00604-- DEAD AID—WHY AID IS NOT WORKING AND HOW THERE IS A BETTER WAY FOR AFRICA by DAMBISA MOYO Book review (summary)

DEAD AID—WHY AID IS NOT WORKING AND HOW THERE IS A BETTER WAY FOR AFRICA by DAMBISA MOYO  [Book review]

Title: DEAD AID—WHY AID IS NOT WORKING AND HOW THERE IS A BETTER WAY FOR AFRICA

Author: DAMBISA MOYO

Publisher: FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX

Thesis

Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo argues and proves that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has NOT helped to reduce poverty and to increase growth. 

Author

Dambisa Moyo was born and raised in Zambia.  She has a Ph.D. in economics from Oxford University and a master’s from Havard University.  Moyo was a consultant for the World Bank, and worked at Goldman Sachs for eight years.

Dambisa Moyo

In the introduction Moyo writes: “This book is not a counsel of despair.  Far from it.  The book offers another road; a road less travelled in Africa.  Harder, more demanding, more difficult, but in the end the road to growth, prosperity, and independence for the continent.  This book is about the aid-free solution to development: why it is right, why it has worked, why it is the only way forward for the world’s poorest countries.”

The Myth of Aid

What makes Africa incapable of joining the rest of the globe in the twenty first century?  For Moyo the answer has its roots in aid.  There exist three types of aid: 1) humanitarian or emergency aid, 2) charity-based aid, and, 3) Systematic aid. 

The systematic aid means that the aid payment is made directly to governments either through government-to-government transfers (called bilateral aid) or transferred via institutions such as World Bank (multilateral aid).  Here Moyo concentrates on systematic aid because it is where billions of dollars are transferred each year directly to poor countries’ governments.  There are a number of drawbacks in the ways by which the first two types of aid are implemented.  But the charity and emergency aid are negligible in comparison with the billions transferred in systematic aid. Moyo states that there isn’t much difference between the loans and grants provided to Africa. She writes: “Therefore, for the purpose of this book, aid is defined as the sum total of both concessional loans and grants.  It is these billions that have hampered, stifled and retarded Africa’s development.  And it is these billions that Dead Aid will address.” 

A Brief History of Aid

The subtitles in this chapter are:

a)      The 1960s: the decade of industrialization

b)      The foreign aid agenda of the 1970s: the shift to a poverty focus

c)      The foreign aid agenda of the 1980s: the lost age of development

d)      The foreign aid agenda of the 1990s: a question of governance

e)      The foreign aid agenda of the 2000s: the rise of glamour aid

f)       We meant well

Under the subtitle We meant well Moyo writes: “It (aid) remains at the heart of the development agenda, despite the fact that there are very compelling reasons to show that it perpetuates the cycle of poverty and derails sustainable economic growth. […] Aid is not working. And here is why.”

In the next chapter Moyo explains why aid is not working.

Aid Is Not Working

The subtitles here are:

1.      Does aid work?

2.      The Marshall Plan

3.      The IDA graduates

4.      With conditionalities

5.      Aid success in good policy environments

6.      Aid effectiveness: a micro-macro paradox

The proponents of aid point to six proofs that aid can work effectively.  But Moyo, in this chapter, exposes the ways with which aid annihilates the possibilities of the emergence of a self-sufficient economy.  One by one Moyo successfully refutes the arguments in favour of aid.  She lays down examples that leave no ambiguity in the mind of the reader. 

She gives the example of a mosquito net maker in Africa.  He manufactures around 500 nets a week.  He employs 10 people, and each one of the supports upwards of 15 relatives.  But they can’t make enough nets needed in the market to combat the malaria-carrying mosquito.  Now enters the scene a Hollywood movie star who manages to collect and send 100, 000 mosquito nets to the afflicted region.  The nets arrive and are distributed.  But now the mosquito net maker is put out of business as the market is flooded with foreign nets.  His ten workers become unemployed and thus their 150 dependents now have to depend on hand-outs.   Moyo writes: “…and one must not forget that in a maximum of five years the majority of the imported nets will be torn, damaged and of no further use. This is micro-macro paradox.  A short-term efficacious intervention may have few discernible, sustainable long-term benefits.  Worse still, it can unintentionally undermine whatever fragile chance for sustainable development may already be in play.”

Towards the end of this chapter Moyo writes that this book would not have been written had the aid done what it claimed it would do. She concludes, “In fact aid is the problem.”

The Silent Killer of Growth

The title of the 4^th chapter is self-explanatory.  The silent killer is none other than the aid.  The subtitles in this chapter are:

I.                    The vicious cycle of aid

II.                  Corruption and growth

III.                Aid and corruption

IV.                Aid goes to corrupt countries

V.                  Why give aid if it leads to corruption?

VI.                Corruption: positive or negative?

VII.              Aid and civil society

VIII.            Aid and social capital: a matter of trust

IX.                Aid and civil war

X.                  The economic limitations of aid

·         Aid reduces savings and investment

·         Aid can be inflationary

·         Aid chokes off the export sector

·         Aid causes bottlenecks: absorption capacity

XI.                Aid and aid-dependency

XII.              Aid objections

Moyo in this chapter introduces Peter Bauer who was one of the earliest critics of aid.  He was a Hungarian-born London School of Economics economist.  Bauer argued that aid interfered with development as the money always ended up in the hands of a small chosen few, making aid a ‘form of taxing the poor in the west to enrich the new elites in former colonies’. 

Part two of the book is titled A World without Aid. Moyo gives the example of The Republic of Dongo which as an African nation faces all kinds of threats varying from HIV-AIDS to civil war.  She believes Dongo will only change if its fundamental modal of aid-dependency is abandoned and the Dead Aid proposal of this book adopted wholesale, in its entirety.

A Radical Rethink of the Aid-Dependency Model

1.      Governments need cash

2.      Weaning off the addiction: no one said it would                                                                  be easy

A Capital Solution

1.      Rebounding from a default

2.      Can Dongo tap the markets

The Chinese Are Our Friends

1.      Why FDI does not flow to Africa

2.      What does Dongo need to do to attract FDI?

3.      The Chinese are our Friends

4.      Objections to China in Africa

5.      They’ve got what we want, and we’ve got what they need

Let’s Trade

1.      Dongo can benefit from trade

Banking on the Unbankable

1.      Remittances

2.      Savings

Making Development Happen

1.       Grasping the nettle

2.      Who will bell the cat?

In the Foreword Niall Ferguson writes:

“Moyo offers four alternative sources of funding for African economies, none of which has the same deleterious side effects as aid.  First, African governments should follow Asian emerging markets in accessing the international bond markets and taking advantage of the falling yields paid by sovereign borrowers over the past decade.  Second, they should encourage the Chinese policy of large-scale direct investment in infrastructure.  (China invested US$900 million in Africa in 2004, compared with just US$ 20 million in 1975.)  Third, they should continue to press for genuine free trade in agricultural products, which means that the US, the EU and Japan must scrap the various subsidies they pay to their farmers, enabling African countries to increase their earnings from primary product exports.  Fourth, they should encourage financial intermediation.  Specifically, they need to foster the spread of microfinance institutions of the sort that have flourished in Asia and Latin America.  They should also follow the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto’s advice and grant the inhabitants of shanty towns secure legal title to their homes, so that these can be used as collateral.  And they should make it cheaper for emigrants to send remittances back home.”

Moyo ends the book with an African proverb:

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.

The second-best time is now.

00603--Summary of the essay DREAM CHILDREN by Charles Lamb [ from ESSAYS OF ELIA]

Summary of the essay DREAM CHILDREN by Charles Lamb [ from ESSAYS OF ELIA]

Children like to hear about their elders when they were children.  So, our author’s children sat around him to listen to the stories of childhood of their great grand-mother Field.  She lived in a great house in Norfolk.  The most interesting fact about this house was that the whole story of ‘the Children in the Wood’ was carved in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall.  But later this was replaced by a marble chimney piece by a rich person.  Great grandmother Field was not the real owner of the house but due to her behaviour, manners and her great religious devotions she was respected by everyone.  She, however, used the house as if it were her own.  But later, the ornaments were taken off from the house to the real owner’s home, which was in the adjoining country.  When Mrs. Field died, her funeral was attended by both the poor and the rich.  Men from many miles around came to show their respect for memory.  She was indeed a very gentle-hearted and pious person.  She knew the Psalms by heart and also a great part of the Testament.

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Lamb then began telling them about their great grandmother’s youth; when she was regarded as the best dancer in the country.  But she was attacked by cancer, and that desisted her from dancing any further.  Her good spirits, however, could not be broken, and she continued to be religious and kind hearted.  She used to sleep by herself in a desolate chamber of that great house.  She thought that she saw two apparitions of infants at midnight, but she was sure that were good creatures and would not hurt her.  She was also very kind to her grandchildren, who went to her during holidays.  Lamb himself used to spend hours in gazing upon old busts of the Emperors of Rome.  He used to roam around the large silent rooms of that huge house and looked through the worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels.  He also used to hang about the garden, gazing at the trees and flowers.  He was satisfied thus roaming about, and preferred this to the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, and such common habits of children.

Though great grand-mother Field loved all her grand-children, she had a special favour for their uncle John Lamb, because he was a handsome and a spirited lad.  He was dashing sort of fellow.  While others would have preferred a secluded corner, he used to mount on horses and ride around the country and join the hunters. 

Their uncle John Lamb was really a brave man.  He won the admiration of everyone as he grew up to be a man.   When our author was a lame footed boy, John, who was a few years senior to him used to carry him on his back for many miles.  In after-life John, however, became lame-footed.  Lamb now fears that he had not been considerate enough to bear the impatient pains of John, or to remember his childhood when he was carried by John.  But when John died Lamb missed him so much.  Lamb remembered his kindness and his crossness, and wished him to be alive again.      

The children then demanded that Lamb should say about their dead mother.  Then Lamb began telling them how for seven long years he patiently courted the fair Alice Winterton.  As he was relating these experiences of his, he suddenly felt that the eyes of that old Alice were gazing from the face of the little Alice sitting before him.  As Lamb continued to look it seemed that the children, John and Alice were receding from him.  At last just two mournful features were left out of them, and they told him that they were neither of Alice nor of Lamb, that they were not children at all.  For the children of Alice have Bartram, their father.  So they were merely dreams.  At this point Lamb woke up and found himself sitting in his bachelor arm-chair, where he had fallen asleep with the faithful Bridget by his side.  

00601--What are the chief qualities or essentials of a good lyric?

In the most common use of the term, a lyric is any fairly short poem, consisting of the utterance by a single speaker, who expresses a state of mind or a process of perception, thought, and feeling.

The chief qualities or essentials of a good lyric are:

1.       It’s a short poem, characterised by simplicity in language and treatment.

2.       It deals with a single emotion which is generally stated in the first few lines.  Then the poet gives us the thoughts suggested by that particular emotion.  The last and concluding part is in the nature of a summary.  In other words it is the conclusions reached by the poet.  Such is the development of a lyric in general, but often these parts are not distinctly marked.  In moments of intense emotional excitement the poet may be carried away by his emotions and the lyric may develop along entirely different lines.  A lyric is more often than not, mood-dictated.

3.       It is musical.  Verbal music is an important element in its appeal and charm.  Various devices are used by poets to enhance the music of their lyrics.

4.       It is an expression of the moods and emotions of a poet.  However, a poet may not express merely his emotions, he may also analyse them intellectually.  Such intellectual analysis of emotion is an important characteristics of the metaphysical lyrics of the early 17^th century.  Such lyrics are also more elaborate than the ordinary lyric.

5.       It is characterised by intensity and poignancy.  The best lyrics are the expressions of intensely felt emotions.  Like fire, the intensity of the poet’s emotion burns out the non-essentials, all attention is concentrated on the basic emotion, and the gain in poignancy is enormous.  It comes directly out of the heart of the poet, and therefore goes directly to the heart of the readers.  The lyric at best is poignant, pathetic and intense.

6.       Spontaneity is another important quality of a lyric.  The lyric poet sings in strains of unpremeditated art.  He sings effortlessly due to the inner urge for self-expression.  Any conscious effort on his part, makes the lyric look unnatural and artificial. 

00600--Write a short note on Prothalamion by Edmund Spenser.

Write a short note on Prothalamion by Edmund Spenser.

Prothalamion is a spousal verse, composed on the occasion of the wedding of Lady Elizabeth and Lady Katherine Somerset to Henry Gilford and William Peter.  Though it does not reach the poetic excellence and richness of Epithalamion it is undeniably a fine lyric exhibiting the same mastery of rhythmical and musical effect and marked by a more evocative refrain. 

David Daiches claims for the poem a tapestry quality, an almost heraldic tone.  It falls short of Epithalamion in personal intensity in concentration of effect and in unity of design.  The glaring weaknesses of the poem that mar its unity, are the intrusion of the personal reminiscences, expression of his frustration, his tribute to Leicester and Essex, and his nostalgic love of London, his most kindly nurse. 

At the linguistic level the defects are the use of vague clichés like fair, gentle and fine, and the tedious wordplay in the description of the whiteness of the swans in the lines 40-45.  However, it is an exquisite lyric presenting a stylised picture with sensuous and mythological imagery.

00599--Write a short note on Tennyson’s “In Memorium”

Write a short note on Tennyson’s “In Memorium”

Tennyson’s famous Elegy ‘In Memorium’ has one hundred and thirty six sections, and they form a complete poem.  Different sections were written at different times; and also these sections were written at different places.  Such fashion was popular in his times; but he did not like them to be published in a single poem.  He said, “I did not write them with any view weaving them into a whole, or for publication until I found I had written so many.”

‘In Memorium’ was written as an Elegy in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, who died in 1833, the lyrics that became sections was written over sixteen years.  The prologue to the poem was was added in 1849.  The elegy commenced as an expression of private and personal grief, but then broadened into an attempt to probe and answer the spiritual problem of the age.  Tennyson’s great loss led him to reflect on the great problems of religion; immortality, reality of evil and the free will.  These questions were agitating every sincere thinker of the age.  The poem as a whole is the record of his passage from a numbness of absolute despair to the larger hope.  Thus ‘In Memorium’ becomes a lyrical and philosophical poem.    

00598--What is the difference between Metaphor and Simile?

What is the difference between Metaphor and Simile?

METAPHOR	SIMILE
Metaphor  is the most important and widespread figure of speech, in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.	Simile is an explicit comparison between two different things, actions, or feelings, using the words 'as' or 'like'.
Eg. He is a lion	Eg. I wandered lonely as a cloud
In metaphor, the resemblance is assumed as an imaginary identity rather than directly stated as a comparison: referring to a man as that pig, or saying he is a pig is metaphorical, whereas he is like a pig is a simile. Metaphors may also appear as verbs (a talent may blossom) or as adjectives (a novice may be green), or in longer idiomatic phrases, e.g. to throw the baby out with the bath-water.	A simple example is Robert Burns, "O my love's like a red, red rose." The following simile from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" also specifies the feature ("green") in which icebergs are similar to emerald: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald.
Reference: 1. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms                               2. A Glossary of Literary Terms [M.H.Abrams]

00597--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-57

Mulla Nasrudin used to say: "Every man should have at least one wife, because there are some things that just can't be blamed on the government."

00596--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-56

The town's richest man had died. The next morning, another rich, and particularly miserly, old man said to Mulla Nasrudin, "I wonder how much he left."

Mulla Nasrudin laughed and said, "EVERY CENT OF IT, SIR."

00595--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-55

Mulla Nasrudin and his wife were arguing.

"I was a fool when I married you," said the wife.

"I GUESS YOU WERE," replied Nasrudin, "BUT I WAS SO INFATUATED AT THE TIME, I DIDN'T NOTICE IT."

00594--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-54

Mulla Nasrudin got on a double-decker bus and climbed to the upper deck. A few minutes later, he staggered down the steps, muttering to himself.

"Is anything the matter?" asked the driver.

"IT AIN'T SAFE UP THERE," said Nasrudin. "NO DRIVER."

00593--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-53

Mulla Nasrudin was applying for a job. "Does the company pay for my hospitalization?" he asked.

"No, you pay for it," the personnel director said. "We take it out of your salary each month."

"The last place I worked, they paid for it," said the Mulla.

"That's unusual," the personnel man said. "How much vacation did you get?"

"Six weeks," replied the Mulla.

"Did you get a bonus?" the personnel man asked.

"Yes," said the Mulla. "Not only that, they gave us an annual bonus, sent us a turkey on Thanksgiving, gave us the use of a company car and threw a big barbecue for us each year."

"Why did you leave?" asked the personnel director.

"THEY WENT BUSTED," said Nasrudin.

00592--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-52

The hay wagon had upset in the road and the young driver, Mulla Nasrudin, was terribly worried about it. A kindhearted farmer told the young fellow to forget his troubles and come in and have some supper with his family. "Then we will straighten up the wagon," the farmer said.

The Mulla said he didn't think his father would like it.

"Oh, don't worry about that," said the farmer. "Everything will be all right."

So Nasrudin stayed for supper. Afterwards he said he felt better and thanked the farmer. "But," he said, "I still don't think my father will like it."

"Forget it," said the farmer. "By the way," he added, "Where is your father?"

"He's under the hay!" said Nasrudin.

00591--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-51

"You don't love me any more," said Mulla Nasrudin's wife through her tears. "When you see me crying, you never ask why."

"I am sorry, Darling," said Nasrudin, "BUT THAT SORT OF QUESTION HAS ALREADY COST ME AN AWFUL LOT OF MONEY."

00590--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-50

"Take it easy, Nasrudin," he said. "Don't let it get you down, Nasrudin, you will soon be safe back home. Things will be all right, Nasrudin, if you just keep calm."

One motherly type woman waiting for a bus, heard and saw the young father and said to him, "I think you are wonderful the way you are taking care of the baby."

Then she leaned over to the baby and said,

"Now, don't cry, Nasrudin, everything is going to be all right."

"LADY," said the father, "YOU HAVE GOT IT ALL WRONG. HIS NAME IS TOMMY -- I AM NASRUDIN."

00589--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-49

The lady contributed to Mulla Nasrudin on crutches, but could not resist the temptation to preach to him.

"It must be terrible to be lame," she said, "but think how much worse it is to be blind."

"That's right, Lady," said the Mulla. "WHEN I WAS BLIND, PEOPLE KEPT PASSING COUNTERFEIT MONEY OFF ON ME."

00588--Summary of the Essay OLD CHINA by Charles Lamb [Essays of Elia]

Summary of the Essay OLD CHINA by Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb had a sentimental attachment to old china-cups, plates, jars and the like which are generally known as china-ware.  Whenever he visited a great house, he used to enquire first about the china-closet and then about the picture-gallery.  He did not remember when this love was planted in him. 

The pictures on old-china tea-cups are drawn without any sense of perspective.  The eye helps us in making up the sense of distance.  The figures may be up in the air but a speck of blue under their feet represents the earth.  The men on these cups and jars have women’s faces and the women have more womanish expressions. 

One of the cups has the picture of a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a lady from a salver.  Between the two is a distance of only two miles.  On another side there is the same lady or another.  On tea-cups things similar are things identical.  She is stepping into a little fairy boat.  There is a river beside a garden.  At a distance are houses, trees, pagodas, country dances, a cow and a rabbit.  Lamb was pointing out these to his sister over a cup of tea.  This sister is represented as his cousin Bridget in the essays.   She was caught in the memory of their past.  So she started a long lecture.  She wanted Elia not to forget the past.
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Bridget wished for a return of the good old times when they were not quite so rich.  She did not want to be poor, nor did she like to be rich.  She wanted to get back to that state when they were neither rich nor poor, and in that state they were much happier.  Now if they buy something it has no other value except that of the money spent on it.  In the old days every purchase was a triumph.  Before they purchased anything, they used to argue about it and about their expenses for two or three days.  All the arguments for and against were duly considered, and then they would think about an item of expenditure where they could save something.  Thus they were inconvenienced by the money spent on the object purchased, and this raised the value of the purchase.

Lamb used to wear the same brown suit which used to change on him even after it was in rags.  This he did because they wanted to purchase the folio edition of the plays of Beanment and Fletcher.  For weeks they looked at the volume before they could decide whether to purchase it, and then at ten o’ clock of a Saturday night they ran to the shop and paid for it.  But now he wears neat black clothes because he has become rich and finical; and he goes about purchasing any book or any print he likes. 

In the past they would walk to Enfield and Potter’s Bar, and Waltham on a holiday.  They would go there with their meagre lunch and enter in a decent inn.  There they were lucky having an honest hostess like the one described by Izaak Walton in his The Complete Angler.  Formerly, they used to sit in the pit to witness the dramatic performances.  They squeezed out their shillings to sit in the one shilling gallery.  There Elia felt many a time that he ought not to have brought Bridget who was grateful to him for having brought her there.  When the curtain was drawn up, it did not matter where one sat.  So Elia used to say that “the Gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play socially”.  The spectators in the Gallery were illiterate ones who never read the plays and who therefore were highly attentive to the play.  Bridget received the best attention there because there was chivalry still left, but now Elia cannot see a play from the Gallery.  So Bridget says that his sight disappeared with his poverty.
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In the past, they used to eat strawberries; at that time they did not become quite common.  Now they cannot have such a treat.  Elia may now say that it is better to have a clean balance-sheet at the end of the year.  But there was a different pleasure in the past.  On the night of the 31^st December, they used to argue accounting for the excess in the expenditure.  At last they pocketed up their loss and welcomed the New Year.  Now there is not such accounting, and there are “no flattering promises about the new year doing better for them”.

As long as Bridget was in a rhetorical vein speaking thus, Elia kept quiet.  At last he told her that they must put up with the excess.  He said that they must be thankful for their early struggles.  Because of the past suffering, they were drawn together.  “We must ride, where we formerly walked; live better, and lie softer.”

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                                                        END

00587--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-48

Mulla Nasrudin's young wife, recently returned from her honeymoon, was complaining to her friend about her husband's drinking habits.

"If you knew he drank, why did you marry him?" her friend asked.

"I DID NOT KNOW HE DRANK," said Nasrudin's wife, "UNTIL ONE NIGHT HE CAME HOME SOBER."

00586--Mulla Nasrudin Stories-47

After the bride's first dinner, she asked her husband, Mulla Nasrudin, "Now, dear, what will I get if I cook a dinner like that for you everyday?"

"MY LIFE INSURANCE," said Nasrudin.