A rchive Date
[ 01-07-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Africa ]
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[http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Awgu_Ike/2005/07/01/1112648.html
Helping Africa requires more fairness than aid
By Ike Awgu
Fri, July 1, 2005
Nelson Mandela calls it the "challenge of our generation."
In days, leaders of the world's eight wealthiest nations will meet in Gleneagles, Scotland to discuss aid to some of the world's poorest countries.
It's the hope of Mandela, along with organizers of the worldwide Live 8 concert held today, that wealthy countries such as Canada will "help make poverty history," by doubling their foreign aid budgets.
Poverty should indeed be made history; however, the notion that Third World poverty can, or will be solved by little more than increased aid deserves to be as much a part of the dustbin of history as the poverty Geldolf and Mandela are fighting to eliminate. The notion that a cure for world poverty lies at the bottom of a money pit dug and filled by western nations is a falsehood.
Desperate nations of the Third World do indeed require aid, and in many cases a substantial quantity of it, but a significant number of the problems gripping African and Asian countries are political in nature, and more a product of bad governance, civil war, and near-cosmic corruption than from lack of capital or natural resources.
Emergency short term aid for countries in the midst of humanitarian disasters such as the Sudan or Ethiopia, is the correct and moral thing to do - we cannot ignore the pleas of starving people. However, in both of these countries, arguably, starvation and poverty is largely man-made.
Ethiopia, one of the poorest nations on earth, spent over $300 million US on its military last year in an ongoing cold war with Eritrea. The war has contributed significantly to the weakening of Ethiopia's economy, and taken the lives of thousands of already poor Ethiopians.
Darfur's 2 million refugees are a product of its Arab-dominated government and its policy of permitting militias to kill, rape, and massacre the country's black citizens.
May save lies
Foreign aid may save the lives of these refugees, but it will not eliminate the circumstances that created them. Civil wars, largely a product of colonialism and the ridiculous borders it gifted to African states, the cause of numerous recurring conflicts on the continent. No amount of help will magically redraw these ridiculous borders.
Foreign aid will also do nothing to decrease corruption. And corruption of cosmic proportions runs rampant through countries like Nigeria, which, though rich in natural resources (one of the largest proven oil reserves in the world) has had its treasury plundered by dictators and democrats alike.
Recently the country's chief of police was dragged to court in handcuffs on charges of stealing $118 million from the government. Please, imagine for a moment the audacity one must possess to steal $118 million from a country where 60% of the people live in poverty.
By comparison Botswana, a seldom heard of African country, began its life as one of the poorest nations on Earth, and could once have boasted the highest sustained growth level of GDP (even greater than China's) at over 9% for more than a decade. Through sound fiscal management, it's transformed itself from one of the poorest countries in the world to a middle-income country with a per capital GDP of $9,200. Noticeably, Botswana isn't on its knees begging for debt relief. The difference between Botswana and other states in Africa bordering on failure is the absence of civil war, corruption and dictators.
Giving away money may feel good, and may even be critical from some countries who need it, but what Africa and to a lesser extent Asia need isn't aid - it's trade fairness and political reform.
Thanks to lower labour costs Africans and Asians can produce products such as cotton, cocoa and coffee at significantly cheaper rates than the westerners, but rich countries subsidize their farming industries with billions of dollars, making it actually cheaper to buy cotton from the United States than poor Kenyans.
Less aid, more trade. It's really as simple as that.
ike.awgu@ott.sunpub.com
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