Africa: Aid, death and dogma

This Christian Aid briefing paper challenges the entrenched assumption that developing countries can only work their way out of poverty through radical economic liberalisation, calling for an end to aid conditions on such policies. It discusses the extent to which governments' aid decisions are based on positive economic assessments from the World Bank and the IMF, which are in turn based on levels of trade liberalisation within potential aid recipients. It notes that developing country economies have either declined or dramatically slowed under these policies, and that poor people dependent on farming or commodity production for their livelihoods have been adversely affected by liberalisation.