Within the aid and development community, there are two camps whose views on the subject are diametrically opposed. One side, led by economist Jeffrey Sachs and indie rock star Bono (one name), believes in a top-down approach, providing governments with aid money to implement programs that improve the welfare of the population. The other side, under the spiritual guidance of economist Bill Easterly and championed by Dambisa Moyo, an economist with the conviction and warmth of Ayn Rand, and others, considers unconditional aid transfers to be counterproductive, further entrenching corrupt governments and exacerbating the very problems they are intended to solve. Easterly and company support a more bottom-up approach, empowering the population to create sustainable economic growth and development.
The latter group derisively refers to the former’s approach to aid as “charity,” which, in this context, is not a good thing. Charity, they argue, creates dependency and produces unsustainable solutions to long-term problems. They believe in using capacity-building and commerce as tools of economic growth, allowing nations to pull themselves up from their proverbial bootstraps. After all, every first-world nation, with the exception of maybe Singapore, has ridden the tiger of manufacturing to prosperity. Why should that path be any different for developing countries today? China has lifted hundreds of millions of its own people out of poverty and is currently making strides toward the same end in Africa. African nations are increasingly looking to the east for partnerships that offer a path to prosperity through participation in global economy.