Perpetuating poverty

de Doug Bandow

Since World War II, it has been widely believed that underdeveloped countries cannot become prosperous without billions of dollars in aid from wealthy countries. Yet after 40 years, there is little to show for it. Perpetuating Poverty is an eye-opening review of the scandalous record of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The startling findings include: India has received the most foreign aid of any country since 1951 - about $55 billion - but today 40 percent of its population lives in poverty; after two decades of development planning financed largely by the IMF and the World Bank, sub-Saharan Africa today has a lower per capita income than it did when the aid started; and while the industrial nations support foreign aid, they also maintain trade restrictions against poor countries that reduce those nations' incomes. As their failures have become undeniable, however, international aid agencies have only escalated their lending to historic levels. The International Monetary Fund plays a leading role in distributing Western aid to Russia, and membership in the IMF and World Bank is expanding. A new bank has been established for Eastern Europe; another is planned for North America. The record of the last four decades is ignored. Ultimately, the Third World nations can emerge from underdevelopment only through their own efforts and by liberalizing their economies. The West can help by opening its borders to trade and by dismantling the multilateral aid agencies that have done so much to perpetuate Third World poverty. With so many developing countries moving toward free markets and political pluralism, the most important thing the West can do is get out of the way.