La economista africana Dambisa Moyo acaba de publicar un libro en el que pide la supresión de la ayuda externa occidental a los países africanos, arguyendo que es contra-producente y no tiene fundamentos empíricos sino emocionales. El libro está disponible en Amazon y está prologado por Niall Ferguson: Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.
En Guernica Magazine le han hecho una interesante entrevista, donde ha expresado su opinión sobre la "ayuda glamurosa", la promoción de la ayuda externa por parte de celebridades como Bono o Bob Geldoff.
There are three things I want to say about celebrities and “Glamour Aid.” First, I don’t think they’re right. I may have been more sympathetic if they were pushing an agenda for more trade or more foreign direct investment, but the fact that they’re pushing for an additional fifty billion dollars [in aid] illustrates to me that they don’t understand economics and perhaps do not add value to the debate. It certainly worries me that they’re getting more airtime than they should. The second point is that in the aid model, you disenfranchise Africans because the governments are not held accountable. The fact that there was a vacuum big enough for these celebrities to step in and speak, ostensibly, on behalf of the African continent is worrying. Africans stand in the hot African sun to elect their leaders, not celebrities. We expect African leaders to come up with policies about where they want to take Africa. We expect these leaders to attend G8 and other international gatherings to articulate a view of where they see Africa. The African people do not expect their countries to be represented by celebrities. The third point is that these celebrities don’t portray Africa in a positive light. This continent suffers from a very severe PR problem. The world is asking us as to raise our children in an environment where we’re constantly told that we can’t do anything—we’re poor, we’re dirty, we’re impoverished, we’re hungry, we’re corrupt, we’re war-torn, disease-ridden. Ask any psychologist: that’s not a formula for generating innovators and entrepreneurs. And I don’t see celebrities out there saying: “Let’s bring in more investments; we can show you African doctors and teachers and lawyers and people participating in their country.” What I see is a perpetuation of the negative stereotype of Africa, which I think is problematic. That’s not how Africa is going to become an equal partner on the global stage—which, ultimately, is my goal. And you don’t get there by being portrayed as second-rate, desperate, hungry.
La visión de Moyo (más controvertida en Occidente que en África) coincide con la de otro reputado economista africano, James Shikwati, que criticó la ayuda externa en las páginas de Der Spiegel:
Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
(HT: Overcoming Bias)
