Editing Aid effectiveness (section)

=== Major critiques ===

==== P. T. Bauer ====
British economist [[Peter Thomas Bauer|P. T. Bauer]] argued that aid did more harm than good, notably in his books "Dissent on Development" (1972)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bauer|first=P. T.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2666082|title=Dissent on development|date=1976|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-21282-7|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=2666082}}</ref> and "Reality and Rhetoric" (1984).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bauer|first=P. T.|url=https://archive.org/details/realityrhetorics0000baue/|title=Reality and rhetoric : studies in the economics of development|date=1984|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-74946-4|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=9894295}}</ref> The main harmful effect was that aid channelled resources through governments, enabling inefficient state planning and producing a general "politicization of life" in which the population shifted its activities to the political sphere rather than the economic one.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Bauer|first=P. T.|url=https://archive.org/details/realityrhetorics0000baue/page/46|title=Reality and rhetoric : studies in the economics of development|date=1984|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-74946-4|location=Cambridge, Mass.|pages=27–28, 46|oclc=9894295}}</ref> On the other side, Bauer saw aid's benefits as being limited to the avoidance of commercial loan costs, which he did not consider to be a significant factor in countries' development (pp.&nbsp;47–49). He believed that the choices of aid projects were usually controlled by recipient governments less interested in alleviating poverty than enriching the elite (pp.&nbsp;49–52).

==== Dambisa Moyo ====
Noted Zambian economist [[Dambisa Moyo]] has been a fierce opponent to development aid, and calls it “the single worst decision of modern developmental politics”. Her 2009 book, [[Dambisa Moyo|Dead Aid]] describes how aid has encouraged kleptocracies, corruption, aid-dependency and a series of detrimental economic effects and vicious downward spirals of development in Africa. She argues that foreign aid provides a windfall to governments which can encourage extreme forms of [[rent-seeking]] and through providing a positive shock of revenue, lead to [[Dutch Disease]]. Furthermore, this easy money offers governments an exit from the contract between them and their electorate: the contract that states that they must provide public goods in exchange for taxes.  In short, it "allows the state to abdicate its responsibilities toward its people".<ref>{{cite book|last=Moyo|first=Dambisa|title=Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.|publisher=Douglas & Mcintyre|year=2009|isbn=978-1-55365-542-8}}</ref> It is important to note that Moyo alludes specifically to government bilateral and multilateral aid and not small-holder charity, humanitarian or emergency aid.
Her prescriptions call for increased trade and foreign direct investment, emphasizing China's burgeoning role in Africa.<ref>{{cite book|last=Moyo|first=Dambisa|title=Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa|publisher=Douglas & Mcintyre|year=2009|pages=124}}</ref>  Moyo also makes a case for micro-financing schemes, as popularized by the widespread success of Grameen Bank, to spark entrepreneurship within the continent on the ground level, thus building from the bottom-up as opposed to the top-down approach aid takes.