Dambisa Moyo' book "Dead Aid" is gaining influence among African leaders (I wanted to point to President Kagame's thoughtful commentary in the FT). I would like to add the following comments. Volumes of aid to Africa per se are not the issue; instead the issue is the quality of political leadership and the effectiveness with which aid is put to in Africa to support the continent's development. Aid, by itself, is not a bad thing and, if utilized properly, can help resource constrained economies make wise investments to move from a low to a higher base of performance. Post-war Western Europe and Japan reconstructed into a modern economy through massive aid provided through the Marshall Plan, and many developing economies in East Asia (China, Korea, etc) and South Asia (e.g., India) have taken off because of large injections of external aid and, of course, the determined will and good policies of those nations. I find the debate championing the ending of aid to Africa as a dangerous one for it misses one key economic argument: resource fungibility.
