At the bottom line, foreign aid to Africa is detrimental to African people in the same way that domestic welfare aid is detrimental to American lower economic classes. 

The Wall St. Journal for March 21-22, 2009 headlined, in its "Weekend Journal" Section an article by Dambisa Moyo , entitled Why Foreign Aid is Hurting Africa.

Moyo, is a Zambian born and educated economist who has studied at Harvard and American Universities in the US, and at Oxford in England, is highly respected in the field of international finance, and know of what she writes having lived it before going on to college.

What attracted my attention to this article were two things.  First was the fact that it coincided with certain topics covered by Professor Bernard Lugan in his work, African Legacy, which I reviewed here, several years ago.  Second was the fact that Ms. Moyo is advocating a cut off of the foreign aid while assisting African nations to develop free market economies, and build prosperity.  Her detailed views on this subject are available in a newly released work entitled Dead Aid. 

The Journal article provides an excellent snapshot of the present situation. Undeveloped nations accept money, food and other supplies from Europe and America, fail to develop their own resources, and continue to ask for more aid.  Some of what they receive may actually to benefit people in need, however, a large portion is inevitably siphoned off to the benefit of corrupt government functionaries such as Malawi's former President Bakili Muluzi or Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko. 

What is more to the point is that as long as these nations can rely on outside food supplies they do not grow enough of it, themselves.  When their businesses have to compete with foreign provided "free" items, they fail.   When they have schools, which educate the people well enough to compete in the market for brains and ability those people will leave, if they can, because there are no opportunities for them at home. It appears that this is precisely what Ms. Moyo did, leaving Zaire to study at America's and England's best universities. 

As Moyo points out, it would be better to use American aid money to buy locally grown food, promoting business there, instead of shipping American grown food across the ocean.  She presents other examples as well. 

What reminded me so much of Bernard Lugan's work was the similarity of modern aid to the various infrastructure developments created by the European colonial nations in their colonies during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Dispelling propaganda to the contrary, Lugan showed how France spent immense amounts of money on the colonies only to have the developments fall into disuse and disrepair after the colonies were left to govern themselves.  The one major exception was India, which is not African, and which adopted more western political and economic traits than most other colonies. 

What is also fascinating about Moyo's exposition of Africa's economic problems is how it becomes applicable to American "welfare" programs, reduced under the Clinton administration and now being expanded to a bloated level never seen before.   If we take Moyo seriously, and we should because her arguments are born out by history, then we must also understand that the best way to solve the poverty problem in America is to cut off the aid to the majority of people who are presently on the government dole.  As Moyo noted in Africa giving away money rewards not working and promotes continued dependency.  This meshes with Marvin Harris's position, made in America Now, back in 1981; that the best way, and perhaps the only way to get people off of welfare is to stop giving it to them.  

The welfare state, wherever it has been implemented has never eliminated poverty.  At best, it has made it respectable by giving those who qualify enough money to look as if they are not impoverished.  Meanwhile, their condition, under the surface, continues as before because they are not willing to take steps to become self-supporting.  The two differences between the American welfare state and the African welfare state are that in the former a bureaucracy replaces the corrupt government officials and in the former aid is unlikely to reach those who "need" it.  In America the bureaucracy is paid to administer the welfare funds, operating in a manner that makes embezzlement extremely difficult, if not impossible.  While this is better than seeing the money disappear into locations it was not intended for, it still increases the cost of the program.  In short, it would be a lot cheaper for people to support themselves.  This would also be true, in Africa where promoting an economy based on a free market instead of foreign aid would allow the people to rise out of poverty instead of being locked into it generation after generation. 

At the bottom line, foreign aid to Africa is detrimental to African people in the same way that domestic "welfare" aid is detrimental to American lower economic classes.  Neither will be able to achieve their potential without getting off the dole.  It matters not whether the aid is foreign or domestic.  In the end, fostering dependency leads only to continued poverty and more dependency.  That is the obvious lesson of Moyo's title.  Dead Aid is an obvious lead in to "dead end."  For Africa and for America welfare programs are a dead end.  When governments come to realize this, real progress will be made in solving the problems, but not before.