More on Moyo

In a post last month ("An African Economist on Western Aid to Africa"), we mentioned the Zambian-born economist and author Dambisa Moyo, and posted an excerpt from the interview with her in the Financial Times. Today's New York Times Magazine features an interview with Moyo as well ("Questions for Dambisa Moyo -- The Anti-Bono"). From the interview:

Q: As a native of Zambia with advanced degrees in public policy and economics from Harvard and Oxford, you are about to publish an attack on Western aid to Africa and its recent glamorization by celebrities. ‘‘Dead Aid,’’ as your book is called, is particularly hard on rock stars. Have you met Bono?
I have, yes, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year. It was at a party to raise money for Africans, and there were no Africans in the room, except for me.

[...]

You argue in your book that Western aid to Africa has not only perpetuated poverty but also worsened it, and you are perhaps the first African to request in book form that all development aid be halted within five years.
Think about it this way — China has 1.3 billion people, only 300 million of whom live like us, if you will, with Western living standards. There are a billion Chinese who are living in substandard conditions. Do you know anybody who feels sorry for China? Nobody.

Maybe that’s because they have so much money that we here in the U.S. are begging the Chinese for loans.
Forty years ago, China was poorer than many African countries. Yes, they have money today, but where did that money come from? They built that, they worked very hard to create a situation where they are not dependent on aid.

The photo above, of Ms. Mayo, accompanied Deborah Solomon's interview.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Imitates The Onion

Hat tip to Atlantic blogger/FT Columnist Clive Crook for mentioning that development economist and NYU professor William Easterly has a new blog, Aid Watch. Easterly has been somewhat controversial for questioning whether traditional foreign aid approaches actually benefit the world's poor. In a recent post ("And Now For Something Completely Different: Davos Features “Refugee Run”"), Easterly writes about the tasteless event promoted by the flyer above, which apparently took place yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Excerpt:

When somebody sent me this invitation from Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, I thought at first it was a joke from the Onion. What do you think of the Davos rich and powerful going through the “Refugee Run” theme park re-enactment of life in a refugee camp?

Can Davos man empathize with refugees when he or she is not in danger and is going back to a luxury banquet and hotel room afterwards? Isn’t this just a tad different from the life of an actual refugee, at risk of all too real rape, murder, hunger, and disease?

Did the words “insensitive,” “dehumanizing,” or “disrespectful” (not to mention “ludicrous”) ever come up in discussing the plans for “Refugee Run”?

I hope such bad taste does not reflect some inability in UNHCR to see refugees as real people with their own dignity and rights.

Of course, I understand that there were good intentions here, that you really want rich people to have a consciousness of tragedies elsewhere in the world, and mobilize help for the victims. However, I think a Refugee Theme Park crosses a line that should not be crossed. Sensationalizing and dehumanizing and patronizing results in bad aid policy – if you have little respect for the dignity of individuals you are trying to help, you are not going to give THEM much say in what THEY want and need, and how you can help THEM help themselves?