dramatically in African countries (and throughout the world) over the last fifty years in terms of life expectancy (though HIV/AIDS is reversing this in part) and literacy ([...]). At least a part of these reductions in poverty can be linked to foreign aid, including things like building schools, training doctors and nurses, and conducting agricultural research. Moyo is correct that poverty as measured by income has stagnated in Africa. Thirdly, even though this stagnation in income poverty is correlated with (i.e., happened at the same time as)a growth in foreign assistance, it doesn't mean that the first CAUSED the second. This confusion of correlation and causation really undermines Moyo's credibility, as it is one of the most basic concepts in statistics/economics.
- Foreign aid is antithetical to private sector-led growth: Again, this position shows that Moyo is unfamiliar with the full range of foreign aid tools. Aid has been used all over the world to help set up commodity and stock exchanges; to work with banks and other financial institutions to provide credit to small businesses; and to work with governments to improve economic and financial regulations. In fact, foreign assistance played a major role in the development of the microfinance movement that Moyo praises so highly.
Moyo has rebutted accusations that she is against all foreign aid by saying that that's a misrepresentation of her position--that in fact she does support emergency and charity-based aid. But here she is wrong too. Just to name two major examples, non-emergency/non-charity aid in the form of wheat research created the green revolution that averted the starvation of hundreds of millions of people in Asia and elsewhere; aid in the form of childhood inoculation campaigns rid much of the world of the scourges of measles and polio.
These are just some of the major flaws in Moyo's arguments. However, there are many more, and they have been well-chronicled in a number of reviews, including by Africans. Here's one example from a Zambian blog: [...] |
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| "deep help" | 2009-08-31 |
| - Reviewed By User: A158R9XDEGZDQC |
It is a well written book which explains in easy words the reasons of the decline of Africa. The pathological mechanisms of local economy are well described. I think that everyone who has contacts with african nations and will help them in the growth should read this book
Massimo Vaghi |
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 "Who Is Aid For?" | 2009-08-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1X1JYJTM5GYS3 |
| It's ironic it took a Black African Woman to challenge, the sometimes well meaning financial aid, to this third world continent. Today, aid has been the mantra of our Hollywood stars, world rock musicians, and even our national politicians. The book looks at not only the negative effect of the staggering amount of money spent in Africa but how, and where, aid has worked in the world. In addition it comes up with a prescription for getting Africa "off the drug" which has helped keep it in the state it is in. Aid, with political strings attached, and dumping of goods produced elsewhere in the world, have only added to Africa's future dependent status. It didn't take an African to explain this situation, but it did add to it's credibility. This book should be read by people from all political views. |
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| "Common Sense on African Economics" | 2009-08-08 |
| - Reviewed By spudlicker |
First off, can someone explain to me why this woman is trying to discredit Bono and Bob Geldoff? What make this woman think she knows more than two great musicians, just because she has a PhD in Economics?
Take it easy, I'm just kidding.
With all the fanfare that Angelina Jolie and Bono are getting, with their big tours of the "third world", I began to wonder where the "locals" fit in. While all the celebrities are droning on about poverty in Africa, what do the Africans have to say? Africa has universities, so what do African academics think of foreign aid? Why aren't they the ones speaking on TV?
Dambisa Moyo is from Zambia, has a PhD in Economics, and worked in finance, so she writes with a bit more authority than Bono. She argues that "foreign aid" in the form of World Bank and IMF loans are hurting Africa. The money ends up in the hands of corrupt dictators, who misspend the money while the people starve. Look at Idi Amin, and Mbutu Sese Seku; they lived in high luxury while their nations lacked schools, hospitals, and paved roads. If you want more proof, look at Jean Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic; when the money ran out, he literally "ate" his countrymen (pun intended). It's not only Africa that suffers from World Bank loans. In the documentary "Life and Debt", Michael Manley talks about how World Bank loans damaged Jamaica too.
The success stories discussed in the book come from foreign investment, not loans. The investment, however, isn't in Africa's gold and diamond mines, which offer low pay and low skill. The best investment is in industry and technology. Computer chip factories generally pay more, and require more skill (in which the workers can be trained). Ghana, for instance, now has data-entry businesses that pay an hourly wage. The wage is far less than the US minimum, but a lot more than you'd earn in a diamond mine! Yet in this age, 40 years into Africa's independence, the continent is barely industrialized.
Look at the "diamond" issue in terms of labor; the miners get paid a pittance, but the diamond-cutters get paid thousands! Yet none of the diamond-cutters are in Africa; they're in New York, Tel Aviv, and Antwerp! Africa's diamond mines are of no real benefit to the continent because the only job they offer is unskilled labor.
Moyo considers China a friend of Africa. Thanks to Chinese investment, there are paved roads, factories, and businesses that give jobs and skill. But she faults the leaders in Africa as being a blockage to foreign investment. According to her, it takes months to get a business license in Cameroon, while in South Korea it takes a week. Who wants to invest in Africa when the governments make things too damn hard?
One thing Moyo doesn't dwell on is birth control. A woman who has children to take care of is held back. Putting off children can help women economically. Birth control is very popular in India, China, Taiwan, and Japan, and look at how well those countries are doing. When you put off marriage and children until you're 26, you have more time to work, go to school, and develop a career.
Those of us that read The Economist will know that "natural resources", particularly "mineral wealth", can be a ticket to poverty. Technology is what brought India out of poverty in the last decade and it can do the same for Africa. Remember how "King Cotton" dominated the American South and ruined it at the same time? That's what natural resources did to Africa; it attracted dangerous loans that put Africa in debt.
Maybe it's time we started listening to people like Moyo (who has a PhD), and not to people like Bono (who never finished school). |
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