Aiding is Abetting

More from Dambisa Moyo...
An interview with Dambisa Moyo
African author and economist Dambisa Moyo on ending western aid to Africa now, what Bono and Geldoff don’t get, and the deadening of African independence and entrepreneurship.
Dambisa Moyo’s prescription for economic sustainability in Africa—which includes cutting off all aid within five years—might seem insane if the statistics weren’t so grim: despite one trillion dollars in western aid over the past sixty years, the economic lot of the average African has only gotten worse. Most Africans now live on one dollar per day, and sub-Saharan Africa remains the poorest region in the world. Despite a deluge of aid between the years of 1970 and 1998, poverty on the continent skyrocketed from 11 percent of the population to 66 percent, which means over six hundred million Africans are now impoverished. The average African can only expect to live to be about fifty, and half the continent’s citizens are under the age of fifteen. In addition to poverty, AIDS, corruption (half the continent is still under un-democratic rule), civil war, and genocide ravage the continent. Indeed, Africa seems constantly embroiled in a steady stream of horrors, the likes of which are not seen anywhere else on the planet. Why? Are Africans innately different from the rest of us? Nonsense, says Moyo. She blames aid.