The Trillion-Dollar Question: Why Money Alone Can’t Fix Poverty
By E.A. Randolph-Koranteng
We’ve all heard the argument: if a continent is poor, the solution must be to give it more money. So did the donor partners and the Bretton Woods institutions. Over a trillion dollars in aid has flowed to Africa. Yet, in many places, poverty deepened. How is that possible? If money fixes problems, why did this fail?
The uncomfortable truth is this: money doesn’t build foundations; it flows through whatever system is already there.
Consider the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe after WWII. It worked spectacularly not because the cash was magical, but because it flowed into robust, pre-existing systems—courts, laws, tax collection, and accountable governments. The aid didn’t create order; it accelerated it.
In places where these systems are weak or corrupt, money doesn’t fuel progress—it fuels power. It becomes private jets, offshore accounts, and presidential palaces. It bypasses the people entirely because the leaders who receive it aren’t accountable to their citizens; they’re accountable to the foreign donors signing the checks. No taxation, no representation. No consequences, no change.
But surely, aid does some good? It builds schools and sends food, right?
Sometimes. Yet this well-intentioned charity can have a silent, devastating side effect: free food kills local farmers; free clothes shutter local factories. When you flood a market with external goods, you don’t create growth—you create dependence. You teach people to wait for the next shipment, not to build the next shop.
So what actually creates lasting wealth?
Not grand gestures, but the boring, essential foundations of a functioning society:
· Property rights so people can own and invest.
· The rule of law so contracts are honored.
· A government that fears its own voters, not its foreign benefactors.
· Local businesses, not perpetual handouts.
The problem was never a lack of money.
It was a lack of systems.
You can donate cash. You can’t donate accountability. And without it, even a trillion dollars simply disappears. True development isn’t about what we give. It’s about what they can build—and whether we have the patience to support the institutions that make building possible. The key to a country’s prosperity lies in institutions, systems and governance.
Inspired by :
The laws in Numbers 27:1-11 and Numbers 36 established inheritable land rights, ensuring families had a permanent, productive asset. This created a foundation for economic stability, very different from temporary handouts .
By E.A. Randolph-Koranteng (Rev)
Author of The Book ( Tomorrow Happened Yesterday)
