Earlier this month, leaders at the Group of Eight meeting in Gleneagles Scotland agreed to increase their foreign aid. They promised to double aid for Africa by 2010. Last year, official development assistance worldwide came to a total of seventy-nine thousand million dollars. In five years, the amount should be around fifty thousand million dollars higher.
These numbers are all estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.Richard Manning of the O.E.C.D. says Africa is expected to receive an additional twenty-five thousand million dollars. That will bring the level of aid to the continent to around fifty thousand million dollars in 2010. But there is a danger when nations receive too much money, too fast. There is even a name for it, Dutch disease.
Finance and Development, a magazine of the International Monetary Fund, defined the term as "too much wealth managed unwisely." Dutch disease was first observed in the Netherlands in the 1960s. At that time, large amounts of natural gas were discovered under the North Sea. Profits from oil exports flowed into the Dutch economy. This is good, right? Not necessarily. The foreign exchange value of the Dutch guilder unexpectedly became stronger. As a result, exports other than oil became less competitive. Manufacturing suffered.
The causes of Dutch disease are complex to explain. Simply put, it describes harmful effects when money enters an economy faster than the economy can swallow it. Economists say Dutch disease can also happen with increases in economic aid. I.M.F. economists, Raghuram Rajan and Arvind Subramanian, released two studies shortly before the Group of Eight conference. The economists say it is difficult to find a relationship good or bad between aid and economic growth.
They say that for aid to be more effective in the future policy makers must deal more seriously with important questions. These involve how the aid is given as well as the competitiveness of the economy. Mister Subramanian says the findings support current efforts at national and international levels to improve aid effectiveness.
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