Is Aid Helping or Harming Africa?

Comment

Comment by Jochen Moninger on May 22, 2009 at 9:13am

Interesting, however she does not explain us how to create jobs. It is obvious that industrialisation in Africa will fail as China and partly India and East Europe have reserved that way allready. Africa will have to find new business ideas which are not yet known. For the moment in rural Africa "Aid cooperation" is offering most paid jobs to qualified and non-qualified (guard, driver, cleaning, ...) personal. So what kind of jobs African countries can offer to their population?

Comment by Dr. Rosa Muraguri-Mwololo on May 21, 2009 at 10:48am

Those who give aid osometimes give it so that it opens trade- links and opportunities among other interests. One time while attending an orientation training by a development agency that will remain nameless, one trainee asked why the host government for this particular agency continue to give aid to developing countries while they had their own poor lying in the streets cold, hungry, and homeless. The government officer training us gave what was then to me a shocking response -he said- "for every dollar we give developing countries we get $ 7 from trade- " Although Kenya no longer factors any aid money into its national budgets- and but while this is a huge step towards independence -we still are not free from the chains of aid. Malaysia, Singapore, Korea were at the same economic level with Kenya 40 years ago- loook where they are today. Thats not aid money- we have to learn something from them.

Comment by Samer Hachem on May 21, 2009 at 2:57am

Thanks Cyril, this is extremely interesting. Overall I do agree with the main message which is that the aim of development aid should be moving towards disappearing and making sure countries do not rely on it anymore at some point. Setting a timeline would probably help moving in that direction in a more aggressive manner. This being said, I think the argument is a bit over-simplified -probably due to the media constraints. Overall aid may not have brought expected results in Africa, but it is not simply because it was aid but also because of all conditionalities following the theory of the moment and sometimes destroying rather than building. Also, talking in general about Africans, governments is somehow a shortcut hiding a variety of different situations. So in a nutshell, the overall message looks good but this should not lead to yet another "trendy" theory guided from the donors side and first of all African countries should decide on their own path. One conclusion and one suggestion: I will read the book -the only way to get the real view- and why not inviting Ms. Moyo to an online debate on the AfCoP wbesite or even to the next annual meeting?
Thanks again for feeding our thoughts. Samer