On a separate topic, when asked for his thoughts on a book which argues that foreign aid has harmed Africa and it should be phased out, Mr Gates said that it promoted "evil".
Written by Dambisa Moyo, The New York Times bestseller Dead Aid offers proposals for developing countries to finance development, instead of relying on foreign aid.
The Financial Times summarised the book's argument as follows: "Limitless development assistance to African governments, [the author] argues, has fostered dependency, encouraged corruption and ultimately perpetuated poor governance and poverty".
Mr Gates said the book had not helped in his aim for governments to increase their foreign aid spend. He added that the author "didn't know much about aid and what aid was doing".
"I think that that book actually did damage generosity of rich world countries," Mr Gates said. "People have excused various [foreign aid] cutbacks because of it," he added.
Mr Gates said if one was to objectively look at what foreign aid had been able to achieve then they "would never accuse it of creating a dependency".
"Having children not die is not creating a dependency, having children not be so sick they can't go to school, not having enough nutrition so their brains don't develop. That is not a dependency. That's an evil thing and books like that - they're promoting evil," he said.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/gates-on-tax-giving-his-kids-only-10m--and-still-doing-the-dishes-20130528-2n9od.html#ixzz2UbxuIYj2
No comments:
Post a Comment