Dead Aid : Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is A Better Way For Africa Essay

There have been many studies taking place over foreign aid and sub-Saharan Africa since foreign aid initially began after World War 2. Many authors today have begun to ask the question, “Is Africa Different?” (Asiedu 2002). The Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) in the past decade has grown exponentially to 61 percent from the previous 24 percent in 1990. Africa, while seeing a significant increase in amount of investment, still has not seen anywhere near the level of investment that other

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

In the late nineteenth century the European powers of the world began imperializing Africa. This annexation, occupation, and division of African territory has since led to much strife within the continent and has caused many struggles politically. This period known as the “Scramble for Africa” has led to the many problems that Africa faces today and has been the root of several wars in Africa to assume control. After World War II many European imperialists began to give African nations autonomy. This seemed like a step forward for African nations, but without any plan to transition into self governance many African nations have faced bloody civil wars and corruption. Along with political struggles, numerous African nations face rising debt and other economic problems. Many of these political and economic issues stem from the “Scramble for Africa”. Once the European countries left Africa had very little to support itself. To explain the issues left by imperialism the three African nations of Rwanda, South Africa, and Sierra Leone will be put under the scope.

This paper would contain a detailed overview of African Continent’s history and evolution. Social and cultural reformations and practices would be taken into consideration. It will carry a detail oriented research on the poverty and underdevelopment issues of the continent. A brief review to the history in the relevance of the topic would be included. Developmental crises would be analysed from several perspectives. The cultural and social norms and their relation to their relation to developmental crises would be evaluated. Possible solutions regarding the limitations and issues in the developmental social and cultural prosperity and well-being would be discussed. A meaningful conclusion would be evaluated on the research

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

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

There is an abundance of reasons for the lack of unity in African nations, but according to If You Shouldn’t Call It Third World, What Should You Call It? By Marc Silver. When using phrases such as “Third World” and “Developing Countries” we are misrepresenting what these countries are. If society is using derogatory labels to represent the whole country, how can a country come together as a unit. These countries are being encompassed into one word, a term that can be seen as insulting and misleading. Africa is underfunded and needs aid, and according to Marc Silver we are talking, “about countries that need to develop better health care systems, better schools, better ways to bring water and electricity to people”. (Silver, 3) If the native

The main point of Banerjee and Duflo’s Poor Economics (2012) is that aid is neither good nor bad: there are instances where it can help greatly and instances where it can fail those it seeks to help(4). Aid is a powerful tool, therefore it’s imperative that we carefully select the right types of projects (Banerjee & Duflo, 2012, p. 4-5). Banerjee and Duflo (2012) present a few key points of action as a framework for approaching aid, with the broadest issue being the idea that too much responsibility is placed on the poor in making the most basic decisions (268-69). One example that Banerjee and Duflo (2012) offer is the fact that many of the poorest people don’t have sanitary water

Every year sub-Saharan Africa receives around $134bn in loans, foreign investment and development aid, according to the UN. Nonetheless, sub-Saharan Africa is still the poorest region in the world. For many years the international community has debated over the reasons why every year billion and billions of dollars are not taking sub-Saharan Africans out of poverty. Three major groups have prevailed in the discussion. First, the people who totally blame Africa for not doing its job right, completely forgetting that most of the funds are not administrated by Africans. Second, the people who believe that even though aids are not working, the international community should keep investing funds in Africa even if is failing; one day they will work.

Before imperialism, Due to Nigeria’s available fertile and massive landscape, people became significantly invested in many economic activities including agriculture and industrial trade. As direct systems of economic exploitation continued. Aimed to rob and exploit not only the people but also their economic and environmental resources; westerners pursued and implemented strategies that indirectly diminished the economic power of the African continent. “The economic system was highly regulated, and the colonial policy was aimed at protecting British interests; This policy was perhaps best reflected in agriculture where all activities were directed at subsistence farming” (Ii, Joe Duke.). Through Nigeria's economic exploitation, the consequences of underdevelopment are perpetuated, very frequently producing a host of corresponding societal ills that further impede efforts towards economic reform”(Reuther Jessica, 2016).

Prior to doing the readings for this week, I did not know very much at all about foreign developmental aid. I only ever figured that foreign developmental aid was money that we provided to developing nations to help soothe poverty. After reading these articles, however, I now know that the intended goal of developmental aid is to alleviate poverty in the long-term, rather than as a short-term response. I also saw developmental aid as purely humanitarian, and never paused to consider that consequences of such aid, nor the possibility of the aid failing.

The story of Africa is not new at all. Africa’s economic achievement is one of the biggest mystery to solve. Plenty of African historians have recorded destructive consequences that burdens Africa from inside and outside influences. It has been said over and over again but the status of the continent remains the same. The continent of Africa has been favored immensely with natural resources, human and economic diversity. Despite the resources Africa possesses it continues to remain underdeveloped and in poverty mainly because of outside and inside influences such as, climate, corrupted leaders, imperialism, and low rates of education.

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

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

We live in a world in which the 85 richest people own the wealth of half of the world's population (Oxfam, 2014). Yet, there have been numerous Western-driven attempts to bring such a gap, aid being one of the most prominent ones. Indeed, as Moyo (2010, p. 12) suggests, there seems to be an uncompromising sentiment of moral obligation lying behind the aid system, which purpose is to improve the living standards of the world’s poorest and ultimately erradicate poverty (Barder, 2011, p. 7). Today aid, often regarded as the manifestation of a particular historical context (Sriskandarajah, 2014), plays a fundamental role in influencing the social and economic outcome of many developing countries (van de Walle, 1999, p. 338). Such an influence