Africa received £220 billion of aid between 1960 and 1997, the equivalent of six Marshall Plans

What a stat...

We need good governors, not aid
By David Blair

[today] Tony Blair's Commission for Africa unveils its report on the world's poorest continent... Its main remedy for the continent's ills is thus a depressing throwback to the 1960s school of aid and development - that Africa should get an extra £13 billion of aid by 2010 and another £13 billion after that.

Bitter experience suggests that even if these huge sums were multiplied tenfold, they would do little good. For Africa received £220 billion of aid between 1960 and 1997, the equivalent of six Marshall Plans, and finished up even poorer than before.