On Sunday in the Huffington Post, Jeffrey Sachs published a scathing personal criticism of Dambisa Moyo, famed for her call to eliminate aid to Africa within five years (discussed here and here), and William Easterly, renowned development scholar:

“The big opponents of aid today are Dambisa Moyo, an African-born economist who reportedly received scholarships so that she could go to Harvard and Oxford but sees nothing wrong with denying $10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malaria bed net. Her colleague in opposing aid, Bill Easterly, received large-scale government support from the National Science Foundation for his own graduate training.”

Easterly, after posting a distress call in his own blog, was given space to reply to Sachs in yesterday’s Huffington Post:

“Official foreign aid agencies delivering aid to Africa are used to operating with nobody holding them accountable for aid dollars actually reaching poor people. Now that establishment is running scared with the emergence of independent African voices critical of aid, such as that of Dambisa Moyo.”

Easterly proceeds to quote passages of his own work that were cited by Sachs – showing quite convincingly that Sachs intentionally generalized Easterly’s views. In fact, in his blog and elsewhere, Easterly promotes good aid and criticizes the corruption and politics that prevent aid from reaching those who need it. The “Sachs attack” was, in my view, below the belt.

You may disagree. In fact, both Sachs and Easterly were overly ad hominem in their attacks, and commenters are right to condemn the tone of the discussion in general. But all this is beside the point. The back-and-forth between these two men is not about resolving old disputes – it’s a testament to the great waves created by Dambisa Moyo’s increasingly popular book, Dead Aid.

Months after the book was released to a reaction of polarized praise and contempt, Moyo is still buzzing in our midst. No one thinks she got everything right. Even supporters admit that her argument is somewhat clumsy, her policy recommendations rash. But she struck a cord – there is something broken with aid, and all the liberal guilt Bono et al can muster isn’t going to fix it.

So, for the sake of something to grasp onto, I’m leaving you with a passage from a recent Guardian opinion piece. The author, reviewing a public discussion about Dead Aid, expresses surprise at the sympathetic reception Moyo's views received. Here is his thought-provoking conclusion: 

“The issues around aid are best compared to the issues around the welfare state. Handouts do not automatically create welfare dependency. But they certainly can do so. And where dependency is not addressed, disorder and delinquency can follow. The lesson of late-20th-century welfare system is that dependency needs to be replaced by incentivisation, but without abandoning moral obligation. The same is true for aid. It's a pity that the left, which has begun to face the facts over welfare reform, has not yet collectively faced them over aid.”

We are learning – albeit slowly – that development aid is not black and white. There is such a thing as good aid and bad aid, and a vast gray-zone in between (which probably constitutes the majority of aid). Sachs lashed out because Moyo undermines the rallying cry of the aid establishment – at worst, she becomes the poster girl of conservative aid opponents.

I disagree with Sachs’s take. Moyo’s indictment of aid is pressuring the broader public to consider aid more thoughtfully. Just as good welfare policy requires a combination of moral values and capitalist realism, so too must good aid policy free itself of polemics in favour of more contextual, reasoned debate. It seems that Moyo’s extreme views may be pulling us in the right direction – closer to the middle.

(If you want more, check out Chris’s post from yesterday and the excellent articles he links.)