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[Big Baybee]

It annoys me when people speak as if Africa is just one huge country.

 

[Escape Goat]

My english professor is from the Congo, the poorest African nation. He walked miles to school every day, was chosen as one of the select few to attend high school, slept in homeless shelters because he had no money. Now he speaks 3 languages (English, French and forget which one from Congo), has his bachelors, masters and doctorate with 3 kids and a wife living in a two story house in suburbia of America.

Guy is a real inspiration and an example of someone literally starting with nothing and becoming a successful and educated man. Although he didn't return to Congo to reinvest in his country you can't really blame him.

Not sure why I brought this up other than even the poorest person can make it in life given the motivation and drive.

 

[brianjones]

See also: cancer research.

i don't understand these "stand up to cancer" commercials

of course nobody fucking likes cancer, but is it money really the issue at this point?

 

[Escape Goat]

i don't understand these "stand up to cancer" commercials

of course nobody fucking likes cancer, but is it money really the issue at this point?

Takes money to staff research centers. Its a risky investment which has ton of reasons NOT to do it, and few unlikely reasons to put your money on the line.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Cell phones (you would not BELIEVE how useful this is in countries where land line inferstructure is transient at best), schools, investigation into skimmed (oh what the hell, swiped whole cloth) public funds into banks on our own soils. Effectiveness, in other words.

China might be run by scumbags, and their efforts in Africa certainly is for pure profit, but it's still doing a lot of good. Building infrastructure is so vital.

I remember a Time article, originally aimed at exposing men at some mine in Zambia working 10-12 hour shifts in the scorching sun for $3 a day. Those men ran off the reporters, who assumed the Chinese overseers put them up to it. No, one let on later that they were just mad at anyone risking a job that paid 3x the average Zambian salary and gave 3 square and a soft place to sleep at night...

The current mess in Africa is mostly a European creation and they seem unwilling to correct their terrible actions.

Thanks, but my shoes are tied, I don't need to check.

 

[CharlieDigital]

My english professor is from the Congo, the poorest African nation. He walked miles to school every day, was chosen as one of the select few to attend high school, slept in homeless shelters because he had no money. Now he speaks 3 languages (English, French and forget which one from Congo), has his bachelors, masters and doctorate with 3 kids and a wife living in a two story house in suburbia of America.

Guy is a real inspiration and an example of someone literally starting with nothing and becoming a successful and educated man. Although he didn't return to Congo to reinvest in his country you can't really blame him.

Not sure why I brought this up other than even the poorest person can make it in life given the motivation and drive.

Actually, I would say that the lesson is that even the poorest person can make it in life given an opportunity and an education. You can't do it without motivation and drive, but motivation and drive are amplified by education and knowledge.

 

[lightless_shado]

It annoys me when people speak as if Africa is just one huge country.

Thank you. As a person who is from an African country with african relatives, it really irks me when people say stuff like "Africa needs help" "Africa is a hellhole". I bet most people wouldn't be able to name 10 African countries off the top of their head. But then again it doesn't surprise me seeing as most western countries don't give a shit about that continent(and latin america) and rarely teach anything related to it.

 

[Byakuya769]

I'd refer some of you to The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs. Maybe after reading that you can rise above tired and implicitly racist arguments against aid to an entire continent that we in the western world helped to fuck up.

Lower aid and spur economic development.. WHAT THE FUCK?

 

[CharlieDigital]

Thank you. As a person who is from an African country with african relatives, it really irks me when people say stuff like "Africa needs help" "Africa is a hellhole". I bet most people wouldn't be able to name 10 African countries off the top of their head. But then again it doesn't surprise me seeing as most western countries don't give a shit about that continent(and latin america) and rarely teach anything related to it.

My attempt:

1. Egypt
2. Liberia
3. South Africa
4. Somalia
5. Ethiopia
6. Sudan
7. Eritrea
8. Libya
9. Republic of Congo
10. Rawanda

After #6 it was pretty hard. Not sure if the rest are right :lol

Edit: Ah, I probably know some 18-20, but obvious ones weren't coming to me.

 

[zoku88]

I'm surprised you would be able to name Eritrea before countries like..Ghana or Cote d'Ivoire

 

[CharlieDigital]

Lower aid and spur economic development.. WHAT THE FUCK?

I'm a Democrat and a Humanist, through and through (though I'd consider myself closer to the center than to the left) but even I believe that at some lower limit of poverty, "giving aid" is simply a waste of resources.

Giving monetary and nutritional aid in the absence of opportunity is a doomed to failure.

That's what's different, in my mind, about aid to the poor in the US: there's unlimited opportunity. There's a public education system. There are relatively abundant grants and scholarships for the lower class. There are jobs, even if they're minimum wage. There is law and structure. There is stability. In the US, aid to the poor in the form of welfare programs, food stamps, lower taxes, and so on work because they already have opportunity.

In the poorest countries in the world -- not just those in Africa -- aid needs to not only address the immediate humanitarian issues, but also focus on creating opportunity. Aid without opportunity is useless; you will be giving it forever with very little improvement.

 

[Gilby]

Surprised no one has posted that potato farmer thing yet.

 

[Blackhead]

If "corruption" is so disastrous then why is Italy and any number of Eastern European countries so much more better off than most African countries?

Every time this topic comes up I feel compelled to quote the opening passage of Patrick Bond's Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation:

Poor Africa
Two views

Africa is poor, ultimately, because its economy has not grown. The public and private sectors need to work together to create a climate which unleashes the entrepreneurship of the peoples of Africa, generates employment and encourages individuals and firms, domestic and foreign, to invest. Changes in governance are needed to make the investment climate stronger. The developed world must support the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) programme to build public/private partnerships in order to create a stronger climate for growth, investment and jobs. (1)​

These sentences – from the report presented in March 2005 by Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa – distil the misperceptions of conventional wisdom regarding the continent’s underdevelopment. In the same year Blair hosted the G8 and the European Union leaders’ summits, and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown advanced several initiatives on debt, aid and trade, deploying ‘Marshall Plan for Africa’ rhetoric. Below, we consider the way the Africa Commission coopted key African elites into a modified neoliberal – free-market – project. But to set the tone on this first page, it would be more logical to reverse all of the above admonitions, and reconstruct the paragraph as follows.

Africa is poor, ultimately, because its economy and society have been ravaged by international capital as well as by local elites who are often propped up by foreign powers. The public and private sectors have worked together to drain the continent of resources which otherwise – if harnessed and shared fairly – should meet the needs of the peoples of Africa. Changes in ‘governance’ – revolutions, for example – are desperately needed for social progress, and these entail not only the empowerment of ‘civil society’ but also the strengthening of those agencies within African states which can deliver welfare and basic infrastructure. The rich world must decide whether to support the African Union’s NEPAD programme, which will worsen the resource drain because of its pro-corporate orientation, or instead to give Africa space for societies to build public/people partnerships in order to satisfy unmet basic needs.​

One reason to make this argument forcefully at the outset is to remind ourselves of the historical legacy of a continent looted: trade by force dating back centuries; slavery that uprooted and dispossessed around 12 million Africans; land grabs; vicious taxation schemes; precious metals spirited away; the appropriation of antiquities to the British Museum and other trophy rooms; the nineteenth-century emergence of racist ideologies to justify colonialism; the 1884–5 carve- up of Africa, in a Berlin negotiating room, into dysfunctional territories; the construction of settler-colonial and extractive-colonial systems – of which apartheid, the German occupation of Namibia, the Portuguese colonies and King Leopold’s Belgian Congo were perhaps only the most blatant – often based upon tearing black migrant workers from rural areas (leaving women with vastly increased responsibilities as a consequence); Cold War battlegrounds – proxies for US/USSR conflicts – filled with millions of corpses; other wars catalysed by mineral searches and offshoot violence such as witnessed in blood diamonds and coltan (colombo-tantelite, a crucial component of cell phones and computer chips); poacher-stripped swathes of East, Central and Southern Africa now devoid of rhinos and elephants whose ivory became ornamental material or aphrodisiac in the Middle East and East Asia; societies used as guinea pigs in the latest corporate pharmaceutical test ... and the list could continue.

Today, Africa is still getting progressively poorer, with per capita incomes in many countries below those of the 1950s–60s era of independence. If we consider even the most banal measure of poverty, most sub-Saharan African countries suffered an increase in the percentage of people with income of less than US$1/day during the 1980s and 1990s, the World Bank itself concedes.2 Later we consider even more worrying evidence (also from the Bank) regarding the depletion of Africa’s raw materials, and the implications for the continent’s declining net national income and savings.

Yet the worsening statistics led to different kinds of spin...

 

[Byakuya769]

I'm a Democrat and a Humanist, through and through (though I'd consider myself closer to the center than to the left) but even I believe that at some lower limit of poverty, "giving aid" is simply a waste of resources.

That would mean we are giving too little aid, not that we should stop aid all together. What Sach's suggests, and what I believe, is that if the developed world fulfilled the development obligations they imposed on their selves,then large and organized sums of money could be used to build up infrastructure and opportunities. However, in this thread, the suggestions seems to be "maybe we should stop giving aid and go back to the drawing board." Well, that's fine if you're for more people dying...

 

[Boney]

that's the whole point of charity

 

[CharlieDigital]

That would mean we are giving too little aid, not that we should stop aid all together. What Sach's suggests, and what I believe, is that if the developed world fulfilled the development obligations they imposed on their selves,then large and organized sums of money could be used to build up infrastructure and opportunities. However, in this thread, the suggestions seems to be "maybe we should stop giving aid and go back to the drawing board." Well, that's fine if you're for more people dying...

When I read/hear the term we need to give less aid to Africa, I generally hear "We need to stop focusing on handouts." That's all I meant. Aid has to be more than just handouts, it has to be about creating opportunities as well.

 

[Byakuya769]

When I read/hear the term we need to give less aid to Africa, I generally hear "We need to stop focusing on handouts." That's all I meant. Aid has to be more than just handouts, it has to be about creating opportunities as well.

The thing is though, that at a certain level hand-outs create opportunity. If you are well below the poverty line, none of your capital can go towards savings and rudimentary investment (new cows, plows, more land, etc). These "hand outs" (not to mention those that are focused on malaria/aids) are highly important in ending cycles of decreased wealth as land and resources are split even further each successive generation, while no productivity gains are made. (I hope I'm not coming across as particularly combative with you, I just feel pretty strongly about this issue)

 

[industrian]

The current mess in Africa is mostly a European creation and they seem unwilling to correct their terrible actions.

I guess that's why places like India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Americas are in such bad shape as Africa.

When I read/hear the term we need to give less aid to Africa, I generally hear "We need to stop focusing on handouts." That's all I meant. Aid has to be more than just handouts, it has to be about creating opportunities as well.

Africa needs a Marshall Plan. But it wouldn't work at all. The Marshall Plan worked because Europe - whilst in a more economically fucked up position than Africa is right now - had a solid foundation of law & order, highly educated workforces, unified populations, the absolute desire not to let another devastating war affect us, and Europeans are arguably the most industrious peoples on the planet. Africa on the other hand...

 

[Byakuya769]

I guess that's why places like India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Americas are in such bad shape as Africa.

I'm going to give it a day and see if you are owned for your ignorance by then. If not, I'll get back to you. (yea I'm lazy)

 

[industrian]

If "corruption" is so disastrous then why is Italy and any number of Eastern European countries so much more better off than most African countries?

Because corruption is those countries is more about bending/breaking existing laws and rules for your own personal gain and less about stealing money for food, building water pipelines and building schools in order to get gold plated Hummers and Mansions.

 

[CharlieDigital]

The thing is though, that at a certain level hand-outs create opportunity. If you are well below the poverty line, none of your capital can go towards savings and rudimentary investment (new cows, plows, more land, etc). These "hand outs" (not to mention those that are focused on malaria/aids) are highly important in ending cycles of decreased wealth as land and resources are split even further each successive generation, while no productivity gains are made. (I hope I'm not coming across as particularly combative with you, I just feel pretty strongly about this issue)

I don't deny that. You need to feed a kid before he'll sit still and focus in school; I get that.

But there needs to be a balance. Can't affect long term change otherwise. The unfortunate truth is that resources are finite and I understand that the first instinct is to help save people and feed them and provide the basics, but doing so in the absence of real opportunities for self-sustaining growth hasn't proven to be a very good model, has it?

Africa needs a Marshall Plan. But it wouldn't work at all. The Marshall Plan worked because Europe - whilst in a more economically fucked up position than Africa is right now - had a solid foundation of law & order, highly educated workforces, unified populations, the absolute desire not to let another devastating war affect us, and Europeans are arguably the most industrious peoples on the planet. Africa on the other hand...

Read this post.

I guess that's why places like India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Americas are in such bad shape as Africa.

The difference is that many of the poorest African countries are still being exploited by modern day corporations for the resources. The one exception seems to be the Chinese.

 

[j_k_redtail]

The number 1 problem with a lot of African countries is government corruption.

Read up on what Rawlings accomplished in Ghana. That is the model for sustainable African development.

Really? Ghana's doing extremely well, but my impression was that a lot of Ghanaians had a strong dislike for Rawlings himself.

 

[Blackhead]

Because corruption is those countries is more about bending/breaking existing laws and rules for your own personal gain and less about stealing money for food, building water pipelines and building schools in order to get gold plated Hummers and Mansions.

Not true, the corruption in Italy, Greece etc definitely involves redirecting public project money for personal gain.

 

[CharlieDigital]

Not true, the corruption in Italy, Greece etc definitely involves redirecting public project money for personal gain.

I don't think it's anywhere near the same scale on a per capita basis.

 

[Blackhead]

I don't think it's anywhere near the same scale on a per capita basis.

I'm not arguing that, but I'm suggesting that corruption is not the main problem facing African countries. It's one of the problems sure but not the root cause.

 

[industrian]

Not true, the corruption in Italy, Greece etc definitely involves redirecting public project money for personal gain.

How many people starve to death, don't have access to drinking water or can't learn how to read and write in Italy, Greece, etc because of that?

 

[Blackhead]

How many people starve to death, don't have access to drinking water or can't learn how to read and write in Italy, Greece, etc because of that?

Um, yeah? Again, corruption isn't the the only reason. Corruption in a country could be low but it's plagued by civil war or suffering from brain drain with few good professionals to build the needed infrastructure. But yet Italy, Greece etc have corrupt governments and yet their countries aren't in the same level of ruin as many African countries. I'm just irritated that many people start of with that their countries are giving out aid that is being stolen and ignore or are ignorant of how little the aid is compared to how much gets taken out of those countries in turn. Seriously, less money is stolen than African countries owe in debt (some forgiven) to the wealthy western nations.

 

[Ferga]

half of Africa's economy is very well developed while half of it is still developing.

It's the media i tell you!

 

[Mleugi]

Wouldn't anything we send just get intercepted by warlords?

 

[Byakuya769]

How many people starve to death, don't have access to drinking water or can't learn how to read and write in Italy, Greece, etc because of that?

I'm still putting off my work till tomorrow. But are you arguing that all of the countries started with the same GDP per capita in the 50's?

 

[teh_pwn]

See also: cancer research.

That's another topic, but I agree. There certainly will eventually be advanced medical intervention that will save a lot of lives. But I think what's been grossly overlooked is that cancer is largely an environmental disease with the majority of it being dietary. Dozens of doctors from the British Empire did tribal migration studies. Everywhere in the world, tribes on their native diets had virtually no cancer, heart disease, obesity. They could be eating fish and coconuts, or lard/fish/root vegetables, or yams/fish, or beef/fruit/vegetables. All of them were healthy. In ever case these doctors noted how they were diagnosing cancer/heart disease with the white settlers and not the natives. But when the natives started eating their food they started getting these problems. There are even a few reverse migration studies in which the natives go back on their old diets and get healthy again.

People don't want to apply evolution by natural selection to the human digestive track & nutrition. People brush off these British missionary studies or Dr Weston Price's work because they think everyone lived 30 years or less, when really infant mortality was high and people lived to 80+ years if they make it to adulthood.

You can spend vast amounts of money learning how to best treat a cut that you keep making on yourself, or you can stop cutting yourself.

The same applies here. You can give the tools to these poor countries and help them build infrastructure to help themselves, or you can keep treating by throwing food/money at them without considering the root cause.

 

[justjohn]

My english professor is from the Congo, the poorest African nation. He walked miles to school every day, was chosen as one of the select few to attend high school, slept in homeless shelters because he had no money. Now he speaks 3 languages (English, French and forget which one from Congo), has his bachelors, masters and doctorate with 3 kids and a wife living in a two story house in suburbia of America.

Guy is a real inspiration and an example of someone literally starting with nothing and becoming a successful and educated man. Although he didn't return to Congo to reinvest in his country you can't really blame him.

Not sure why I brought this up other than even the poorest person can make it in life given the motivation and drive.

:lol What does this have to do with African aid?

 

[harSon]

You've absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You must be one of those who think Africans are so stupid and naive to let the Chinese come over and just grab their resources, like the Europeans did?

Go read more about the trade going on between china and Africa and how Chinese investment and trade with Africa is actually responsible for Africa experiencing record growth levels.

It's also funny how a lot of westerners seem to think china will just colonize Africa and turn them Into slave workers, unlike the benevolent west who have africa's best interest at heart.

You obviously have no clue what you're talking about. Is China colonizing Africa in a European 19th Century fashion? Absolutely not. But they are 'exploiting' the land for their own benefit. You'd have to be an idiot to think that China's 'investments' into various African countries are anything but one sided, which isn't exactly surprising considering these are business dealings, and China is more concerned with its own country's future viability than the well being of Africa. Africa is certainly benefiting from the relationship in terms of infrastructure, but its going to come at the expense of its numerous resources.

For example, a few months back, there was a lot of Angolan violence towards Chinese nationals because China would import workers from its own countries into Angola instead of hiring qualified locals.

 

[nyong]

:lol What does this have to do with African aid?

There's something to be said for pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Often times aid does little more than create learned helplessness.

One of the biggest problems in Africa right now is population control. As food aid increases, so does the birth rate. We're pretty much setting the continent up for an even bigger failure (mass starvation/social disorder) than if we had never gotten involved in the first place.

 

[Escape Goat]

:lol What does this have to do with African aid?

read the post again and then think about it.

 

[avatar299]

People seem to rally around Moyo because it makes them feel better about themselves. It's easy to lump all of Africa together so you can convince yourself there's rampant corruption in every country. Easy to ignore the positives of aid while focusing on the negatives. Easy to support a free market because it requires no effort on your part, I mean really what could go wrong in a free market?

What positives of aid?

 

[BSTF]

What positives of aid?

So you're saying there are no positives?

 

[avatar299]

Name them, list them. We have been trying this for decades and it hasn't worked. Look at the countries that are doing well. They all have strong (for africa) and growing private sectors. They aren't sucking on aid.

 

[SlipperySlope]

Throwing money at the problem doesn't work.

The same can be said about the US school system.

 

[gutter_trash]

China isn't really 'investing' more like 'exploiting their natural resources under the guise of good will'

like Decepticons

 

[SlipperySlope]

she does make some good points, but i don't think she makes a lot of sense in some of the areas in that video you posted. (the celebrity issue jumped out at me). i think, just as she points out about the celebrities, it's easy to focus on the shortcomings and the bad side of the situation.

more importantly, what happens if you pull out the aid and some of these goverments collapse? how many people will die then? is it really worth that?

Yes, it is a good thing for bad governments to collapse.

 

[Prine]

Some nations have an incredible ability to keep voting in kleptocratic governments. They get all up in arms with current regimes then vote in another just as bad.