The London Review of Books chose not to publish William Easterly’s review essay on Dambisa Moyo. Fortunately for us, the miracles of modern technology have allowed Easterly to self-publish the piece, which contains a number of excellent passages:
Moyo cites other studies find that large aid inflows drive up the prices of essential local inputs that African exporters also rely upon, lowering their profits and sometimes putting them out of business. Large budget aid programs are competing with local private enterprise for construction materials, workers, and professionals.
Not the least of these essential local inputs are skilled Africans, who often wind up working for the aid agencies – either directly or starting their own “indigenous nongovernmental organization (NGO)” to receive aid contracts. Zambia’s Minister of Community and Social welfare, Marina Nsingo, asked in 2004: “People have gotten into the habit of hatching NGOs everywhere, saying they are doing poverty alleviation, HIV/AIDS. But what have they done? Or what are they doing?” The (democratically elected) Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa went even further, saying to an AIDS conference that most NGOs were composed of family members who got donor funding under the guise of AIDS prevention. There is no way to verify these accusations, and politicians don’t often have pure motives for attacking NGOs, but there is wide agreement among many different observers that the Aid Establishment often induces a kind of internal brain drain of professionals into that same Establishment. These are the same professionals that in other countries would be starting their own businesses or leading export firms. Light manufacturing, the usual entrée for industrialization and exports, particularly suffers – one calculation suggests that aid-intensive Zambia, because of aid, sees much lower growth in its apparel industry than low-aid-but-otherwise comparable Honduras. The risk is that Africa’s most successful industry will be exporting poverty images for aid.
One of Moyo’s arguments, which Easterly endorses, is that states that are not dependent on aid are less likely to be the victims of development fads. Sounds rather sensible.
But to those of you looking for shock value, look no further than the first page:
She complains “public discourse became a public disco,” when “pop stars” and “movie stars” took on Africa as a cause “to carve out niches for themselves.” President George W. Bush consulted with Bono on Africa in October 2005, and Bob Geldof (allegedly representing Africa’s interests) practically had equal status to national leaders attending the 2005 G-8 summit.
To add to Moyo’s indictment, an even more ridiculous incident was Bush’s announcement of a 50 percent increase in US foreign aid in 2002, accompanied by the creation of a new US aid agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation. According to multiple sources with firsthand knowledge, confirmed by news accounts, Bush’s actions emerged out of a marathon negotiating session with Bono, who insisted on a large enough increase in US aid in return for posing with Bush in a photo-op. Again, this fails to pass the laugh test for our own societies – did it occur to Bush to negotiate with Britney Spears on the size of the Fall 2008 financial bailout?
How utterly depressing, and certainly not unique to President Bush.