Aid, Conditionality, and Debt in Africa (Foreign Aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future, 2000) -No Direct Link Available
Summary: This paper, written by Cornell University Economics professor, Ravi Kanbur, presents an in-depth look at the currently flawed foreign aid mechanism for Africa. It states that the most toxic symptom of the current system is the tendency for recipient states to become “aid dependent,” and to fix that, less aid and more discipline may be required from both the donor country and the recipient country.
Topic: Should the state department of the Obama administration double foreign aid for Africa?
Category: Academic
What Is It? Scholarly essay
Title: Aid, Conditionality, and Debt in Africa
Publication Information: Foreign Aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future, 2000
Author: Ravi Kanbur, T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Professor of Economics at Cornell, former World Bank Representative in Ghana
Location: Link available at the bottom of this page http://people.cornell.edu/pages/sk145/papers.htm
Accessed: February 26, 2009
Support:
• Burnside, C. and D. Dollar, “Aid, Policies, and Growth”
• Collier, P. and J. Gunning, “Explaining African Economic Performance” (1997)
• Davidson, B., The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation State
• Easterly, W. and R. Levine, “Africa’s Growth and Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions”
• Sachs, J. and A. Warner, “Sources of Slow Growth in African Economies”
This is a scholarly essay written by a professor of economics at Cornell University so it has two full pages of citations, this is just a sample. Kanbur uses quotes, statistics, and references from each work above, oftentimes more than once, to support his assertions and lend evidence to his argument that the foreign aid system is in desperate need of reform. I’ve seen many of the names above on and in other impressive works on the topic of foreign aid, and seeing as how they are all cited in format, it is safe to say they are reliable sources.
Audience and Agenda: This paper was written for a very specific audience and published in a book aimed at professionals and scholars who are already deeply intertwined in the subject matter. Kanbur uses a very professional writing style and jargon meant for those already very familiar with the aid system and its flaws. The book it was published in was a compilation of similar papers, all arguing for the reformation of future aid programs, so as to ensure more effective giving practices. It was published by Routledge, a global publisher of academic books and journals with an impressive roster, including Einstein.
Usefulness: This paper was written in an attempt to highlight previous mistakes in the foreign aid program (specifically those pertaining to conditionality), and briefly propose a program that would be better able to actually aid Africa in its development rather than simply drowning it in money. It’s clearly a scholarly work, given the two-page-long list of very specific references and the amount of professional jargon used. The author was on the ground in Ghana for a period of time, acting as representative of the World Bank, and he uses personal experiences from that on top of research-based references to support his ideas about the reformation of the conditions attached to foreign aid. This essay actually has a fairly narrow focus, zeroing in on one big problem with developmental aid money; the conditions that the donor countries must adhere to in order to keep receiving the aid. So it leaves out a lot of factors, but it recognizes this and readily accepts the idea that conditionality and aid are hardly the only factors hindering Africa’s growth.
Works Cited:
Ravi Kanbur’s Cornell homepage
Routledge Publishing about page
Foreign Aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future on Amazon.co.uk
