William Easterly Quotes

In doing their work, they [NGOs -- Non-governmental organizations] often end up undermining the government. They hire away its best people, and more fundamentally, their prominence teaches citizens to look to them for service rather than to pressure the government to provide them. This tension between wanting to replace an ineffective state and trying not to undermine it further is a common one faced by outside actors…

The Playground of Foreign Aid Experimentation: From 2006 to 2011, development aid from countries and multilateral organizations amounted to more than $30 billion, with limited results, much of the funds fueling mismanagement and corruption.

International aid as a means of development is a major failure, and not just in Haiti.

One of the things we have to acknowledge is that if you look at Haiti, many billions of dollars have gone into development aid there that have not been effective.

Aid can work where there is good governance, and usually fails where governments are unable or unwilling to commit aid to improve the lives of their people.

Global poverty is falling faster today than at any time in human history.

After 43 years and $568 billion in foreign aid to the continent, Africa remains trapped in economic stagnation.

Except for a few oil-rich countries, no developing country has successfully modernized without slowing population growth.

When foreign assistance has a clear mission, buy-in from the aid-recipient country, and explicit metrics for implementation, the United States will be able to transition aid-recipient nations into strong trading partners. One of the greatest examples of this successful transition is South Korea.

I think a lot of the problem with foreign aid and things like that is you go in, give a bunch of stuff, and then it runs out. It's about helping them learn how to continue to be sustainable and live.

If we can provide even a fictional roadmap to what a successful, prosperous African nation might look like, then let's do that.

The test for aid to poor nations is therefore whether it makes them capable of being productive. If it fails to do so, it is likely to make them even poorer in the - not so very - long run.

Foreign aid must be viewed as an investment, not an expense.

What we ask of the developed countries is to let the Third World find a third way.

Not any amount of aid is going to move Africa forward.

Foreign aid is neither a failure nor a panacea. It is, instead, an important tool of American policy that can serve the interests of the United States and the world if wisely administered.

We have followed a path of moderation, development is our priority, national unity, good community relations, Muslims and non Muslims, this is what has given us the advantage.

Africa is no more this poor continent. It's on the march.

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and the related Accra Agenda for Action, are useful policy instruments that set out the mutual responsibilities of donors and recipient countries.

Countries which receive aid do graduate. Within a generation, Korea went from being a big recipient to being a big aid donor. China used to get quite a bit of aid; now it's aid-neutral.

I think that Africa has made quite rapid progress and a lot of the conflicts that we saw on the continent have abated.

My dad's main client was the World Bank, and he spent most of his time traveling to Third World countries. His particular interest lay in the eradication of poverty through development and business.

We need a force that recognizes that only through development and liberty, through education and health care, through better priorities and wiser investments, can we achieve the stability we seek.

A nascent economy needs a transparent and accountable government and an efficient civil service to help meet social needs. Its people need jobs and a belief in their country's future. A surfeit of aid has been shown to be unable to help achieve these goals.

Of course, aid is only one small part of international development. Some of the greatest benefits to the world's poorest can be achieved through policy changes by developed countries.