Is Aid to Africa Doing More Harm Than Good? (NPR broadcast, 12/04/2007)
Summary: Intelligence Squared U.S. series held an Oxford-style debate based around the assertion, “Aid to Africa is Doing More Harm Than Good.” Six experts on African foreign aid debated the topic; William Easterly, David Rieff, and George Ayittey argued in favor of the motion while John McArthur, Gayle Smith, and C. Payne Lucas argued in opposition. The Audience was polled before and after the debate to gauge which side had the most convincing arguments.
Topic: Should the state department of the Obama administration double foreign aid for Africa?
Category: Non-profit Institutional
What Is It? An audio debate (multimedia)
Title: Is Aid to Africa Doing More Harm Than Good?
Publication Information: NPR.org, December 12, 2007, New York City
Author: Moderator: Brian Lehrer, host of The Brian Lehrer show on New York Public Radio
Location: Originally a radio broadcast, online version available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17095866
Accessed: February 25, 2009
Support:
• William Easterly, economics professor and author of The White Man’s Burden
• John McArthur, associate director of the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, senior macroeconomic adviser in the U.N. Development Program’s Africa Bureau and former deputy director of the U.N. Millennium Project
• Gayle Smith, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council
• David Rieff, a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and contributing editor to The New Republic
• George Ayittey, president of the Free Africa Foundation and distinguished economist in residence at American University
• C. Payne Lucas, co-founder and former president of Africare, senior adviser to AllAfrica Global Media and president of the business consultancy Lodestar
These six experts all have extremely extensive resumes on the subject at hand, clearly, and use their individual experiences and cite various sources to back up their arguments for or against the proposition. They use a lot of statistics and quotes from their individual publications and organizations to craft supported arguments. Quite a few of them also use quotes from each other.
Audience and Agenda: This debate was produced through a program called Intelligence Squared U.S., which is produced by The Rosenkranz Foundation. The Rosenkranz Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to public policy research, higher education and the arts. They are not connected to the government and their Intelligence Squared U.S. program has supported such think tanks as the Manhattan Institute and the American Enterprise Institute. This particular debate was broadcast on NPR so they were expecting a huge audience on top of the audience they were speaking in front of live. This resulted in an extremely comprehensible debate without a lot of jargon or obscure references.
Usefulness: This debate presents both sides of the argument that foreign aid in Africa is causing more harm than good. It has pulled six of the biggest names connected with the foreign aid policy for Africa and pitted them against each other. All of them agree that the current foreign aid system I the U.S. is struggling and needs reform, but not all of them agree that aid to Africa is causing more harm than good. This is a useful source because all sides of the debate are presented and the listener can see where they agree and disagree with one another. They also all each other out on the holes in their arguments and what they are or are not mentioning. At the end of the debate the audience was polled again, and whereas at the beginning the majority were undecided on the topic, by the end the numbers were more clear-cut; 41% agreed with the position that aid is doing more harm than good, 51% disagreed and 8% were still undecided.
Works Cited:
The Rosenkranz Foundation about page
Intelligence Squared U.S. about page
