Bush Wants To Double Aid To Africa

[Annie]

of course along with amnesty he seems to think those will be his big 'legacies'. Yes, this is 2 years old, doesn't change the point though:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

July 04, 2005


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.
SPIEGEL:

Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

...

 

[actsnoblemartin]

and bush annoys me.

 

[onedomino]

At some level, this is Bush paying an IOU to Tony Blair. African aid is a very important issue for Blair; especially since the 2005 G8 Gleneagles Summit. Bush stiffed Blair on a binding CO2 target for 2050, but he is coming through somewhat on Africa. During last week's PM Questions, Blair noted the US increase in African aid. Brown sat behind Blair during the questions. It is amazing to me that the British people, and the Labor Party in particular, prefer Brown over Blair.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Great article. It's the same thing with domestic welfare though. It's not even really the dollar amount that I care about all that much, (there are certainly bigger boondoggles in dollar amounts) it's what the money buys--negative results. But no one believes you when you say this, you're either a racist or a scrooge or both.

 

[Annie]

Here's an African economist (a Keynesian, at that) who says: "For God's sake, stop the aid!"

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

You really should have read my first post.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

You really should have read my first post.

damn you're quick on the draw, i edited it like 5 seconds later

i'm tired and going to bed now

 

[Gunny]

of course along with amnesty he seems to think those will be his big 'legacies'. Yes, this is 2 years old, doesn't change the point though:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

Where's he planning on getting THIS money?

 

[Annie]

damn you're quick on the draw, i edited it like 5 seconds later

i'm tired and going to bed now

No problem, sometimes I do respond quick. Sorry.

 

[William Joyce]

What if Bush and Blair cared about Americans and English?

They don't, because they score no "PC" points for that.

So they'll pump your money to black Africans and hope Bono comes for a private concern. How fucking pathetic. The billions and trillions sent to Africa do no good because Africans have IQ's in the 70's. You could build every African a modern mansion, and come back a year later to find them trying to crack open nuts with the laptop they found in the library.

 

[Gunny]

What if Bush and Blair cared about Americans and English?

They don't, because they score no "PC" points for that.

So they'll pump your money to black Africans and hope Bono comes for a private concern. How fucking pathetic. The billions and trillions sent to Africa do no good because Africans have IQ's in the 70's. You could build every African a modern mansion, and come back a year later to find them trying to crack open nuts with the laptop they found in the library.

I'm just more than a bit tired of giving handouts to an ungrateful world that does nothing but point fingers at us, usually with a lie on their lips.

We've got some issues here at home that are in dire need of addressing, and even if we didn't, then I'm QUITE sure we could throw the extra money against the deficit, if nothing else.

 

[onedomino]

If you are interested in the topic of G8 aid to Africa, here is a comprehensive report on the delivery of aid compared to the 2005 G8 promises made at Gleneagles: http://www.thedatareport.org/pdf/DATAREPORT2007.pdf. Here is a summary that appeared in the IHT: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/15/africa/15bono.php. In brief, France, Italy, and Germany, are significantly behind the increase in aid promised at Gleneagles in 2005. Only the UK and Japan are "on track." The US appears to have gotten back on track this year.