"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

[ga-hvac-tech]

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH AFRICAN ECONOMICS EXPERT

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.



http://www.spiegel.de/international/...363663,00.html

[sline-dawg]

Hey if you can't cut it ....... it's Gods will.


That is life in the natural world...

[Tool-Slinger]

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH AFRICAN ECONOMICS EXPERT

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.



http://www.spiegel.de/international/...363663,00.html

contemplating charity,.. I have oft wondered if housing is not preferrable to food.....

[glennac]

contemplating charity,.. I have oft wondered if housing is not preferrable to food.....

In Africa they are poorer now than when they were under colonial rule being "exploted" by the European powers. Back then you had private enterprise and an exporting economy instead of no economy and living off of wellfare and having lots of kids with an increase in population with more money needed for wellfare.

[Tool-Slinger]

In Africa they are poorer now than when they were under colonial rule being "exploted" by the European powers. Back then you had private enterprise and an exporting economy instead of no economy and living off of wellfare and having lots of kids with an increase in population with more money needed for wellfare.

I do not dis-agree with you.

But I am thinking of economics alone, not politics.

By providing housing, we help by providing comfort and means for productivity.
By providing food, we 'feed' the current problem?

Hard to explain my thinking here, and you are correct to see political things as the bigger issue.

[scrogdog]

The real problem here?

We don't give the issues of Africa the same passion and attention that we do, say, global warming.

Until we do, Africa has no chance of pulling itself up by its bootstraps if you will. They are far distanced from any sort of education... their whole lives are spent worrying about basic needs.

Africa could be a marvelous economy, really. They have a ton of resources, but no develpoment, which means the resources are hard to get to and extract at this time.

It would take a generation or more to fix this, not to mention the total dedication in the finacially secure West to see it through.

Education and infrastrucure is the solution. But we aren't even at that point yet. The only time people worry about things like productivity and economy is when basic needs are fulfilled. We have no world plan or vision for Africa, but we do for some freaking model that predicts disaster in a hundred years.

The mindset of mankind. Allow me to be disgusted.

[coolwhip]

You want to be disgusted? go live over there and observe their behavior. Bunch of freakin animals.

[scrogdog]

When one is forced to *live* like an animal, I'd expect that would be the result, yes.

[coolwhip]

When one is forced to *live* like an animal, I'd expect that would be the result, yes.

Thats a load of feces! When you have no food or water, you dont have 10 kids.
The folks that grow and provide food for them get hacked to pieces and the crops wither and rot because the idiots dont know how to till the soil.

Many of them believe that a cure for AIDS is to have sexual intercourse with a virgin child.

I say let nature run its course.

[scrogdog]

Thats a load of feces! When you have no food or water, you dont have 10 kids.

The problem is that the adults are virtual kids themselves. In essence, you are asking the uneducated mind of a child to be socially responisible and eminently logical in thier actions. Well, you can try... and you'll get about the same results as you do when trying to teach these things to a 16 year old. Except that an American 16 year old is in the proper environment to learn these types of things.

Again, living like animals and barbarians does not exactly promote the Western view of civil lifestyle.

[coordinatesales]

I think that the aid needs to be used to build infrastructure and education. I think the article mentioned infrastructure as well. Aid can help build the tools to allow them to succeed on their own and not just give them hand outs. Governments giving other governments $$ just doubles governmental waste. Let charitable organizations (not governments!) contract specific projects to get them back on their feet. When I was on a mission to the Dominican Republic, a year or so before I went, the same organization that sent me, had built a water well. The locals could then use that water for cooking, growing gardens etc. We went a built out houses to help with sanitation and disease control. This allowed the people then to do more work to provide for themselves.

Stop sending more and more food to the same places every year. They need to learn to support their own people or the people need to go where the food is. (Send U-Hauls, not rice) If needed, send farmers to teach them how to grow their own food. If you choose to bring kids into an area that can't grow food, you'd better expect to go hungry. Kinda like if you live in a city below sea level, you'd better expect to get flooded from time to time.

[coolwhip]

Who you kidden?...any money spent over there would be useless. It would be better to burn it, atleast you would get some heat from it. Let Oprah and the NBA worry about it.