Printed with joliprint M non-existent in rural areas. Aid did not kill typicallyAfrica. and best at sparse wereinfrastructure coverage, otherelectrification, and network, rail in 1970. Rural poverty was pervasive. Africa’s road productivity and urbanization rates were very low cumented elsewhere, Africa’s literacy, agricultural lenges become even more apparent. As wechal povertylong-termAfrica’shave of enormitydo the If we move beyond the GNP and income measures, remains impoverished till today. dependence in the 1960s and 1970s, and a majority started out impoverished at the time of national inthe same story: the majority of Africa’s population tellothers andHeston, andSummers Maddison, poverty.Allofthemacroeconomic timeseries by Moyo’s statement, by showing high and persistent estimates that go back to 1950 or 1970 also 1981percentinand73 contradict 2005.inOther prominent 74 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa their figures, headcount poverty under $2 a day According1981.headcounttowas tobackgoing data prepare the benchmark under-$2-a-day historical RavallionMartinresearchersand ShaohuaChen Let’s parse that statement for a moment. World Bank sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than US$2 a day.» tion lived in dire poverty -- today over 70 the1970’s percentless than 10 percent ofof Africa’s popula off today than it was 40 years ago. For example in «No surprise, then, that Africa is on the whole povertyworse by aid. She makes the following statement: economically prosperous and then was pushed into ly, she seems to believe that sub-Saharan Africa was Aid for Africa Jeffrey Sachs: Moyo’s Confused Attack on her slashing attacks on aid. Most important article s. Dambisa Moyo’s recent Huffington Post exposes the confusions that underlie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/moyos-confused-attack-on_b_208222.html - - - - - limited, averaging around $35 per African per year hasplayed helpfula role this.in Yet aidwas very percent in 1991 to around 70 percent in 2007. Aid 53 around from increased have enrolments net 1970 to around 62 percent in 2007. Primary school literacyhasincreased from around percent27 in births in 1970 to 146 per 1,000 1,000 birthsper 229 infrom declined 2007. hasmortality Child Adult in Africa have in fact improved in recent decades. Despite the persistence of poverty, many conditions the 1980s and 1990s, and misguidedattemptsand1990s,by and 1980s the countries, decline of aid for infrastructure during disease burden, heavy concentration of landlocked Africa mightily. And one can go on. Africa’s tropicalAfrican agriculture rather than its presence that cost breakthrough for Africa. It was the absence of aidopposite and foradverse role, holding back asimilar agriculture from the 1980s African until for recently aid to played opposition Bank World an while US aid heavily subsidized India’s Green Revolution of Africa. irrigated systems of Asia, not the rain-fed systems markedly,rosearealand the outputper in came The original Green Revolution, in which India’s food a continent of rain-fed (non-irrigation) agriculture. glacier melt and the annual monsoon rains. Africa is irrigation, thanks to the Himalayan snowmelt and is a civilization of great river systems and India’slarge-scale economic takeoff from the late 1960s. India lution of higher food yields, the formative event of for example, Africa has not yet had a Green Revo but in circumstances and history. Unlike South Asia, Africa’s differences with other regions lie not in aid, trap and thereby to break the dependency on aid. or targeted for a focused period to end the poverty since 1960. Aid has never been properly resourced 03/11/2011 21:39 Page 1 World - Printed with joliprint for nets created by aid for malaria control. jobs in the local industry, as a result of the todemand several million per year now, with thousands of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) a few years ago thatAfrica hasgone from producing exactly zero massiveunawaresufferingtheandunmoved by if nets are not produced in Africa. She seems both deaths per year, yet Moyo is opposed to millionpreventabledisease,aroundurgent1theand of help a killer disease, around two hundred million cases There are hundreds of millions of Africans at risk The of confusion underlying this remark is staggering. of 24 need jobs not sympathy.» over 60 percent of Africans that are under the age charged.guiltyasam Don’tforgetI then thatthe (which incidentally, put Africans out of business), sundry to dump malaria nets across the continent nomic prospects) rather than encouraging all and for Africans and a real chance for continents eco ownanti-malaria bed-nets (thereby creating jobs sustainable solution where Africans can make their even labeling me as cruel; I say, if workingaid towardsto an a African child for an anti-malarial bed nothingwouldseewrongdenyingwith netUS$10in -- «Finally,respectMr.withtoSachs’remark I that ducers in Africa out of business. In her own words:on the alleged grounds that it has put bed net pro forAfrica’s hundreds of millions of young people she opposes the distribution of anti-malaria bed nets governments are involved. Almost unimaginably, Africans access to life-saving AIDS treatment, since cutting the aid that has allowed more than 2 millionquences of serious episodes of disease. She advocates or being maimed for a lifetime through the conse cankeepmillions ofAfrican children fromdying Moyo now campaigns against the kinds of aid that and 1990s all played their part. «structural adjustment programs» during the 1980s underservicing debt collect creditorsto Africa’s Jeffrey Sachs: Moyo’s Confused Attack on Aid for Africa http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/moyos-confused-attack-on_b_208222.html - - - laria control is also training tens of thousands and She takes no note of the fact that global aid for ma position on aid. Everybody that deals with aid wantsMoyo is not offering a reasoned or evidence-based yes, she is «guilty as charged.» cruel,thendeemedbeto LLINs againstforis aid growth of recent years. She says that if her to positionthe boost in Africa’s productivity and economic work and children back to school, and contributing the hospitals, putting mothers and fathers back to economy while malaria control is finally emptying that unchecked malaria has long devastated Africa’s munity health workers; and seems to be unaware soon hundred of thousands of rural Africans as com teracy, and lack of infrastructure, the right solution struggling with rural poverty, tropical diseases, illi Sincerecordtheshows that Africalong beenhas to meet urgent needs. more aid, fully accountable and properly targeted, and urgently with Moyo’s attacks. They recommend to prosper. These leaders disagree fundamentally and have used aid to save lives and help Beth economiesMugo of Kenya - have fought for Africa’s poor Roll Back Malaria, and Ministers Charity Ngilu and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Dr. Awa Coll-Seckleaves of millions to die. African leaders - like PresidentMoyo wants to cut aid off dramatically, even if that holder farmers. diversificationrural impoverished among small business development, including microfinance and drinking water and sanitation, and broadband; and education; core infrastructure of roads, power, safe African Green Revolution; disease control; children’s the poverty trap through targeted investments in an grams. The purpose of aid should indeed be to pients,break as is happening in the disease-control pro reci thereaches aid thatensure corruptionand recommended many successful mechanisms to limit growth,notaiddependency. We andothers have to promote financial transparency and market-led 03/11/2011 21:39 Page 2 ------Printed with joliprint succeed. private markets and African entrepreneurship can nancing. That combination will indeed ensure that Thisincludesmarketmoreand bothmoreaidfi parent and targeted public and private investments. is to help address these critical needs through trans- Jeffrey Sachs: Moyo’s Confused Attack on Aid for Africa Follow Jeffrey Sachs on Twitter: www. twitter.com/earthinstitute http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/moyos-confused-attack-on_b_208222.html - 03/11/2011 21:39 Page 3