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

by Jonathan Glennie (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £12.99
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Frequently Bought Together

The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa (African Arguments) + Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa + The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill And So Little Good
Price For All Three: £23.22

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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Zed Books Ltd (1 Sep 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1848130406
  • ISBN-13: 978-1848130401
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.6 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 112,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #58 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Human Geography > Developmental Studies

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Review

'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.'David Woodward, former head of New Global Economy Programme, nef


Review

"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." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars punchy, readable, subversive, 20 Jul 2009
By R. S. Stanier "Robert Stanier" (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
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.
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