Aid as Autobiography (Africa: the Journal of the International African Institute, 2002)
Summary: Africa contributor, David Williams, summarizes the four controversial main points touched on in six different books about foreign aid effectiveness in Africa, and concludes that foreign aid policies act as autobiographies for the donor countries’ values rather than as reflections of the beneficiaries’ needs.
Topic: Should the state department of the Obama Administration double foreign aid for Africa?
Category: Academic
What Is It? A book review article in the journal of the International African Institute
Title: Aid as Autobiography
Publication Information: Journal of the International African Institute; 2002 Vol. 72 Issue 1, p150
Author: David Williams
Location: Scholarly Journal, Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute Vol. 72 Issue 1
Accessed: February 11, 2009
Support:
• Carol Lancaster’s Aid to Africa: so much to do, so little done
• James Morton’s The Poverty of Nations: The aid dilemma at the heart of Africa
• Eberhard Reusse’s Interventionist Paradigms and the Ills of Aid: an interaction model of pathological processes in the generation and implementation of development policies
• Oliver Saasa and Jerker Carlsson’s The Aid Relationship in Zambia: a conflict scenario
• Alex De Waal’s Famine Crimes: politics and the disaster relief industry in Africa
• Jerker Carlsson, Gloria Smolokae, and Nicholas Van De Walle’s Foreign Aid in Africa: learning from country experiences
Seeing as how this is a book review, Williams uses multiple quotes from all six of these novels in order to compare and contrast their messages. The books have their differences but Williams focuses on their similarities; they all agree on four main points concerning the ineffectiveness of foreign aid in Africa and conclude that the donor countries are just as much, if not more, to blame for these failings as those receiving the aid. Williams also includes some statistics that he pulls from World Bank and OECD reports to back up some of the information he’s comparing in the six aforementioned books being reviewed.
Audience and Agenda: Africa: the Journal of the International African Institute is published by the Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh University Press is the premier Scottish publisher of academic books and journals in the world, and the Press Committee, which has an enviably high academic standard, appraises each publication. They are a scholarly journal so their audience is fairly narrow and specialized.
Usefulness: This article reflects on the idea that foreign aid does more harm than good. By reviewing these books that are critical of foreign aid policies, Williams provides excellent evidence against foreign aid. This article is aimed towards academics, so it has a lot of information that certain media outlets and organizations don’t necessarily want publicized. For those already in the “foreign aid industry,” Williams says, it’s not new information, but it’s not readily available to the general public and doesn’t get a lot of mainstream media coverage, if any. It makes an argument that a lot of people don’t want to hear; that their donations and charity dollars are not reaching their targets and might actually be doing more harm than good in the long run. Though, Williams does mention that some of the books’ conclusions to cut off foreign aid to Africa are meant to be shocking. In that sense, some of these conclusions could be slightly sensationalized in order to get the books off the shelves.
Works Cited:
Project Muse, Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute information page
Project Muse, Edinburgh University Press information page
