People like Jan Egeland of the United Nations have been on a rampage accusing Western nations of the atrocities that have been taking place in African countries like Niger. This naive belief that simply sending money along with bags of rice will somehow bring these dear souls out of poverty is simply ridiculous. Yet, millions of people around the world still hold to this failed point of view.
Let’s face it, for these “misinformed” individuals, it is all about feeling good. While Bob Geldolf, Bono, and the leaders of G8 countries are “high-fivin’” themselves on slaying the demon of poverty, there are corrupt leaders of these countries that are all too pleased to use the money for things other than it original purpose.
Economist James Shikwati sheds some more light dangers of dumping aid to these countries without encouraging them to produce goods and services on their own:
Sphere: Related Content“When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize on how to get more,” said the Kenya-based director of the Inter Region Economic Network, an African think tank.
“They forget about getting their own people working to solve these very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change.”
Moving the aid can be nightmare in itself. Africa’s good roads are few, and often pass through the front lines of civil wars. But Shikwati notes an additional problem: Even African countries that have food to spare can’t easily share it because tariffs on agricultural products within sub-Saharan Africa average as high as 33 percent, compared with 12 percent on similar products imported from Europe.
“It doesn’t make sense when they can’t even allow their neighbors to feed them. They have to wait for others in Europe or Asia to help,” he said. “We don’t have any excuses in Africa. We can’t blame nature. We have to tell our leadership to open up and get people producing food.” (more…)
