A Shell Foundation interview with development expert William Easterly

John Paul — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:49:14 -0500

This interview originally appeared in the Shell Foundation's October Newsletter.

The Shell Foundation has conducted an enlightening interview with former World Bank economist and respected academic William Easterly. As the author of a bestselling book and numerous articles about the effectiveness of development, Mr. Easterly offers a fascinating insight into the workings of the aid industry and why the application of business principles could offer a route to improved performance.

At July's G8 summit world leaders pledged to double aid spending by 2010, and barely a month later agreed to cancel $40 billion of poor country debts. We asked former World Bank economist and aid industry critic, William Easterly, whether he thought this was good news for the poor?

“Securing pledges for more aid is not going to make poverty history. What we should be examining is the aid industry’s plans to spend this new money because it has a track record of failure dating back to the 1940s and 50s. There’s been numerous and diverse attempts to buy the poor out of poverty but none of them have been particularly successful. So in 2005 we found ourselves ostensibly throwing more good money after bad. Above all, this is tragic for the poor.”

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A Shell Foundation interview with development expert William Easterly