Is aiding abetting?

An African author and economist, Dambisa Moyo, is interviewed in Guernica about aid, especially about western aid to Africa:

"Systematic western aid, Moyo argues in Dead Aid, has essentially turned Africa into one giant welfare state. The unending stream of money has created a situation where governments aren’t accountable to their citizens: since they don’t depend on tax revenue, leaders don’t think they owe their people anything—and the people don’t expect anything from their leaders. Moreover, says Moyo, since the money flows virtually no matter what, tyrants like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (three hundred million dollars in foreign aid was sent to Mugabe in 2006 alone, says Moyo) often pilfer it and buy foreign goods, or stow it in foreign bank accounts where it does nothing to help the country. Furthermore, aid stamps out entrepreneurship. Moyo offers the example of an African mosquito net maker. When aid arrives in the form of a hundred thousand mosquito nets, the net-maker is out of business, and one hundred and sixty people (employees and dependents) are now aid-dependent. This, she says, is not a sustainable model."


There are good reasons to question the aid that has flowed into Africa since 1970, because during the same period powerty has gone up from 11 percent of the total population to 66 percent. Instead of more aid Moyo wants trade and investments, which makes a lot of sense. (Read the article: Aiding is Abetting)

About changing your opinion…

It should be a natural and common thing to change your own view. Instead it creates almost a sensation if a well known person changes his or her opinion. Lately in Sweden, Marit Paulsen, an politician, writer and an old advocate of organic food, published a new book where she criticizes some of her old opinions. The reason is that ecological agriculture gives less production than ordinary agriculture and therefore need more energy per unit. And that is not good for the environment, particularly not for the climate.

However, why does it make big headlínes if someone changes his or her opinion? After all, as someone else, in old China I believe, wrote: If you have the same opinion today as the day before yesterday, what did you learn yesterday?

I have no desire to change my basic values (about equality etc) – but whenever I find a good reason to change my opinions (such as how to promote more equality), then I hope I won’t hesitate.

By the way, Marit Paulsen emphasizes in her new book that the most important contribution for the environment you can make when it comes to food is to finish all leftovers and throw away as little as possible. All production of food – ecological or not – require a lot of energy.