Bibliiography Regarding Economy Topics

Whilst raising money for African charities at school I developed an interest in global inequality and alternative policies that can help low-income nations escape the poverty trap. Reading ’23 Things’ by Ha-Joon Chang, I was intrigued by his view on blaming free-market policies like SAPs that exposed sub-Saharan Africa to international competition, slowing economic growth. Hence, this extended my research to the other side of the

Riddell, Roger C. 2007. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? 1st ed. OXFORD: Oxford University Press, USA.

Modern African states have various problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflict, to stunted structural development. Africa’s ongoing political instability and economic crisis have hindered the improvement of Africa. Thus, the lack of money, advancement in technology, and climate has hampered economic development. Despite European mistreatment and oppression African’s have endured hardships that have encouraged economy, education, and political

The JSTOR Review by Kristian Hoelscher on the book Dead Aid elaborates how Moyo “half-right” in her critique of foreign aid nonetheless Hoelscher mentions how “her review is unfortunately shallow and lacking nuance” in the areas of acknowledging the successes of aid in Africa. Additionally, another review of JSTOR by S.U. Fwatshak reiterated how “aid could not have been the fundamental reason why Africa poor… African’s problem are rooted in a mosaic of a factors (157).” These two reviews provided to be good sources to shed light on the issues of foreign aid and to counter-balance the Moyo’s critique on aid. Lastly, the book is quite short with only one-hundred and eighty-three pages therefore it seemed so like some concepts needed to be elaborated more but were not. On the other hand, the reason I choose this as a source because it does a suitable job in showing the history of aid, speaking on aid effectiveness, and exemplifying the stagnant economic growth (e.g. ten percent Africans are living in poverty in the 1970s compared to seventy-percent now (Moyo 33)). While, I wished the book concentrated more in a section of Africa, such as Sub-Saharan, it was an insightful and factual

This paper assess the positive and negative effects that peace and war, respectively, have on the distribution of foreign aid in the developing country Sierra Leone. Next I will analyze the specific actions that the leadership of the selected Sierra Leone has taken, through the use of its foreign aid from donor nations and international lending institutions, to relieve the severe problems caused by warfare. Lastly I will discuss whether or not the extension of foreign aid has successfully reduced poverty and the incidence of warfare in Sierra Leone.

The large cash injection would then create a “greasing the gears effect” and allow for the jumpstart of economic development. Between the years of 1948 and 1952 the U.S. granted $13 billion to revamp the European economy (Dambisa, 2009: 35). This particular method achieved great success in post-World War II Europe and was known as the Marshall Plan. Due to its effective and unquestionable success in this era, the model was applied to economic development in Africa with the confidence that the same outstanding results would ensue. However, the application of the Marshall Plan to Africa is problematic for three reasons. One, the Marshall Plan had a rigid duration period of five years while, the concessional loans and grants to Africa over the last 50 years have been unending (Dambisa, 2009: 36). Two, European institutions were already in place to receive the aid efficiently and effectively. In Africa, however, these same institutions are either non-existent or grossly ineffective due to corruption (Dambisa, 2009: 37). The vast amounts of corruption have been heavily documented. Mobutu Sese Seko, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1997, for example, stole an equivalent of U.S. 5 billion dollars from his people (Dambisa, 2009: 48). However, even the less corrupt rulers of many African countries had few options as to what to invest the aid money on. Consequently, the bulk concessional aid goes directly into consumption without a variety of investment outlets. This process does not solve the problem but instead, allows for the cycle to continue. Lastly, three, the money from the Marshal had specific targets to repair physical infrastructure such as, roads, communications, sewage, factories, and electric systems (Dambisa, 2009: 37) In Africa today, the scope of the

Importantly, my project raises questions about how to better understand the relationship of donors and recipients to reduce the disconnection between projects that donors support and actual needs of recipients. The disconnection of donors and recipients caused damage to Congo, and the disconnection is a issues that effects how effective international aid is to a country. Importantly, further research needs to be conducted to gauge the impact of community-based projects, over the issue-based project to understand if one is a more effective use of aid. The aid process needs to involve native intellectuals, community leads, and other the communities to better accesses issues that affect the recipients of aid. Ultimately, there needs to be further research on the consequences, intended and unintended, for over reporting on a single issue of a conflict, because the simplification of a conflict into a single issue can cause damage by those with the intention to

"BBC - Standard Grade Bitesize Modern Studies - The Politics of Aid : Revision, Page 3." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

On one hand, aid can improve the overall environment of countries as seen with countries that have survived natural disasters (hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, etc.). However, on the other hand, aid can be misused as seen with Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline where the oil money is being used to purchase weapons and rig election instead of serving the people (NBC News). Another problem with providing aid is the bias that is introduced upon distribution, this is seen in times of conflict where one side is chosen over another to receive aid. Ways to improve aid are to: 1) ensure that the rules attached to given aid are clear, agreed on, and enforced; 2) ensure that aid is available to

The ending of the Cold War brought about optimism and feelings of hope after independence, but violence and political issues were still a major problem that persisted to exist in large areas of Africa towards the end of the 20th Century. So what factors played a part for the economic and political collapse of African states since independence? Robert Bates, When Things Fell Apart, attempts to answer why Africa was not able to be as successful as European nations. Bates attempts to analyze state breakdown, developmental failure and the instability of their democracy in his latest book.

Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Makes Things Worse and How There Is Another Way for Africa, London: Penguin Books, 2010

Charity, foreign aid, and mission trips are examples of overly publicized methods of helping the less fortunate. Money going into charities and foreign aid accounts do not reach their intended population. Government and community leaders have a history of stealing and misappropriating funds. Foreign aid can help to extinguish and eliminate diseases, burden weak bureaucracies, prop up dictators, and help prolong civil wars (Anonymous, 2016). Foreign aid is selective. The purpose of foreign money is to improve the lives of the poor people. However, some countries give large amount of resources to friendly countries. Nations would rather give aid to nations like themselves. The Misplaced Charity article states that donors often reward countries with well-run countries and aim to punish corrupt countries (Anonymous, 2016). The issue with this is that most of the well-run countries are not in

North American media coverage of Africa often times paints a pictures of a vast waste land of poverty and death. One is often led to believe that the entire continent is just an undeveloped desert, with citizens living only in mud huts, tormented by rebel armies on a mission to rape and plunder then burn villages to the ground. This understanding is incredibly dangerous and are often warped to fit a certain agenda. African cities like Lagos, Cape Town, Windhoek, or Cape Town are much like those in found across America and are not as rare as it would made to be seen, but despite this, many areas of Africa do struggle. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one country in particular that has and continues to struggle to find it’s footing in a global

Sub-Saharan countries received their independence at various times during the 20th century with approximately $1 trillion dollars being transferred in the form of aid to the African continent. The African content is huge, where its size is equivalent to combining China, Mexico, Western and Eastern Europe, United States, Japan and Iberia (refer to Exhibit 1). The aid that has been provided to the sub-Saharan nation has always seemed to be a band aid approach to helping Africans by giving them food, water, medicine along with other basic essentials needed to survive. Where if you look at the money that has been spent on those developed nations towards getting them to be self-sustaining, a trillion dollar in foreign aid to Africa seems to

Over the last 50 years, the world has struggled to maintain an economic balance and stability, while flourishing countries try to maintain a steady income to support its people and relations with other countries. Therefore, when a continent like Africa fails to maintain a stable government and economy, super powers such as America decide to intervene with its relations. Africa has great potential to become another pillar of the world’s economic structure with its mass amounts of uncultivated land. Unfortunately, corruption and irresponsible governments hinder that progress. Foreign aid while helpful should be limited to a yearly amount because it allows the government to repudiate responsibility and gives room for corruption; it creates a