Dead Aid, Live Debate
Critics refuse to address Dambisa Moyo’s main argument on government aid.
By Kevin Williamson
Why would a humanitarian nonprofit organize a public-relations attack on an illuminating book about developmental economics in Africa? In the case of One, the organization founded by pop singer/shades aficionado/New York Times columnist Bono, the answer appears to be an alloy of ignorance and malice. Bono’s target is Dead Aid, the much-remarked-upon polemic against governmental aid to Africa by Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo. One hopes that One’s donors are aware that their funds are being spent on advertisements denouncing books.
One’s website contains a half dozen different attacks on Moyo and her work, including the ugly and inevitable criticism that the young author is insufficiently authentic in her Africanness; one critic says she “should come back to the real Africa” and see how misguided she is. There is something head-clutchingly wrong about an organization whose public face is Bono’s, pale to the point of translucence, hectoring a Zambian woman about “the real Africa.”
Moyo, in her writing and in interviews — and in a letter to One’s management — has made it clear that she does not oppose temporary humanitarian efforts, much less private charity. What she has in her sights are permanent government-to-government payment schemes, executed through bilateral programs or mediated by multilateral agencies such as the World Bank.
The effects of such programs have been studied and understood for years. As Moyo puts it: “Foreign aid props up corrupt governments — providing them with freely usable cash. These corrupt governments interfere with the rule of law, the establishment of transparent civil institutions, and the protection of civil liberties, making both domestic and foreign investment in poor countries unattractive. Greater opacity and fewer investments reduce economic growth, which leads to fewer job opportunities and increasing poverty levels. In response to growing poverty, donors give more aid, which continues the downward spiral of poverty. This is the vicious cycle of aid.”
But there is a kind of wonky romance attached to the notion of aid to Africa. Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, insists on arguing with the book Moyo has not written: “Moyo dismisses [humanitarian] efforts, stating that her book is ‘not concerned with emergency and charity-based aid.’ But America’s AIDS and malaria programs are more than ‘charity.’ They herald a new approach to foreign aid — focused, centrally directed and results-oriented. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), for example, a program I advocated while I worked at the White House, has helped more than 2 million people get treatment for AIDS.”
Note that Gerson reiterates that Moyo’s argument is not addressed to humanitarian programs of this kind, and then ignores that fact. He is entranced by his own marketing language — “herald a new approach,” indeed; how many new approaches to Africa have been heralded and imploded in the past six decades? President Bush’s approach to AIDS was commendable, and possibly the best that we can expect from a program of this sort. But it was hardly the sort of thing to radically alter the moral calculus of development aid, and in failing to account for that reality Gerson invites an uncharitable rejoinder for his promise of a “focused, centrally directed and results-oriented” program. The administration in which he worked was not one of those things when it came to its signature issue — national defense — much less on Africa, a secondary concern addressed in a desultory fashion.
Gerson, like One, refuses to chew the meat of the argument, which is supported by the better part of a century’s worth of evidence and experience. Moyo notes that some $1 trillion in development aid has already been spent in Africa and that this aid has not only has failed to provide positive benefits but has, in fact, done harm to Africans.
Much aid money, 85 percent by one World Bank estimate, is diverted from its intended purposes. This will be a familiar story to those who followed Claudia Rosett’s endlessly fascinating exposé of the Oil-for-Food program, which Saddam Hussein used to procure weapons, to fund his secret police, and to purchase the support of corrupt foreign politicians. Money from this humanitarian program bought the chains that festooned Saddam’s rape rooms. Unquestionably, Iraqis were poorer for this, and so are the Africans who languished under the heel of such notable aid clients as Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, and Mobutu Sese Seko.
Bono’s organization, defending government-to-government aid, argues that Moyo is taking a blinkered view, citing as evidence the fact that “between 2005 and 2007, in Rwanda and Ethiopia malaria cases and deaths were more than cut in half thanks to a dramatic increase in bed nets and access to anti-malaria medication.” It is a remarkable indictment of this celebrity-based movement that such a high-profile organization finds itself unable or unwilling to ask the logical, and necessary, follow-up question: How does a nation become so poor and backward that it cannot provide something so simple as a mosquito net?
Moyo asks, and she finds her answer in the corrosive influence of easy money in the hands of politicians not held to account for its use. The data is ample and the argument is not difficult to follow — unless one is not inclined to do so. Moyo deserves listening to; for the sake of a more sensible development policy, let us hope she meets open minds.
— Kevin Williamson is an NR deputy managing editor.