The ignominious track record of Africa's foreign saviors

Departures with Robert Amsterdam

Throughtout the post-colonial period in Africa, there has been no shortage of economists, non-governmental organizations, diplomats, and aid organizations flying in from the United States and Western Europe with an astonishing array of prescriptions and reform plans to dramatically transform the economies and governance structures of these young nations. With few exceptions, these interventions failed miserably, and arguably made things much worse in a number of countries.

This is the focus of Bronwen Everill's new book, "Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance and African Economics," which explores the history of how the well intentioned foreigners often "enforced specifically Western ideas about growth, wealth, debt, unemployment, inflation, women’s work and more, and used Western metrics to find African countries wanting."

In this discussion with Robert Amsterdam, Dr. Everill discusses the findings of her book, explores how new players such as China and Russia are now taking over influence in the region, and what the future role should be for collaborative economic development and trade with the region.