Am not into financial stuff, I like governance stuff and when I picked this book up after a lot of reflection, I thought I would find the later, shock on me.
Dead Aid was published in 2009, and so most of its examples in terms of financial figures are outdated, however, its suggestions on moving Africa forward are not.
Ms Moyo, a Zambian economist who worked with the biggest financial institutions in the world does not hold back, she proposes solutions to the aid problem which has in the over 60 years of its existence, not helped Africa a bit.
Aid was proposed as a way to alleviate poverty and create sustainable economies, but all it has done is to promote poor governance.
Kenyans are currently on the neck of the International Monetary Fund – IMF, not to loan a single more shilling to its thieving government.
They are right.
The book doesn’t dwell much on governance but on economics; and how Africa can be better. If you haven’t read The Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, then I recommend you do it before or after reading this book.
John Perkins puts it more open how the west sabotages the Least Developed Countrys’ (LDC) economies.
Ms Moyo on the other hand proposes a play-to-win in the current, central-banking-system controlled world.
I might have come a bit late to this, I bought this book from Nuria Store, started reading it 10th Dec 2020 (10:38 am), struggled through and finished today 5th April 2021, 12:17.
And this is my problem with her. She however, gets more radical towards the end of the book, and I feel like that’s how she was judged as having written a good book. To me, it is not a good book, it is rather rushed.
Ms Moyo in many instances, shows how Africa is its worst enemy especially in the inter-country trade barriers, but of course, she doesn’t mention the influence of the western donors towards this. That is, ‘You refuse to cooperate, they bomb you’.
Governance should be at the centre of it all, but I guess for a decorated economist, she couldn’t risk being sidelined for jobs because criticising Bretton Woods institutions is like a career death sentence.
I postulate that Africa can win, but not with the West and the current economic model in charge. I love what the cryptocurrency space is doing.
Ms Moyo gives the west’s citizens some work which I think is noble, she says, and I put it as a question rather plainly that, ‘why would you as a western citizen watch your money being thrown into the abyss”. If change is to come on how to engineer worldwide prosperity for all and especially to remove Africa from the shackles of aid that has been fueling bad governance, then it is not for Africans themselves to rise, for they will be beaten to death (you’ve seen the atrocities which the west turns a blind eye to), but for the western citizen to question their government’s agenda with a 60-year old failed project that is AID.
Change, unfortunately, can only come if the USA and UK citizens can rise up, put their government to account.
For if the aid taps are shut permanently, nations would have to depend on money generated internally to fund themselves, which gives the perennial looters and thieves only one chance to steal.
Revenues generated internally wouldn’t be enough to steal every day as is the case with Aid. So, better systems of governance will naturally grow.
This will then spur innovation, respect for property and intellectual rights.
It’ll be much more beautiful if Aid is stopped today. STOP LOANING KENYA / AFRICA
Good book, not a great book.
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