The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa (African Arguments) [Paperback]

This mindbending book takes its readers from conviction to disillusionment and finally new reappraisal.
Its conclusions are surprising and troubling now, but I suspect will be the orthodoxy by 2020. (They connect with, but are not the same as, Dambisa Moyo's in Dead Aid, also published last year.)
Glennie, who works for Christian Aid, was, like many Britons, first empassioned by the idea of the rich world helping in Africa, in the Live Aid dream of 1985. Africa is poor; we are rich; we should give them our money. Simple.
He notes the progress in the argument from the individual to a government level in the Live 8 concerts of 2005: and indeed "give more aid" is accepted across the political spectrum today.
But amid the euphoria of the 'Make Poverty History' campaign, he notes that still in 2009, Africa isn't any richer.
Usually, people argue this is beacuse there has not been enough aid. Glennie says the opposite: there's been too much.

Contra Moyo, though, his aren't the reflections of a non-interventionist right winger who believes that a freer capitalism can save the day, and he's not disputing that millions of individual lives have been saved.
Rather, he argues that there what needs to be recognised is that aid can be good, but it invariably also has a down side. Northern countries often tie their aid to 'good governance', but 'good' is good from the Northern perspective, such as getting rid of trade tariffs. An example is Ghana, a great recipient of aid, which allowed foreign competition for government procurement by legislation in 2002 in response to World Bank conditions. The result has been that there were 7,000 textile workers in 1995, and only 3,000 still employed in that area in 2005; iconically, a Chinese company won the contract to produces Ghana's 50th anniversary cloth.
Has this tied aid really helped reduce poverty and build up the Ghanaian economy? Glennie answers: No.
More subtly, as dependence on aid increases, so the balance of power tilts away from the sovereign countries to the donor countries.
Africa already receives 9% of its GDP in aid: in Tanzania, an extreme example, aid is worth 77% of the rest of total government expenditure.
The problem for Glennie is that by definition aid donors aren't held accountable to the African people. Their donations - while doing some good - hinder growth of self-determined government.
Thus, he argues, the focus should move away from 'more aid' to pressure on activities that will make more of a difference with fewer 'bad' side-effects.
For Glennie, this means thinking laterally. For eaxmple, he argues that a priority should be liberalising patent law so that Africa specifically can get cheaper drugs against HIV AIDS, and - more broadly - can grow, as 19th Century Britain did, by using cheap copies of foreign technology.

Glennie's book has shifted my understanding of this subject completely, and I'm still slightly stunned by it. What I have argued passionately for in the past may have been misguided. As such, it makes you uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable anyway.

But then, if he's right, better to find out now than in ten years' time when billions of aid has poured in, and Africa's even further behind the rest of the world.

This is punchy, well-argued and readable: a prophetic book in the best sense.

Comments on Jonathan Glennie's 'The Trouble with Aid'

Alex de Waal (Program Director, Social Science Research Council): "This is a really fantastic book and one of the most accessible and well argued books on aid available."

Madelaine Bunting (Guardian journalist): "Dambisa gets lots of coverage... but ['The Trouble with Aid'] is much better...."

Owen Barder (Center for Global Development): "There are lots of rather dull, very worthy books about the aid business, and in my view this is not one of them. This is a short readable book full of anecdotes and examples about the way that aid works and missing out all the lofty rhetoric that you often read... So the ideas that might otherwise be quite boring, such as aid conditionality, are brought to life with examples that illustrate and support the arguments... It doesn't slip into jargon, which is one of its great strengths."

Emma Mawdsley (Cambridge University, for the Journal of International Development): "Glennie has produced an intelligent, judicious and accessible dissection of foreign aid to Africa. It ought to rocket to the top of any reading list on the subject, and in an ideal world it would displace the recent populist publications on foreign aid from the bestseller lists... He is unsparing in his insistence on evidence, and on not conforming to scripts... With a discernment and clarity that seems to elude many in the field, Glennie asks deceptively simple questions, but ones which I suspect will disconcert both aid pessimists and aid optimists. He concludes with a full chapter on prescriptions for change, and in keeping with the rest of the book, these are potentially achievable, radical and realistic at the same time. What they require is willingness to embrace a more holistic, evidence-led and situated understanding of aid effectiveness in reducing poverty... 'The Trouble With Aid' is a tremendously good book. It is written with great clarity, and students will have no problem following the arguments; but at the same time it sets out discerning arguments that academics and policy-makers will find refreshing and challenging."

Richard Dowden (Director, Royal African Society): "Brilliant... incisive, clearly written and with radical conclusions."

Duncan Green (Head of Research, Oxfam GB): "a crisp, well-argued book"

Robert Molteno (Political scientist and publisher): "['The Trouble with Aid's'] lines of argument ought to command attention for many years to come... The arguments, always nuanced rather than simplistic and sweeping, [provide] the bones of a constructive, alternative development and aid policy."

Samuel Gayi (Team Leader on UNCTAD's annual Economic Development in Africa report): "The book presents a challenge to both aid optimists and aid sceptics through an in-depth and perceptive analysis of the multidimensional and "complex impacts" of aid, and associated policy conditions, on the lives of the poor, institutions, and government policies of recipient countries. Jonathan Glennie offers a refreshing and insightful departure from the polarized views that have dominated the aid debate... The message of the book is particularly timely as it exhorts governments to use aid efficiently and effectively for it to make a real difference to the lives of poor people at a time when donors are struggling to meet their own aid targets. The call for enhanced domestic financial resource mobilization ("minimizing outflows and maximizing domestic resources") is critical if recipient governments are to recapture their policy space... The book is well-structured, and written in a clear, fluid, succinct, and engaging language that enthrals the reader to the end. It is a must-read not only for students of Development Studies/Economics, but also for development experts, politicians and policy makers in recipient and donor countries as it brings critical insights to some old perspectives."

David Woodward (former head of New Global Economy Programme at the New Economics Foundation): "Jonathan Glennie's excellent and immensely readable new book presents a compelling case for those of us who care about Africa not to demand ever more aid, but rather to seek the more fundamental changes in the global economy which could reduce dependency on aid and contribute to the ultimate eradication of poverty."

Charles Mutasa (Director of the African Network on Debt and Development, AFRODAD): "At last a book on aid by a colleague from the north that speaks frankly to the fundamentals of aid and how it is delivered. What Jonathan has given us is not just his perspectives but new insights into the constraints on development in the Third World. The book cannot be ignored..."

New Agriculturalist: "'The Trouble with Aid' certainly hits the spot. A concise and forthright critique and summary of the aid dilemma, its lack of prohibitive jargon and lofty rhetoric afford it wide and deserved appeal... Glennie offers some suggestions on how to get the aid revolution started."

Alex Wilkes (Head of the European Network on Debt and Development, EURODAD): "A very informative read for anyone interested in the future of development policy... A well argued account of aid's problems and potentials and the importance of other policy agendas if we are serious about helping Africa. Readable, reasoned yet radical; Glennie urges governments, campaigners and others to look beyond aid and consider other ways to help impoverished nations and citizens stand on their own feet."

Richard Aidoo (Africa Today): "Well-thought-out, ['The Trouble with Aid'] responds to both the optimists and the pessimists in the aid debate... Glennie's arguments have contributed to other scholarly discussions which build on the idea of not just increasing aid, but providing support that will really help Africa's development."

Lucy Corkin (SOAS, for Pambazuka News): "What makes this book unique is the attempt to collect and synthesize the entire range of arguments for and against aid, in a way that lays bare the complexities of the issue. This is no easy task and Glennie is painstaking in his effort to capture the nuances of arguments... Glennie has done an admirable job in keeping the tone of the book balanced, recognising the importance of conveying a message in a way that, albeit hard to swallow, has a hope of being digested.

D.J. Shaw (Development Policy Review): "[Glennie] suggests not a sudden break but a deliberate change of direction..."

Books on aid tend to be partial or polemical or both. Despite the title this is considerably more even-handed and analytical book than most. Where other accounts take selective potshots at the sacred cows of others, this one methodically hunts down sacred cows of all persuasions and meticulously butchers them. The conclusions are equally uncomfortable both for those who believe in aid and those who oppose it on shallow ideological grounds. If you want a single sentence summary here it is: even when it is done well, which it mostly isn't, aid tends to have lots of indirect negative consequences and in any case it's a sop which covers the fact that the rich world is screwing the poor world for it's own benefit.