...waay off topic; but hell it's my blog, and this is excellent......Dambisa Moyo’s prescription for economic sustainability in Africa—which includes cutting off all aid within five years—might seem insane if the statistics weren’t so grim: despite one trillion dollars in western aid over the past sixty years, the economic lot of the average African has only gotten worse. Most Africans now live on one dollar per day, and sub-Saharan Africa remains the poorest region in the world. Despite a deluge of aid between the years of 1970 and 1998, poverty on the continent skyrocketed from 11 percent of the population to 66 percent, which means over six hundred million Africans are now impoverished. The average African can only expect to live to be about fifty, and half the continent’s citizens are under the age of fifteen. In addition to poverty, AIDS, corruption (half the continent is still under un-democratic rule), civil war, and genocide ravage the continent. Indeed, Africa seems constantly embroiled in a steady stream of horrors, the likes of which are not seen anywhere else on the planet. Why? Are Africans innately different from the rest of us? Nonsense, says Moyo. She blames aid...
...and by so doing blames socialist welfare statism...exactly the system that is producing an underclass wherever it is applied. Africa ? think Murupara/South Auckland/Otara...more here...
...and the inestimable Theodore Dalrymple on green halfwits...
"The environmentalist ideology threatens to make serious inroads into the rule of law in Britain. This past September, six environmentalists were acquitted of having caused $50,000 worth of damage to a power station—not because they did not do it but because four witnesses, including a Greenlander, testified to the reality of global warming.One recalls the disastrous 1878 jury acquittal in St. Petersburg of Vera Zasulich for the attempted assassination of General Trepov, on the grounds of the supposed purity of her motives. The acquittal destroyed all hope of establishing the rule of law in Russia and ushered in an age of terrorism that led directly to one of the greatest catastrophes in human history." H/T Butch
4 comments:
If you have any doubts about this, read "The Wisdom of Whores: bureaucrats, brothels and the business of AIDS" by Elisabeth Pisani, which blows the lid of the whole aid/corruption scenario.
Thanks WakeUp I'll have a look...what with the UN, AIDS, hysteria over DDT leading to a resurgence of malaria and millions of deaths, there is indeed a wake up needed by the world.
Our ex PM has just been appointed #3 honcho at the UN, a move bound to worsen matters...
The "aid" merry-go-round is doomed to failure for so long as it involves hand-outs rather that incentive.
Some projects have been very successful because they have educated people about how to increase crops or change crops to get the best yield from the land.
Far too much of it does not involve that sort of practical advice but is just cash. And where there is cash there is a greedy "leader" who takes it for himself.
The best thing we can do for Africa is open our markets to their products without import tariffs and give them a chance to sell. Incentive is everything.
FB, that is quite right. Unfortunately for the people of Africa, our ex PM has been put in charge of the aid budget...and throwing other peoples money at the problem is second nature to her. Arrogant maternalism I call it, but no maternal instinct in this case...
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