Africa...Can we do anything?
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Saturday, September 5, 2026 02:38
VIEWED: 5821
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You have to be careful with africa. The continent just like the middle east was actually quite stable until western powers began carving it up for their own ends, with the excuse that we were 'bring civilisation to the savages'.
Okay thats all the more reason to do all that we can, but for all our good intentions in many african nations our help has done nothing or even made things worse.
I saw in a BBC report that writing off african debt could actually be counterproductive in the long term. The countries that are starting to gain strong econimies and trade on the world market would be penalised while nations run by despots that used their money and aid to prop up their dictatorships could be rewarded.
I'm not saying we should do nothing but that its very hard to know what to do, as even our best intentions have ramifications.
Consider that the people with the real power to do anything about africa are the companies and corporations that trade on the open market, and its not in their best interests to break the status quo.
For an interesting article on africa and more specifically Botswana:
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/files/papers/Botswanafinal.pd
f
Or from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4318777.stm
A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
--W.C. Fields
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
I'm looking for positive suggestions here, not just the usual "it's all (fill in the blank's) fault."
I've always thought we should try a triage approach. Take all the aid. Billions of dollars and instead of spreading it to the winds of the entire continant we focus it on one or two countries at a time. Stand them up. Make them valuable trading partners, stable democracies, and positive regional influences, then move next door and do it again.
I'd start with Ghana.
Then with each success we create the means to allow for greater and more meaningful African influance in African development.
H
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On another thread (what would you do?) I said that the US should forgive all debt and dismantle the IMF and World Bank. I think that fits in well here.
Sometimes you do need to place blame in order to know enough not to do the same thing in the future.
I was talking with an African coworker who had many salient points to offer (including that African debt has already been paid off many times over).
One thing he said that struck me was that direct foreign monetary aid was the fuel of African corruption ... the international lenders knew all along that these loans were going directly into the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt dictators, but tolerated it for political and $$ corrupt reasons of their own.
He also said that the IMF and World Bank would only lend money if countries agreed to borrow even more money for large (generally useless) projects (many examples), usually contracted to multinational corporations, and under the condition of selling off national resources and privatizing public infrastructure.
For that reason Gino's comment about providing on-the-ground direct local physical aid (building schools, roads, drilling wells, providing medical aid and training) dovetails with what I've heard.
In places ravaged by war, something as simple as a road which cannot be used or a simple bridge that was destroyed keeps people from returning to the farms.
And then, there is the well known generic approach that if you direct your help toward women and children by providing care, food, schooling, training, local resources (bicycles), and small loans to women to start home businesses (which get paid directly to the next borrower in line) the standard of living rises. Whereas if you direct aid to men, gambling, prostitution, and addiction become rampant and the overall standard of living either stays the same or drops.
Jared Diamond makes the case that some African countries are simply unable to support the population (Rwanda - where many killings were not between Hutus and Tutsis, but within ethnic groups over land disputes). Now whether or not the cultures are amenable to birth control or I couldn't say. (I think of India where in some places there are only 75 marrying-age females for every 100 males, but that simple negative consequence of devaluing girls hasn't seemed to make female children any more valuable.) But aid organizations definitely need to provide birth control and condoms as part of the medical aid package.
Ands frankly, if African countries buy cheap anti-retrovirals from India, the US should look the other way.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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My reponse is similar to Rue's. One of the first things we need to do is stop corrupting African governments. I linked an article several threads ago that gave several specific examples. As I recall, one commercial "development bank" made a tidy arrangement with one leader to borrow well more than that nation could afford with the idea that that bank would then get a lock on the oil when the country couldn't repay it's debt. Another development bank actually helped the leader set up a Swiss bank account (or some such).
I also referenced "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins. Mr Perkins detailed how development loans are made SPECIFICALLY in order to bankrupt countries because then that nation's resources are forfeit. The loan money doesn't stay in the debtor nation very long because the development contracts all go to foreign countries. The nation must squeeze its population in order to pay back the debt, offering starvation wages to international corporations. And the only leaders who would take those loans under those conditions are necessarily corrupt. Ergo, many development banks (World Bank, IMF, private banks) actually want to work with corrupt dictators- it's so much easier to make money that way.
So... the first thing to do is actually the easiest. Rather than try and change "them", we should change our (developed world) practices.
The other thing is that embargoes and tariffs WORK. They tend to take a couple of decades but they provide steady pressure in one direction.
And...I gotta go.
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Quote:I’m not 100% confident that AIDS is actually an epidemic, so if the policy is to limit support, I don’t see why HIV drugs should necessarily be an exception. But I think that in many cases the money we give Africa may make matters worse, not better. Stopping the aid, in the short run, may place considerable economic strain on some of the more corrupt regimes.
Originally posted by Geezer:
So, just to start with the most outre suggestion...maybe we should just leave them alone. Could it just be possible that the best thing is to do nothing? Let the Africans sort it out by themselves? Or limit support to stuff like HIV/AIDS drugs and other medicine, and then only as requested? I know that this sounds cold, but has all the aid we've provided so far actually done that much good?
I like ideas that put boots on the ground to effect real change and offer real aid directly to the people, but the reality is that this won’t solve the problem either, because I don't think there is enough boots, and there’s probably not going to be, certainly given security issues.
Ideally, I also like the idea of militarily or covertly deposing some of these regimes or securing certain regions, but that is unpopular with the Western nations that have the needed military capability for a variety of reasons. Force and nation building is probably the only quick fix if one exists, but the price one pays for that quick fix is that the troubles of Africa are inherited by the Western nations, and that’s not likely to go over well. Nor is it at all certain that such actions could succeed given such a lack of home support.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I’m not 100% confident that AIDS is actually an epidemic, so if the policy is to limit support, I don’t see why HIV drugs should necessarily be an exception. But I think that in many cases the money we give Africa may make matters worse, not better. Stopping the aid, in the short run, may place considerable economic strain on some of the more corrupt regimes.
I like ideas that put boots on the ground to effect real change and offer real aid directly to the people, but the reality is that this won’t solve the problem either, because I don't think there is enough boots, and there’s probably not going to be, certainly given security issues.
Ideally, I also like the idea of militarily or covertly deposing some of these regimes or securing certain regions, but that is unpopular with the Western nations that have the needed military capability for a variety of reasons. Force and nation building is probably the only quick fix if one exists, but the price one pays for that quick fix is that the troubles of Africa are inherited by the Western nations, and that’s not likely to go over well. Nor is it at all certain that such actions could succeed given such a lack of home support.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
Ahh Finn,
I was about to flame you for this post, but then it occurred to me that perhaps I was over-reacting to an obvious provocation and that you must surely be familiar with and understand what's going on in Africa. Surely you were just indulging in some joking and trying to pull the chains of people who worry about such trivial things as poverty and disease and political corruption. You've been there and know human beings who live there and everything's hunky-dory, right? Right?
I really do try to avoid the ad hominem but sometimes its difficult.
the sarcasm is entirely deliberate
perfessergee
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Quote:Sarcasm? More like conceit, but it is the depth of the intellect I have come to expect from you.
Originally posted by perfessergee:
the sarcasm is entirely deliberate
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Quote:
Force and nation building is probably the only quick fix if one exists, but the price one pays for that quick fix is that the troubles of Africa are inherited by the Western nations, and that’s not likely to go over well. Nor is it at all certain that such actions could succeed given such a lack of home support.
Since when has forceably removing a goverment by a foriegn power and building a new system based on the invading nation been a fix at all, let alone a quick one. This is what happened to Africa in the first place. The continent was carved up by western powers and then left to fend for themselves.
I can think of NO examples where a foriegn power has overthrown a goverment and it has ended in anything but chaos.
A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
--W.C. Fields
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For some, the only response is a military one. "When the only thing you have is a hammer. everything looks like a nail".
I have an issue with direct aid. A national government can do more harm in one hour (sending in the troops to supress dissent, bankrupting the nation, embezzeling the Treasury etc.) than local assistance can undo in one year. Corruption may be pervasive, but top-level corruption impacts harder. Where a centralized government is even partially functional, government reform may be more effective than the bottom-up approach.
So, as I was saying... money is a powerful motivator. Right now, money is one of the major driving forces towards poverty and corruption. What if international tariffs were imposed for failure to meet certain requirements? A 5% tariff for not holding regular, universal-franchise, multi-party, UN-recognized elections? A 5% tariff for not achieving at least an 80% literacy rate for both sexes? A 5% tariff for not meeting transparency and international accountancy rules? A 5% tarrif for not meeting minimum civil rights? I can think of a lot of basic requirements that could influence a nation to turn itself around. It would be fun to find the minimum set of requirements.
And it's not as if tariffs are a new idea. They've been in place for a long time, and just about every wrinkle in their applicaiton has been worked out already. www.usitc.gov/tata/index.htm
But- even when the "motivation" is in place, sometimes a situation is SO factured and so unstable that a nation has reverted to warlordism: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, etc. Ordinary people in these regions are robbed and raped over and over again by roving gangs whose only motivation is controlling turf. ANY form of production, trade, service or AID- farming, herding, handicraft, food vending, clinics, food deliveries etc.- is almost impossible. SOME internal order is required for a self-sustaining society. This is where Finn comes in. (TAAA DAA!!) An Ethiopian businesman-turned-warlord (Jawhar) shows that it IS possible to impose order: www.geeskaafrika.com/somalia_26june05.htm The secret is totally overwhelming force. A large, external military force might be useful in those cases... but it would have to be very, very large. No half-measure would be successful.
Here is another consideration- many African "nations" were created by colonial rule for the imperialists' convenience. Larger groups were broken up, smaller groups were set against each other. Is it possible to re-draw artifical divisions without setting off a massive land-grab?
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