Prospect online this week: the trouble with Dead Aid

In a web-exclusive article for Prospect this week, Kevin Watkins—an expert on international development and aid, and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University's Global Economic Governance Programme—looks at Dambisa Moyo's book Dead Aid and its controversial thesis that western governments should replace their current aid policy for Africa with "a hefty dose of cold-turkey." What should we make of this radical position?, he asks: "Is it time for Bono and Bob Geldof to stop haranguing rich world leaders for a better deal for Africa? Should Oxfam campaigners be matching under the banner 'Turn off the Aid Taps Now'?"

The answer, Watkins suggests, is far more complex than Moyo's analysis allows, most centrally because of Dead Aid's "failure to explore why past aid has delivered so little." As he puts it, the fact that aid policies themselves have failed to solve Africa's problems is as inconclusive a proof of their uselessness as the argument that "fire engines cause fires because you find them near burning houses." The question of what does and can work is, Watkins argues, a hugely important one for the 21st century to answer when faced by the appalling conditions in which hundreds of millions of Africans live. But simply turning off the taps is no solution. As ever, let us know what you think below.