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Description edit
In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse—much... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
This book gives a brief summary of why aid to africa or any other country is very inefficient and a lose-lose situation for all countries involved, but also shows how China and India are becoming key players in Africa.
Characters/People edit
Quotes edit
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“And it is in Africa that their campaign for global dominance will be solidified”
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“Bartering infrastructure for energy reserves is well understood by the Chinese and Africans alike”
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“Economics comes first, and when they own the banks, the land and the resources across Africa, their crusade will be over”
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“in the last sixty years, no country has made as big an impact on the political, economic and social fabric of Africa as China has since the turn of the millennium”
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“no reason to seek alternatives to fund development, when all you have to do is sit back and bank the cheques”
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“seduced by the siren call of aid, African governments sink their ships on the rocks of development demise”
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“The cycle that chokes off desperately needed investment, instils a culture of dependency, and facilitates rampant and systematic corruption, all with deleterious consequences for growth”
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“The cycle that, in fact, perpetuates underdevelopment, and guarantees economic failure in the poorest aid-dependent countries”
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“These are the things that aid promised, but has consistently failed to deliver”
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“The West can choose to ignore all of this, but, like it or not, the Chinese are coming”
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“This book is about the aid-free solution to development: why it is right, why it has worked, why it is the only way forward for the world's poorest countries”
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“To continue to grow at its extraordinarily rapid rate China needs fuel, and Africa has it”
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“"In his <Max Weber's> mind there were two broad groups: the Calvinists, who believed in predestination and, depending on their lot may or may not acquire wealth; and the believers in the Protestant work ethic who could advance through the seat of their brow." (page 31). While I agree that Calvinism and the Protestant work ethic make little sense to an outsider. It helps to read Weber before you quote him. Calvinists are protestant and they are the ones with the work ethic.”
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Post-war aid can be broken down into seven broad categories: its birth at Bretton Woods in the 1940s; the era of the Marshall Plan in the 1950s; the decade of industrialization of the 1960s; the shift towards aid as an answer to poverty in the 1970s; aid as the tool for stabilization and structural adjustment in the 1980s; aid as a buttress of democracy and governance in the 1990s; culminating in the present-day obsession with aid as the only solution to Africa’s myriad of problems.
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In most functioning and healthy economies, the middle class pays taxes in return for government accountability. Foreign aid short-circuits this link. Because the government’s financial dependence on its citizens has been reduced, it owes its people nothing.
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This is the micro–macro paradox. A short-term efficacious intervention may have few discernible, sustainable long-term benefits. Worse still, it can unintentionally undermine whatever fragile chance for sustainable development may already be in play.
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With respect to aid, poor economies face four main economic challenges: reduction of domestic savings and investment in favour of greater consumption; inflation; diminishing exports; and difficulty in absorbing such large cash influxes.
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charity-based aid, which is disbursed by charitable organizations to institutions or people on the ground; and systematic aid – that is, aid payments made directly to governments either through government-to-government transfers (in which case it is termed bilateral aid) or transferred via institutions such as the World Bank (known as multilateral aid).
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Africa’s failure to generate any meaningful or sustainable long-run growth must, ostensibly, be a confluence of factors: geographical, historical, cultural, tribal and institutional.
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What is clear is that democracy is not the prerequisite for economic growth that aid proponents maintain. On the contrary, it is economic growth that is a prerequisite for democracy; and the one thing economic growth does not need is aid.
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There are three fundamental truths about conflicts today: they are mostly born out of competition for control of resources; they are predominately a feature of poorer economies; and they are increasingly internal conflicts.
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Historically, on an economic performance basis, coastal resource-scarce countries performed significantly better than their resource-rich counterparts whether landlocked or coastal; leaving the landlocked, resource-scarce economies as the worst performers.
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Over the past thirty years, according to Moyo, the most aid-dependent countries have exhibited an average annual growth rate of minus 0.2 per cent. Between 1970 and 1998, when aid flows to Africa were at their peak, the poverty rate in Africa actually rose from 11 per cent to a staggering 66 per cent.
Highlighted by 49 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
- South Africa
- China
- Zambia
- Russia
- Nigeria
- India
- Kenya
- Europe
- Botswana
- Ghana
- Uganda
- Latin America
- Tanzania
- Asia
- Sudan
- Gabon
- Mali
- Angola
- United States
- Malawi
- Brazil
- Sub-saharan Africa
- Cameroon
- Zimbabwe
- Ethiopia
- Mexico
- Senegal
- France
- Argentina
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Uk
- Zaire
- Turkey
- Mozambique
- Chile
- Britain
- Ivory Coast
- Japan
- Swaziland
- Rwanda
- Indonesia
- Pakistan
- Democratic Republic Of Congo
- Namibia
- Mauritius
Authors & Contributors edit
- Dambisa Moyo (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Add the publisher.
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: Add the publication date.
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Add the publisher.
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: Add the publication date.
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 188
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 338.91096
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