Argument: Aid to the poor has proven unsuccessful

Support

Fredrik Erixon “Why Aid Doesn’t Work.” BBC. September 11, 2005: “The new ‘big push’ of development aid has been tried many times before but always with dismal results. The call for redoubling aid to eradicate poverty has been responded to many times over, but it has never delivered what it promised. In spite of more than US$1 trillion in aid to Africa over the last 50 years, the big push in development has yet to occur. [see more of this quote in argument page].

Between 1970 and 1995 aid to Africa increased rapidly and aid dependency (measured as the aid-to-GDP ratio) stood at nearly 20% in the early 1990s. Measured differently, the mean value of aid as a share of government expenditures in African countries was well above 50% between 1975 and 1995.

During the same period, GDP per capita growth in Africa decreased and was for many years even measured in negative figures. The unfortunate fact is that most African countries are poorer today then they were at the time of their independence from colonial powers.”