When Aid Is Not Enough

It didn't take long. The promise by the G-8 leaders meeting in Scotland early last month to "combat world poverty and save and improve human life" had barely been made when the images of starving Africans filled our television screens. In Niger some 2.5 million people face starvation, according to aid agencies and the United Nations World Food Program ( wfp ). Badly malnourished children are dying and thousands more are at risk. How can this be happening again?

The depressing answer: all too easily. The G-8 pledges of debt relief and a doubling of aid were never going...