Eliezer: I'm afraid you've got this one quite wrong. I can elaborate further in the future, but for now I'll just expand upon what Carl wrote:

Total aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1950 onwards = $568 billion (according to Easterly)

(I'm just going to look at things up to 1990 as life expectancy data gets skewed by AIDS at that point. Thus $568 billion is a conservative overestimate of money spent until 1990)

Average population in SSA (1950-1990) = 317 million

Life Expectancy in SSA according to World Population Prospects (ie. the UN estimates) = 37.6 in 1950-55 = 49.9 in 1985-90

(the World Bank estimates include a larger life expectancy increase, but I'll use the conservative data)

Gains in Life expectancy (1950-1990): = 12.3 years = 33%

Costs per person in SSA = $1,791

Cost per person in SSA per year = $36

So $36 per person per year has been associated with a 33% life expectancy increase. That is just staggering.

Even if only a tenth of this increase is due to aid, and there were no morbidity advantages and no economic advantages, it would be a fantastic success compared to spending the money on almost all projects in the developed world.

I think the balance of evidence is actually that aid has done tremendous good in bulk, and certainly that aid by intelligent informed givers at the margin is vastly better again (and there are much better statistics for that one).

It certainly takes more than a single study claiming that aid has no *finincial* benefits to show that aid has been wasted, especially in light of such a strong prima facie case that aid has helped