Africa gives nothing to anyone
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A bot of a shocking article, but their are some excellent points made here. If you want to discuss this, read the article.
Some believe - and I am among them - that a substantial percentage of the world's population will perish due to famine. Disease, war, and other factors may be the immediate cause of death, but the underlying problem will be too many people for the available resources.
The conversation has occurred in other places, and at other times. In the great majority of cases, some sort of triage strategy comes up. In essence, the discussion focuses on who should survive, and who should not. At this point, emotions tend to be engaged. We (whoever we is) want "our kind", or "the most worthy" (whatever those terms mean) to survive. Those people (this means anyone other than "our kind" or "the most worthy") are invariably less desirable. At that point, discussions tend to heat up.
In essence, there appear to be three possibilities.
1) Some sort of global innovation comes to save the day.
2) The developed nations (aside from India and China) makes huge sacrifces (eating less meat and dairy on a gut wrenching scale.)
3) There is a huge dieoff on an apocalyptic scale.
I think the author makes some valid points. Aid to Africa has done good AND bad.
Just one example: say Zambia needs mosquito nets to combat Malaria. Instead of a local making the nets and employing other locals, which in turn gives people jobs and feeds up to 200-300 families (not impossible in Africa,) we have Madonna or Bono donate 100,000 nets, in turn putting these people out of work.
Is the amount of Aid we are providing to Africa really the answer?
There is a book out, DEAD AID: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa that was written by Dambiso Moyo that further explains why Aid to Africa has done more long term harm than short term good.
Dambisa Moyo worked at Goldman Sachs for eight years. Previously she worked for the World Bank as a consultant. Moyo completed a Ph.D. in economics at Oxford University and holds a master’s from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia.
Interesting subject matter. Not sure I am prepared to let a bunch of people die off, but at the rate they're multiplying I am not sure what the future holds. We may have done more harm than good, and it may not be fun trying to fix it.
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A synopsis of Mayo's book:
In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse—much worse.
In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer. Provocatively drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the “need” for more aid. Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world’s poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty—without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance.
Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions.
Dambisa Moyo worked at Goldman Sachs for eight years. Previously she worked for the World Bank as a consultant. Moyo completed a Ph.D. in economics at Oxford University and holds a master’s from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia.
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