Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati explains what American conservatives already know and what Left-libs refuse to even address.
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.
SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.
ZOMG!! Think of teh childrens!!1!!
Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It’s only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it’s not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa …
SPIEGEL: … corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers …
Shikwati: … and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn’t do anything, the people would starve.
Shikwati: I don’t think so. In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure, while making national borders — drawn by the Europeans by the way — more permeable. It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy.
Market economy? #RACIST Really, no need to read any further … Nothing to see … move along …
But, but, our self esteem is at risk here. You want to deprive us of the opportunity to feel good about ourselves for helping you, while all you are worried about is a few starving Kenyans.
Yes, I am fed up with the self serving good intentions that have such destructive results in real life.
The road to a particularly awful place in Hell is paved with self serving good intentions.
What I discovered in Somalia is a place where there was no shortage of food … There was a shortage of public order. There was a shortage of a social system to provide food for people who were powerless. Rice was selling in Mogadishu at 10 cents a kilo — the cheapest rice in the world because of all the rice that had been donated. The problem was that if you didn’t have a gun in Mogadishu you didn’t have 10 cents. It didn’t matter how cheap or readily available the rice was. There were people with guns taking it away from the people who didn’t have guns. — P.J. O’Rourke
“this paradox?”
Ah, there’s the rub right from the jump: there is no paradox.
Professionalized charity sure has brought strange evils into the world.
My sister had a roommate from Ethiopia who said that the starvation was the result of people making so much war they didn’t have time to grow crops.
“Professionalized charity sure has brought strange evils into the world.”
see: education, public
Ha! I was thinking the same thing.
Disconnect between cause and effect much?
If you ever want to give an example of an unobservant idiot, there’s always that interviewer.
BUT, THEY’LL STARVE!
No, and the reasons why are A, B, C…
BUT, THEY’LL STARVE!
No, we have learned from experience that…
BUT, THEY’LL STARVE!
What’s additionally sad is that the interviewer hadn’t read related a related article from 2005:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/too-much-of-a-good-thing-choking-on-aid-money-in-africa-a-363604.html
Why does this bit from that article remind me of the present administration:
Often, what started out so promising ends up as a fiasco. Hendrik Hempel, who works for the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), helped renovate a state-owned farm in North Eritrea after the war with Ethiopia. For years he literally created a blooming landscape.
But Hempel’s case became a silent indictment of the incompetence of the ruling government party. He managed to get better yields than the state-run farms. But despite his success, he was forced to give up when the government suddenly installed hundreds of former freedom fighters, who had been left without work after a number of state-run farms had gone bust, as paid employees in his business.
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Interesting point, Mero. I suppose a lot of bad things can come from the assumption of charity needed in the future, and not the responsibility of charity in the present.
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