Book Review: Dead Aid

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo

The past few years have seen a number of popular books on the necessity and/or follies of development aid, and to Africa in particular. Think Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Collier. In the ongoing discussion about the effects and effectiveness of development aid, this book should take a prominent place. This book is quite straightforward. Aid has been ineffective and even detrimental to development in Africa. And this coming from a young African and female economist. She was a hit in 2009 when her book came out and it seems to me that we are on the verge of fundamental changes, or at least I hope, because I am convinced that convential development aid has proven to be the wrong way.

I suspect that from all these books and arguments, pro and against, that a formula could be found which could calculate the right proportions and targets of development aid, foreign direct investement, capital market financing and governance polies. To some degree, a particular developing country needs a differential diagnosis, reminiscent of Dr. Gregory House, MD (yes, the tv-show!) Every country has unique features and is at a unique place on the development scale.

Read this book, and get a head start in the discussion.?

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 14th, 2010 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Book reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.