I'll re-post my comments so far from the African book club, in case you care:

I'm about halfway through Dead Aid now; that means Moyo's given her arguments for why aid is a failure, but she hasn't started laying out her solutions yet. That puts me in a weird spot to update y'all, 'cause I'm sortof at the "Well, that was depressing" part of the book...but there's some stuff I can say.

First, I wouldn't call this compelling reading. For those of us who've just finished King Leopold's Ghost, which reads like a gripping thriller...well, Moyo is an economist, and she writes like one. It's not a horrible slog, and if you've read policy books before you'll be fine, but don't be expecting Tolstoy here.

Second, I think she's made the case for aid's failure more than adequately. The basic idea - that aid has not been properly overseen, that it's led to economic breakdown, and that it fosters corruption and civil war - well, it's hard to argue with her. I'll give a couple of examples:

- "President Mobutu is estimated to have looted Zaire to the tune of US $5 billion" (p. 48). That's a lot of money and it makes for a big motive for me to overthrow an aid country's government and install my own. And indeed, in the 90's Africa was the site of 19 significant armed conflicts; the rest of the world put together had 10 (p. 59). (Astute people will think of several other reasons for conflict in Africa, of course; but I think it's reasonable to say that a possible $5 billion profit sounds like another valid reason.)

- There's been a recent push for mosquito nets in Africa (p. 44), which is lovely but it resulted in thousands of mosquito nets flooding into Africa from abroad; local African mosquito net manufacturers promptly went out of business. Sounds ridiculously dumb, right? That's an example; similar situations happen in other sectors of the African economy. The result is that local economy is crushed; a middle class can't grow; and aid-dependent countries are kept in a state of helpless childhood.

Moyo doesn't say why local manufacturers weren't used, and I wish she would; somewhere, someone has to have had that conversation and decided against it for one reason or another. Maybe it really was just hopeless stupidity; but maybe (I'm being generous) local manufacturers couldn't manage the volume we wanted for this push. In that case, we could have used our money to help those manufacturers expand their factories and buy new equipment to make more, cheaper mosquito nets themselves. With that infrastructure investment in other sectors as well as mosquito nets, maybe Africans end up having income they can use to buy their own mosquito nets.

The rough part there is it takes longer, and in the meantime people actually die of malaria, which makes us feel bad. But I think this is Moyo's point: the quick fix makes us feel good because look! African kid in a mosquito net, win! But in the long term people are worse off than they would have been if we'd never bought them any nets; because nets tear, and now there's nowhere to get new ones except by depending on charity.

I know she's about to praise the Chinese for just such long-term infrastructure investments, and I know from Marieke's Atlantic article that China's involvement may not be quite that simple, so I'm fully prepared to disagree with her eventually. And just because aid is busted now does not mean the solution is no aid; maybe the solution is better aid. So I'm not on Moyo's bandwagon yet. But her first point - that aid as it is now is doing more harm than good - seems solid so far.

The problem with nonAfricans such as yourself commenting on the situation of Africa is a deplorable historical ignorance of the subject matter. The fact that you conclude your review with the statement "Africa will end up more Chinese than Western." illusrtates this ignorance perfectly. What both you and unfortunatley Dambiso Moyo fail to grasp that it is not only foreign aid that has failed in Africa but foriegn methodology. Africans will only improve their situation when they realize that modelling any modern society along western or chinese models will fail everytime. What they should do is take a look closer at home. In paricular the countries of Botswana and Rwanda. Both over the last decade have made noteable strides toward stable and prosperous societies. What is remarkable in particular to Botswana is that they have done this not only with very little foreign aid, but also with what amount to a modernized versin of their traditional form of government. Instead of adopting a western form of capitalist based democracy they reinstated thier culture's precolonial governing by council. Meaning that The leaders of the various tribal and ethnic groups form a governing body to make decisions to determine what direction the country takes. The Africans do not need look elsewhere for solutions to thier contient's challenges. They need to follow their ancestor's lead and formulate solutions to the unique situations they find themselves in. That is the only way Africa will pull itself up.

Dude, it's obvious that you haven't read this book, which deals specifically with the point you're making and the examples you give, so your smug superiority ain't really workin' out for you.

I don't care what you may have read in the book. My point that ultimately the Africans themselves will be the only ones to find a workable solution to their problems is still valid. The fact that you belive that they are in need of help form those outside Africa displays YOUR smug superiority. As well as ignores the fact that outside assistance cannot work. Due to the fact that it is more an attempt to buy influence than to affect change to the situation.

THAT'S WHAT WE'RE ALL SAYING, YOU GREAT MOANING MORON