New Africa Book

Via Chris Blattman http://chrisblattman.blogspot.com/ , here's an article by Jonathan Glennie, who has a new book bashing Aid to Africa.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2008/jul/24/africaaid.background

Judging from his article, I think I'll pass on buying the book. I start off deeply skeptical of the claim that we shouldn't give aid b/c it will only hurt the poor, so I went in wanting to read one specific, plausible avenue via which aid hurts Africa. In the article above, Glennie couldn't even do that much. To me, that's fairly damning. Who can stand to read vague platitudes? Particularly when those platitudes are diametrically opposed to one's priors? As a rhetorical device, when you are going to argue against something that many people strongly believe in, vague platitudes are just not the way to go...

Glennie says that instead of aid, we should "overhaul the rules on international property rights...act on climate change" and "regulate better an arms trade causing turmoil in Africa"... OK, the first is just flat out not going to happen. The second "act on climate change" I'm all for, but this won't do anything in the short run to alleviate poverty in Africa, and should not replace aid. More regulation of the arms trade is also a good idea, but I can't imagine this will have a cheap price tag either, and with the Russians and Chinese out there as suppliers, I think it would be better to focus on reducing the demand for war rather than the supply of guns. For if there are buyers, there will be sellers...

He writes things like "aid conditions have weakened African businesses on the other, putting hundreds of thousands of parents out of work." And, one suspects, aid also takes food out of the mouths of millions of infants. Now, I doubt this very much, even more so b/c he doesn't even attempt to explain why aid puts hundreds of thousands of parents out of work.

The most specific thing he mentions is the problem that "Donor governments attach strings". What strings? I guess we'll have to read his book to find out... He says that these strings mean that "Aid dependency has ... undermined the accountability of the African state to its citizens." OK, but aid definitely flows, in general, way more to states which are democratic. If you want a cut in your aid budget, the easiest way to get it is to stop holding elections. As it happens, I think it is clear that democracy is not at all necessary for development, so Glennie seems wrong here on two accounts...

To sum up, maybe he wrote a great book, but everything about his article linked above rubs me the wrong way...

Plus, America, with an economy worth about $15 trillion a year, gives about $15 billion in Aid. It's peanuts. And the biggest aid recipient (last I checked) is Israel; other big recipients are mostly "allies" in the Iraq war. So we really give pennies to Africa. Why do we need a book which tells us that we should even be giving less?