Many in-kind donation schemes are bad aid - aid which creates more harm for its beneficiaries than good. Clothing donations have a consistent record of damaging local economies, specifically textile industries. Economist Garth Frazer of the University of Toronto found a significant negative correlation between donations and production, concluding that imported used clothing has “a negative impact on apparel production in Africa, explaining roughly 40 percent of the decline in production and 50 percent of the decline in employment” from 1981 to 2000.
These numbers mean thousands of jobs were lost due to well-meaning donors unintentionally preventing the beneficiaries of their aid from providing for themselves. Such damage to the textile industry is particularly dangerous because this sector is the first rung of the ladder for industrialization.
D C on May 23, 2012
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I am not sure I believe this paper. You can create a lot of jobs digging holes and then filling them up again, but is that really economic development? Is an industry producing clothing that you can import free really a good use of people\'s labor? I suspect the problem here is an economy that it too rigid -- one that can not put people to work in the jobs and industries that contribute most to the economy,