Schneidman: Helping Africa Save Itself

Jun 30th, 2009 6:30 PM UTC
By Virginia Simmons

Witney W. Schneidman, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State For African Affairs In The Clinton Administration, and friend to ONE, published this important article about aid in the July 13, 2009, issue of Newsweek.

The beginning of his article is below, the full piece is on the Newsweek site. If you have questions, Schneidman will be available to answer some comments on this post.

Newsweek–Helping Africa Save Itself
Witney W. Schneidman

In DEAD AID, Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist, lays out a brash argument: that the more than $1 trillion in foreign assistance given to Africa over the past 50 years is the root cause of the continent’s enduring poverty, widespread corruption, civil wars, and isolation from the global economy. Following this logic to its conclusion, Moyo argues that the best way donors could help Africa today would be to phone officials there and tell them all aid will be cut off within five years. Given recent calls by Bono, the economist Jeffrey Sachs, and others to increase aid, Moyo’s thesis is controversial, to put it mildly. And it’s also misleading in several key ways. But it’s worth taking seriously, for it’s already caused a huge sensation in the donor community and among Africans frustrated by the slow pace of development-and eager for ways to speed the process.

There is no question that outsiders have been complicit, wittingly and otherwise, in compounding Africa’s problems over the years, especially during the Cold War. But aid is not always as harmful as Moyo claims. True, in some cases-like U.S. support for Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko-it has abetted bad governance, and in others it has fed conflict. But this is overly simplistic. Take Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia. It was outside military assistance, not foreign aid per se, that helped fuel the long-running civil wars in the first two. And to say that the conflict in Somalia is primarily a competition for control of large-scale food aid-as Moyo does-is a selective, if not facile, reading of the complex dynamics driving the chaos there….”

Read the full piece here.

TAGS: Dead Aid is Dead Wrong, Policy News