Viewpoint
By Fredrik Erixon
Chief economist, Timbro
September 11, 2005
The aid sector is booming. In the last three years, foreign aid has risen by one third and
today stands at $78.6 billion. In 2010, government spending on aid is projected to be
above $125 billion a year. What are we to expect from this new wave of aid spending?
Will it, once and for all, lift people out of poverty or will it most likely achieve very little —
perhaps even be counterproductive? These are the core issues. Hardly anyone
opposes the idea that first-world countries should assist developing countries, if that
assistance helps countries to develop. The question is: does it? I am afraid it does not.
Failure of the big push
The new 'big push' of development aid has been tried many times before but always
with dismal results. The call for redoubling aid to eradicate poverty has been responded
to many times over, but it has never delivered what it promised. In spite of more than
$1 trillion in aid to Africa over the last 50 years, the big push in development has yet to
occur. Between 1970 and 1995 aid to Africa increased rapidly and aid dependency
(measured as the aid-to-GDP ratio) stood at nearly 20% in the early 1990s. Measured
differently, the mean value of aid as a share of government expenditures in African
countries was well above 50% between 1975 and 1995.
During the same period, GDP per capita growth in Africa decreased and was for many
years even measured in negative figures. The unfortunate fact is that most African
countries are poorer today than they were at the time of their independence from
colonial powers. If the idea of aid had been true —in particular the alleged link between
aid, investment, and growth - many of those countries would today have eradicated
extreme poverty and have a GDP per capita similar to that of New Zealand, Spain or
Portugal. If nothing else, aid to Africa seems to have lowered rather than increased
economic growth.
Corruption and bad decisions
Why has aid failed to deliver higher economic growth for developing countries? Partly
because aid has not been spent in the way it was intended. Instead of gearing up
investments, money was spent on current spending and public consumption - which, in
1
turn, led to a rapidly growing public sector in the economy. Needless to say, this
strengthened other socialist tendencies in the economy and investment became, in
many developing countries, mainly a government activity. In addition, aid boosted fiscal
budgets and led to a rapidly growing number of state-owned enterprises. Largely
supported by the donor community at the time, these soon became arenas of corruption
and this corruption spread like wildfire to other parts of the society.
The tragedy of aid, as been shown in numerous evaluations and by World Bank
research, is that donors are part of the problem of corruption; aid often underpins
corruption, and higher aid levels tend to erode the governance structure of poor
countries. In other words, donors have failed to follow the chief principle of the
Hippocratic Oath: do no harm! However, the major reason for the low effect of aid has
been policies detrimental to economic growth in the recipient countries.
Closed African doors
It is sound economic policies, not aid, that in the last decades have lifted hundreds of
millions of Asians out of extreme poverty, and provided the resources to limit the extent
of (or in some countries, eradicate) starvation, diseases, and other visible signs of
poverty. Inversely, it is bad economic policies that still keep millions of Africans in
deadly poverty. When several Asian countries started to open up for trade and foreign
direct investment, the policies that created the 'Asian Tigers,' many African countries
headed for a model of economic autarky, closed the borders, and regulated the
domestic economy to absurd degrees.
It is hardly surprising that this strategy of development has failed bitterly. What is more,
donors supported these policies. And many donors are still pouring money into
countries with policies detrimental to growth. Instead of focusing on the quality of aid
and how to raise the output through a more productive use of aid, donor countries and
others are solely occupied by increasing the quantity of aid. Regrettably, caution is
therefore warranted. Aid to countries that are not performing well tends to strengthen
the factors of under-development, and increased aid to countries that have entered the
economic reform route runs the risk of derailing the reform process.
Trade in the aid
The question then is not if rich countries can afford to give more aid to developing
countries. It is obvious that they can. The question is whether this aid can reduce
poverty by promoting economic growth. Sadly, the history of aid does not show that it
can. Nor does it seem that world leaders, not to mention Bob Geldof and other
campaigners, have any real idea how the aid given can be made more effective.
So, here is what donor countries should do.
Do not spend any more money on development aid.
2
Withdraw all aid to countries that are not pursing sound economic policies and
that fail seriously to build institutions for democracy and transparency.
Countries that meet these high standards should, within a limited period of time,
be assisted with 'locking-in' already accomplished reforms and, in particular, with
pursuing additional reforms.
Rich countries should immediately open up their markets for exports from poor
countries.
Trade has proven to be instrumental to poor countries development. Aid has not.
Fredrik Erixon is the chief economist of Timbro, a Swedish think-tank, and author of Aid
and Development: Will it Work this Time? (International Policy Network, 2005)
3
mecduge
WhyAidDoesntWork.docx
0
