Reeeeaaaally? No, seriously, shall we take a poll? Some African leaders, yes. Most? No.

Reeeeaaaally? No, seriously, shall we take a poll? Some African leaders, yes. Most? No.

If a post of mine got that kind of treatment, I think I would destroy my computer with a sledgehammer and take up hill walking, books, or even, in the worst extremity, gardening. But I shouldn’t tempt you….

Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

I was very glad to read your comment, in which you make it clear that you were not intending to criticise aid agencies, or suggest that liberalisation of state enterprises is the key to economic development.

I assume that you will be publishing correction on TechCentralStation to make your views clear. To save you the effort, I have taken the liberty of drafting a possible article for you:

“I am concerned that some readers may have misinterpreted my comments in my recent article (“Less Live 8; more self help”, August 4th 2005) in which I highlighted the importance of supply side reforms for development.”

“When I said, ‘there’s one aid agency that seems to have already understood this … it does seem that the Bush administration actually has the right idea about development aid’ this might have been thought to mean that other agencies have not given this sufficient attention, or that the US administration has given it more attention than other donors. In fact, I meant to make clear that this issue has been recognised by all the main donors over the last half a century, and that they have devoted considerable effort and resources to it, with considerable success.”

“When I said ‘Sort out the supply side; get the infrastructure, institutional and social right first, then, who knows? Will further aid even be necessary?’, this was in no way intended to imply that aid flows for other purposes (such as vaccinating children) should be reduced or might not be necessary. I realise that there are many challenges in developing countries, including improving the supply performance of the economy, that efforts are needed across a broad range of issues if we are to make progress; and that investments financed by development assistance are making an essential contribution to these.”

“When I said ‘If you don’t liberalize the telecoms market … then no more money’, this was not intended to imply that a country that does not liberalize its telecoms market should get no more money. That was absolutely the last thought in my mind. Obviously what I meant was that there may be strong short-term political and fiscal pressures that prevent telecoms liberalisation, and that donors should build partnerships with developing countries to understand these better and so help to alleviate the constraints to enable them to accelerate reform.”

“I note that the pesky sub-editors have headed the article “Less Live 8″, which might be taken to imply that I disagree with the goals of the Live 8 campaign. It should be clear to any careful reader – which obviously does not include the editors at TCS – that I support the goals of Live 8 to increase aid resources and increase debt relief, as this will facilitate the supply side reforms that are necessary. ”

“It should have been clear that my criticism was aimed at the Make Poverty History campaign, even though I did not mention them anywhere in my article. It was certainly not my intention to cast general doubt on the effectiveness of development assistance.”

“I want to make clear that I believe that most African leaders are decent, intelligent and well-informed, but that they face policy choices which are almost unimaginably difficult, as they are severely limited by the fiscal, economic and political environment in which they operate. I understand that the last thing they need is to be lectured as if they are schoolchildren by armchair critics, especially ones who have never set foot in Africa. I intend to make it clear in my writings that there is overwhelming evidence that development assistance is highly effective in reducing poverty and I will support its expansion to enable economic development to be accelerated across the developing world.”

That should do it. I look forward to seeing this in your name on TCS. …. don’t mention it at all, it was a pleasure.

Rather more to the point the piece was not a critique of aid agencies (although the quote from The Economist could be seen as one: ” “These are our main bottlenecks,” says Emma Ralijohn, who co-ordinated Madagascar’s application to the MCC. “Other donors never tried to solve these problems,” she adds.”…if everyone’s been concentrating on the supply side so hard why hasn’t someone looked at something so obvious as the registration and transfer of land?)

Rather my target was the Make Poverty History people (largely synonymous with but not exactly the same as Live8)who had, as part of their manifesto, this:

“Aid should therefore no longer be conditional on recipients promising economic change like privatising or deregulating their services, cutting health and education spending, or opening up their markets: these are unfair practices that have never been proven to reduce
poverty.”

We might disagree conditionality (and no, I didn’t suggest that aid should be conditional. I suggested that privatisation of telecoms would be a test to see how serious an oligarchy was about desiring development.) but both you and I would agree that

“privatising or deregulating their services [...] or opening up their markets: these are unfair practices that have never been proven to reduce poverty.”

is complete cock and something that should be raged against constantly.

“(Tim gives a particular example of telecomms liberalisation, which he seems to think is straightforward. In fact, state owned telecomms companies provide a substantial share of domestic revenues in many developing countries, and are often an important source of foreign currency earnings. As a result, liberalising telecomms, which would clearly be economically desirable, is financially unfeasible for many developing countries.)” is interesting…but the MPH crowd would, presumably, if aid was used to liberalise such services, insist that aid was just being used to benefit greedy capitalists….when in fact the major benefits come in increased GDP growth.

Tim Worstall writes at TechCentralStation (also see a counterargument from Owen Barder):[African capital] isn’t being invested to create further wealth at home because, well, because of a lack of human, social and institutional capital. Those things w…