George Ayittey Quotes

'Dead Aid' is about the inefficacy and the limitations of large-scale aid programs in creating economic growth and reducing poverty in Africa.

I experienced how foreign aid for large-scale vaccination projects helps to save the life of children and thus give a real input to growth and to escaping poverty.

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.

For the United States, supporting international development is more than just an expression of our compassion. It is a vital investment in the free, prosperous, and peaceful international order that fundamentally serves our national interest.

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.

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.

Can we really believe that we are living a good life, an ethically decent life if we don't do anything serious to help reduce poverty around the world and help save the lives of children or adults who are likely to die if we don't increase the amount of aid we are giving.

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries

The overriding purpose of foreign assistance must be genuine development, not the assuaging of Western guilt or the care and feeding of the massive network of career professionals, non-profit organizations and private sector companies that constitute the global aid industry.

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.

The most impactful dollars that Australia can spend are actually what goes to help the poorest.

European countries give much larger shares of aid for poverty relief than the U.S.

If poverty and underdevelopment are primarily consequences of poor institutions, then by weakening those institutions or stunting their development, large aid flows do exactly the opposite of what they are intended to do.

U.K. aid is responding to our changing world and tackling the great challenges of our time. It is transforming lives in the poorest countries and making the world healthier, safer and more prosperous for everyone.

All those countries who keep their aid promises should be proud of what they've done

I believe in generous aid policies.

I often wonder why the West is much more interested in aid deliveries than in fair trade, for example. The fair exchange of goods would place far more money into the hands of the affected people than relief operations.

I was particularly talking with respect to aid, because that to me is one area that can make people so dependent, and unfortunately, that dependency starts with the government.

All of the incessant debate about development assistance, and whether the rich are doing enough to help the poor, actually concerns less than 1% of rich world income. The effort required of the rich is indeed so slight that to do less is to announce brazenly to a large part of the world: 'You count for nothing.' We should not be surprised, then, if in later years the rich reap the whirlwind of that heartless response.

Foreign Assistance is not an end in itself. The purpose of aid must be to create the conditions where it's no longer need.

The information age has been driven and dominated by technopreneurs. We now have to apply these technologies in saving lives, improving livelihoods and lifting millions of people out of squalor, misery and suffering. In other words, our focus must now move from the geeks to the meek.

One of the most ridiculous defenses of foreign aid is that it is a very small part of our national income. If the average American set fire to a five-dollar bill, it would be an even smaller percentage of his annual income. But everyone would consider him foolish for doing it.