Bush says US to double Africa aid
Bush Says U.S. Has `Direct Stake' in Africa's Prosperity
Downing Street Welcomes Bush Aid Pledge

I'm not sure is this will meet the 0.7% GNP target agreed to in 2002 but it may well be an excellent first step.

Should the US double it's aid to Africa? Why or why not?

Is this enough to meet America's obligations under the Monterrey Consensus?'

Will this be enough for Tony Blair as he pushes for an increases in aid as president of the upcoming G8 conference?

No, because it is an unConstitutional use of tax dollars, we'll never get the money back and I doubt that any amount of money can reform Africa. And not to keep beating this dead horse...but we have a record budget defecit, spending more money unnecessarily is not what the doctor ordered. We should be cutting our aid both foreign and domestic, especially in an area so, frankly, helpless as Africa.

I think it's amazingly ironic that we have an obligation to use money in a way that breaks our national law. The Monterrey Consensus is a large infringement of our sovereignty and I don't care whether we're meeting our "obligations" or not.

CP

1) No. We should end most aid to Africa. There is no point is pouring money into a blackhole. There is no sense in trying to help people unwilling to help themselves.

2) Probably not, I don't care.

3) Probably not, he has rock stars to appease.

Should the US double it's aid to Africa? Why or why not?
I'm all for it. In college I join a group to try an raise awareness about Darfur and the conditions in Africa and I think that in the long run, everybody wins if we help Africa out. I'd much rather see my money going to help end poverty rather than kill innocent people in the Middle East. If it's between feeding 10,000 people for a day or getting another Cruise missile, I think the choice is obvious.


Is this enough to meet America's obligations under the Monterey Consensus?'
Any chance you can expand on what the Monterey Consensus is? Regardless, I feel we have a moral consensus or obligation rather to help others out.


As a side note, I'd entertain a motion to start a new thread on "how money in Africa" should be spent or how it can be used most effectively.

Why feed the 10,000 people for a week, leaving them to die next week? Isn't that just prolonging the agony? We (the first world) have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Africa over the last few decades and made no meaningful change. Most of it is stolen by tyrants and warlords. The rest puts a band-aid on an amputation if even that. Why try and help people who seem unwilling to help themselves?



That might be an interesting topic.

This is the second time in this thread that you have stated that there is no sense in trying to help people who don't want to help themselves. I didn't respond the first time but since you've repeated it, I feel obligated to point a few things out to you.

1) There are several different countries in Africa. Specifically, 54.

2) Overwhelmingly, the government in most of these countries are not democratic.

3) You cannot blame the people under control of an undemocratically-run government for that government's actions.

Therefore, I don't understand why you keep insisting on blaming the victims and are holding them responsible for their government's actions. It makes no sense whatsoever. It is not the tyrants and warlords who are suffering, it is the people they have power over. And your brilliant solution is to not even bother anymore, because apparently if a people are starving because their thug leaders are taking money intended for food and using it for personal ambitions, it's their own damn fault.

Feel free, and I maintain that this is a truth.



Yes there are, but I think we can agree that we are talking mainly of sub-Saharan Africa.



This is very true.



Yes you can. We didn't always live under democracy, we revolted and made ourself one. I have several friends who are immigrants to this nation because of their pro-democracy work in their former homelands. They at least tried before fleeing for their lives. That I have respect for.




The people sit there and let it happen. Look at Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union was able to hold it down for only about a half century before the people rose up and threw off their shackles.

Africa is filled with people that do little more than reproduce and sit there waiting for the next round of handouts. Why has every other part of the globe advanced and conquered the land to end famine and rampant disease (with some localized exceptions), and bring their lives up out of near hunter-gatherer levels but Africa has failed to do so? Don't blame colonialism; India had that struggle, southeast Asia did as well. The Americas had the same problem as well. All threw off their colonial masters and advanced. Africa seems stalled in the dark ages. Pouring money into Africa has done nothing over the last several decades. One of the definitions of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

At what point, in your mind, does a people, or a culture, have to take responsibility for itself?


(Putting on my flame retardant underwear and awaiting the flames)

Vandeervecken


Please supply a source for your "hundreds of billions of dollars" of aid to Africa. Most U.S. aid is given for political not humanitarian reasons and it doesn't reach these levels.
Here is a site that gives some relevant statistics. In 2003 the top ten recipients of U.S. aid in millions of dollars were:

Egypt 831
Russia 808
Iraq 775
Democratic Republic of the Congo 749
Israel 666
Pakistan 656
Jordan 622
Colombia 513
Afghanistan 427
Ethiopia 324

This hardly translates into "hundreds of billions" to Africa over the last few decades. The U.S. gives the most development aid of any industrial country in total dollars but ranks second to last as a per cent of Gross National Income at 0.16 per cent.

The other thing many fail to realize is the role played by the U.S. and multi-nationals in helping to create the instability in sub Sahara Africa. Playing a role in the assassination of Lumumba in the Congo and subsequently support the cleptomaniac Mobutu for 30 years, comes to mind. Our role in Angola wasn't the greatest either. Many of the civil wars in the region occurred because we (the industrial world) failed to regulate our corporations seeking to extract resources from the continent and playing one elite against another without any assurance that any of the resulting benefit would go to the people.

Should the US double it's aid to Africa? Why or why not?

Yes, I would favor doubling aid to the neediest countries but it should be accompanied by international controls on how companies contract with countries and who benefits from those contracts.



No, it won't come close to halving world poverty by 2015. I expect things to get worse for environmental reasons but we're morally obligated to do what we can.

I have been waiting for this statistic. I would remind anyone that pushes the GDP figure as proof the US does not care that most of the money that goes overseas from the US is in donations. US private donations to the developing world are 15 times higher than that of European countries. US private contributions add up to at least 22 billion dollars a year, but the actual amount is likely much higher than that. Even so, this GDP figure is still tossed around.

There are a lot of things the US and other developed nations can do to help the many nations of Africa. Free and fairer trade would be a good place to start. This debate gets tricky on how to help some of these countries more democratic. Look at all the outrage over Iraq; I doubt the US population has the stomach to help make these countries democracies.

Well I think they are doing a bit more than just sitting there..they are usually starving to death or on the run from government supported militant groups or they are being raped or even dying of AIDS. How can people who are so ravaged with destruction or disease rise up ? They have war being raged upon them.

I have a very good friend who is from Zimbabwe and the horror stories she has to tell of her nation...anyone who has any sense and any ability and any form of survival fled long ago.. All that remains to fight or rise up against the government is the old, the dying and the poorest of the poor.

Africa is the way it is because for the most part Africa is governed terribly.

I too take great exception to the type of aid we give..but I don't wish to withhold it..I just wish to better implement it.

I also feel free and open trade is a must. From both sides tho...I think we need to insist on deregulations, transparency and accountability...but it is hard because many African leaders capitalize on the scars and distrust left by colonialism...Mugabe is a perfect example.




What does this mean exactly? Contracts on what? Could you please elaborate.

Should the US double it's aid to Africa? Why or why not?

Not unless it is guaranteed to see a credible result.

Is this enough to meet America's obligations under the Monterrey Consensus?'

I have no idea.

Will this be enough for Tony Blair as he pushes for an increases in aid as president of the upcoming G8 conference?

Who cares? Tony Blair is rapidly becoming a political pariah, and why should the USA care what Tony Blair thinks any way?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


With regards to aid to Africa I am not impressed by the arguments that are so often put forward to defend the Africans for whilst it is true that some nations are disease infested battle grounds, the horror of which surpasses anything seen outside of Africa since the second world war, this is not true for all the other countries in Africa where corruption, nepotism and greed stifle attempts to bring Africa to an equal standing.

I do accept the notion that the western nations have kept Africa poor by the trade imbalance and unfair agricultural hand outs in the west, both in Europe and America.

I don't agree that just throwing money and aid at Africa is doing anything but providing people with an argument to ease their conscience. Just look at how often various posters try to compare numbers as if this were a competition!

Who cares how much cash other nations have or have not ponied up? If that cash isn't making any difference, then that cash, isn't making any difference!

Africa needs help. Real help, not just bags of money. When did money ever do any good? The Africans need real help. They need the chance to grow and trade and learn and develop themselves. They need education and peace and protection from the climate. Most of all they need to learn about birth control! What sort of people just keep on having babies in the middle of a drought!

If I had the authority to decide on a course of action I would propose that each western industrial nation, chooses an African nation and then sponsors it, adopts it if you like, and looks after it, teaches it and provides real support, for two decades. That would give the people of that nation the chance to have real elections, the chance to learn and build and trade and develop real trading links to replace the pointless amputated post colonial relationships most African nations still suffer from today.
Then we would see just how much aid the donor nations were really giving!

I can't be sure this would really work, but I'm sure that it would benefit the Africans AND the rest of the planet a lot more than what we have today.

The funny thing about the way people measure Aid to Africa in reference to GDP is that they will never understand that the US comprises nearly 1/3 of the WHOLE WORLD's GDP. This doesn't necessarily translate in to excess money, budget surpluses, or financial wealth.

Secondly, considering the fact that the closest country in terms of GDP is China, who comprises less than HALF of our GDP, comparing us to other nations in reference to GDP calculations is more than meaningless.

What you have to really consider is the calculation of REAL GDP vs Nominal GDP. Considering the world market economy, the value of the dollar, and the differences between nominal and real GDP, you're simplifying a calculation into "layman's terms" to make an argument that is far more complex.

We are the enforcement arm of the UN, send more troops and military and personnel than any other nation on humanitarian missions, and are by far the most proficient and prolific over the 50 years at managing and sustaining flailing 3rd world governments.

Yes- many if not most efforts world wide are for political reasons; but this trend is by far not exclusively American...

Not that I don't agree with what Aevans, Vandeervecken and Moif are saying...But to me, it doesn't even come down to, "will it be helpful?" or, "is Africa worth helping", etc., simply put, the government does not have the authority to essentially provide welfare services to citizens of another country. Think about all the debates we've had here at regarding the Constitutionality of welfare, many people have cited the "general welfare clause" to defend it, but, it is indefensible to say that the AMERICAN federal government has the authority to take our taxpayer money and "provide for the general welfare" of African countries.

CP

The US has been giving foreign aid for decades. We gave far more as a proportion of it post WWII in the Marshall Plan.

Not once or any foreign aid plan been the subject of any credible constitutional challenge.

If this is unconstitutional, well the Supreme Court is the place to argue it.

I think that blind adherence to the constitution in contravention of the interests of the US is pointless.

Precedent counts for something and there is a long precedent for foreign aid.


Some measure by GNP but both really are a good measure of relative national wealth.

The US is the richest country on the planet no doubt about it.

Whether measure per capita of by GDP we give less in aid that much of the world and what we do give tends to be the already rich countries like Israel.

From the Center for Global Development:

Link(PDF)
The US agreed to the GDP measure in the Monterrey Consensus in 2002.
International Conference on Financing for Development

So this is not some random measuring system. It was agreed upon by all UN states and has been for decades.

Turnea, the Marshall Plan and modern day Africa cannot be compared. I agree, that in extreme circumstances [like say, a World War coupled with continent-wide genocide], foreign aid is called for. Africa is not an extreme circumstance. AIDS can be prevented very easily, and it doesn't cost a dime. African wars are none of our damn business, genocide in Africa is under the Almighty UN's jurisdiction I believe, and we've got bigger fish to fry anyway. There is no legitimate reason why we should still be feeding Africa more of our funds, needless to say increasing that amount. I'm all for charity, and I give to them every chance I get, but that's up for me, not the government to give.

CP

CP, with all due respect, that statement makes very clear you have no idea as to the scale of this issue.

Present-day Africa makes WWII look like a bad joke. Poverty in Africa has killed far more people than that war.

We are talking millions of people every year dropping dead, not from war but the effects of poverty.


That's ridiculous and you know it. Americans don't practice abstinence and neither does any other nation on the planet.

It's a worthy pipe-dream, but it's just that, a dream.

The spread of AIDS is Africa is rampant because of poor education and lack of preventative resources.

We spend plenty in this country trying to prevent AIDS, nothing comes free.


..and what are we, chopped liver. We are the most powerful nation noth in the UN and the world.

Deny all you want, but letting people die when you can do something about it is wrong.



There are hundreds of millions of legitimate reasons.

They're called "people"

So that means the government should take my money and gives it to someone else for me?


So it's ridiculous to think that a group of people essentially systematically killing themselves can....stop?


I don't think I've ever denied that...ever...But with that being said, we have over 120,000 troops in Iraq and thousands more in Afghanistan, perhaps the UN can live up to it's creed and help the suffering...They're responsible for the world's upkeep, not America.


Not to be offensive Turnea, because I respect you immensly, but spare me. This makes it sound like you honestly believe that I don't care about hundreds of millions of people...And that is simply the opposite of the truth. I never have said...in my life, that I don't believe in charity. I think charity is a beautiful thing, and, as I said, I give a decent amount of my own money to charity. It, however, is not the government's place to take my money and give it away to another country without my consent. I'm not cold and uncaring, but that quote certainly makes it look like you think so.

CP

Yes.

This is both the consensus of the American people (who by and large support foreign aid) and the precedent of every Western nation for thae past couple on centuries.

There are things the private sector cannot do well. They cannot run the military, they cannot build the roads, they cannot provide basic education.



Yes, it's ridiculous to expect any nation to stop having sex. It's not going to happen.


We are a founding member of the UN, not a separate body. The UN has already set aid goals we just happen to be one of the members no living up to them.

We aren't carrying our share in this area.


It's not cold and uncaring it is unrealistic.

Private charity cannot do what needs to be done.

We didn't wait for private charity to rebuild Paris, the government routinely ships out aid after a hurricane.

The problem is this is not simply a debate over abstract principles. Your "solution" doesn't work and would only result in the death of millions of people.

The point is the goal not the process. It really does matter if we win or lose in life, it's not a game.

turnea



What is it you think can be done?

I believe that the causes of poverty and death in Africa are explainable and correctable.

Just as investment in infrastructure, health, education, etc. have worked to reduce poverty in places like South Korea or India the same can work in Africa.

Money is often disregarded but the fact is everything costs and someone has to pay if needs are to be met.

Most poor Africans live in rural areas trying to scrape by sustenance farming soils that have been used for all the centuries of human existence and are, predictably, exhausted.

This is a familiar situations, just a few decades ago America and much of Europe was made up of agrarian societies barely scraping by.

In the West this was changed by the Industrial Revolution which gave people a much wider set of options to make a living.

Unfortunately, Africa without wide contacts with the outside world and under colonial domination never got this chance.

The governing powers were more interested in exploiting resources they could not duplicate themselves (gold, oil, etc.) and had no interest in educating or providing for Africans.

This has resulted in a huge chunk of the world, split along arbitrary boundaries made not to best provide for the people, but to placate competing empires.

We know how much trouble this caused in the Middle East and Africa caught it even worse. Many of these nations are landlocked and thus is is doubly difficult for any nascent industry to get good to the world market.

The last big problem is that much of Africa is tropical which pits them against the most dangerous animal on Earth, the mosquito.

Many more people die of malaria than AIDS every year.

All of these things can benefit from aid.

Landlocked countries need roads to ports in other countries. Poor rural farmers can be educated in better farming techniques and given access to chemical fertilizers to improve yields, malaria is preventable with mosquito nets and adequate housing. it's also treatable if only someone could provide the medicines.

Africa doesn't need any mysterious political fix, just the be caught up to the point that they can begin to save wealth and provide for themselves.

Aid is not the only answer, of course, but it is critical.

turnea, most of what you wrote there doesn't answer the question. I think we all know what the various causes of Africa's problems must be (whether we all agree on the scale of those problems is another matter) and we must surely get beyond the point of justifying or pointing the finger, or what ever it is is going on when people start 'explaining' why and what for.

What we surely need to address is what must we do now? Tony Blair and his friends in the music entertainment music have called for the release from debt of all African nations. I personally think thats a bit over the top since not all debt is accumulated for the same reasons, but, if the various rich nations of the planet were to forgive the African nations their debt, then I would welcome it regardless.

...but will debt relief make a difference? There are many people in the west who look upon Africa as being thoroughly corrupt, myself amongst them. I know of no African state that has ever demonstrated the ability to govern itself fairly and democratically. The argument has been made that African nations will never succeed as long as they are expected to conform to European idea's of democracy and law and I can see the legitimcay of such an argument.

All my life I've been reading and hearing stories of westerners going to Africa to build schools roads, wells, fields, to help make farms and factories, and the story always ends in tragedy. The locals destroy what is made. Militia's burn down the schools, governments are over thrown, elections are rigged, dictators evict farmers, poison the wells, close factories and torture journalists.

Is there any evidence at all that African nations will ever develop into equals to the Industrial nations?
You're asking for aid, money and investment. Why should any one invest in Africa? To make a point? To help people? How can you help people who can't, or won't help themselves?

For as long as Africa remains governed so badly then there can be no effective help. There has to be a change in Africa, from the ground up, or else all we ever do is cursed. All the aid programs, charity concerts, NGO's, programmes and projects have not stopped people from starving, year after year. How many times have we seen the same image of the starving African child, covered in flies and dust in its mothers fragile arms?
Nothing we've ever done, and nothing we can do will ever change that so long as that mother, and all the other Africa adults, keeps on having babies they cannot feed.

And why is their stupidty my problem?

It isn't. I, like most other people in Europe and the industrial world would love to put a stop to the plight of Africa. We'd all like to see them thrive and be at peace. But nothing we can do can change them. If anything, as things are now, we are but prolonging the inevitable.

Something has to change. Africa has to change. They have to work for their own future. They have to create their nation states, create their own democracies and laws and schools. We can't keep on doing this for them. The age of colonialism is past, gone. It can't be used as an excuse for not developing. As was pointed out earlier, the eastern European nations, most of whom were strangers to democracy, threw off the oppression of communism and embraced democracy.

Yes, they were lucky, they are in Europe and welcomed into the warmth and Africa doesn't have that chance. But, not having the chance doesn't change the fact that Africa HAS to learn to stand on its feet.

As long as Africa continues to lie in the dust and blame the past for the present, then regardless of whether or not they are right, nothing will change.

All the aid on Earth can't change Africa. Only the Africans can do that.

If the Jews can build a modern industrial state up from nothing, then so can the Africans. The method is there, the chances are there, the education and knowledge is there. Africa is rich in resources so the funding is there. All that is lacking is the will.

Your source is a little different than mine. See this Foreign Policy Article.



If you combine our private 0.16 percent with our public 0.16 percent you get 0.32 percent. (See Original Reference). That is still lower than several European countries even if you don't consider any private aid from them, which I grant is lower than U.S. private giving.

My purpose, however, wasn't to denigrate American giving. I was trying to point out that the the whole industrial world is remiss in helping the third world which it exploited for hundreds of years and continues to exploit. I agree that there are ways other than aid to help these countries but I think we disagree on what those ways are.

Fresh from the AP

Economist Blames Aid for Africa Famine By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago






Later, same article, Shikwati adds:


___

What it comes right down to is if you give a bum a fish they will stop fishing. We cut out all aid to Africa and they will probably be feeding themselves within a generation. I realize those pictures of the three year olds with distended bellies does appeal to your emotions. When you use your head you realize that all aid is doing is propagating misery.

I'm going to have to argue adimantly on one point, but agree on another. Frankly, it's sad to think that as human beings that we allow people to ever die these horrible deaths and sit idly by. In America, we drink $4 coffee from starbucks as we drive our air conditioned SUV's to work, leaving our 3 bedroom homes after watching the morning news to see the traffic report... wearing dry-cleaned slacks and comfortable shoes... while there are children living in tires and eating nearly nothing for days. I find this dispicable and that we should do something, simply as people, to forego this kind of suffering.

HOWEVER, I don't believe that it's the job of the American government to support these undertakings. I am confident that, as Americans, a large portion of us have the financial ability to assist (and probably more effectively) than any gov't undertaking ever would. Consider the red tape, the political process needed, and the mess our gov't makes out of any operation.

When we consider the American disposable income; the fact that we eat out, have more tv's, spend more money on clothing, and have more automobiles per capita than any other nation- it's easy to see that African aid doesn't have to come from Washington.

I don't think that the American tax payer, however, should be forced to spend their money abroad and allow the ineffeciency of government operations to squander aid funding. Let's all remember the last time we went to the deparment of motor vehicles, or maybe the last time you applied for a permit... why would African aid be more efficient??

However, I believe that if you took the time to visit a few churches in your own backyard... you'd see undertakings of this nature happen every day in the US... just out of the goodness of people's hearts as opposed to the US tax payer wallet...

Churches all across the nation aid Africa on a regular basis.
Read this little article about a church in Md...
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=8335

(yes- It's a Human Events piece, but the church did the good deed none the less)

Should US double its aid to Africa? Not without serious strings attached. I don't see any benefit to sending any more money to line the pockets of corrupt dictators or socialist-trained Marxists who will squander our "investments" in nonproductive ways.

The only way we should send one dime to that continent is if the host countries agree to become "empowerment" zones where economic and personal freedom is practiced and can be VERIFIED by objective observers.

Africa has been behind the world for generations. There is no real reason that it should be that way beyond politics. Genocide and famine (a weapon used for genocide) are the tools of Islamic and Tribal fanatics who should be confronted and wiped out.

We should champion human freedom on that continent and not sign up to any regime or country that does not provide it.

Frankly, we should then expand that practice to the entire world. The USA has a tremendous power of the purse. We should exploit it further than we have to date.

Will this "help" Blair? Why is this relevant? He just got reelected to a third term a few months ago, didn't he?

Absolutely, but it is critical to understand the cause of a problem in order to engineer a solution.

The causes I listed where not just complaints, they're are all practical issues which have practical solutions.


Our stupidity, speaking of the West as a whole is a big part of the problem.

These are people moif, living, thinking people. There habits are not stupid anymore than Europe's were when it had a similar standard of living (and it did for centuries).

People who have no access to healthcare and contraception will not stop having sex, it's true of Europeans as much as it is of Africans.

You who speaks of the immutability of human nature should know that very well.

This is not a permanent barrier to development anymore than when the US used to commonly be home to a fertility rate of six or seven in impoverished areas.

Education lowers fertility rates, it has in India, it did in Europe and the US, it has worked in parts of Africa with the funds to achieve it.


That's just silly... there is no people on Earth that lack the will to see their children grow up in a peaceful, prosperous country.

Will is a given.

The problem is a way, and that does not come as easy.

I am a rather practical person so I see the kind of sweeping generalizations and endless platitudes that are so popular on this topic as very tiresome.

Get some perspective, the transition Africa has to make is the same transition many other regions of the world have made before, it has nothing to do with the will to live well, that's human nature.

It has to do with the means to make it happen. Africans neither have those means or the money to buy them.


Again speaking from practicality this is an incomplete thought process.

If the DMV is so bad, why do we keep it?

Answer: The alternatives are worse.

Always consider the alternative, remember the process must serve the goal not the other way around.

Not believing in the government giving foreign aid is simply short-sighted. The alternative is relying on small, fragmented private organizations to manage projects the private sector could never manage domestically.

Basic education, roads and other infrastructure, basic healthcare.


We talk so much of Africans foolishness, but it seems to me people in the West aren't thinking.

Use your head!

What matters are the results, and Official Development Assistance has a better shot at results than private aid.

That's why it was used for the Marshall Plan.

That's backwards.

Politics is in large part a result of conditions. What matters are the tangibles. If people can grow more crops, they will.

If people can send their children to school, they will.

If people can recieve healthcare, they will.

Politics just follows the events on the ground.

I completely and utterly disagree. The reason that we have the DMV is because the process isn't privatized and lacks competition. The reason it takes an hour and 45 minutes to get your car registered, or a permit to get a pipe dug in the yard (true story) is because the government hasn't allowed the same funding to be distributed to competitive resources. This is a basic premise of small gov't vs big gov't... Consider the fact that a restaurant that gives sub-par service often will not succeed. Think about, maybe a plumbing company that arrives three days after your leak begins.... would they make it?? Of course not.

(**This is a sincere reason that the USSR and socialism caused unrest in the general Soviet populus...**)

why do we keep it???... Simply put, because the US has used goverment agencies to "police" these aspects of our society. What if we used the schooling approach? What if we allowed people to pay a premium to go somewhere else??
You legally have to send your children, just as you have to legally be licensed to drive motor vehicles... however, many people opt to send their kids to private schools even though they incur a cost. I surely would pay double to go somewhere that had an express lane for a gov't service... but as of now, that's not an option.

Your reference to the goverment being better equipped to manage projects than private and fragmented organizations, to coin your phrase, is also short-sighted.

The problem is that the US and western society has attempted to aid Africa for an untold period of time... in which time nothing has really gotten better; all the while our tax burden has grown exponentially. Why?? If this was a company and its job was to save the African indigent people, it would have failed miserably long ago.

I believe that even if it's one orphanage at a time, one food drop, one trip flush with doctors with medicine, at least we know where the money and food went. As of now, I can say that the gov't takes my tax money and sends it...ummm... well, heck- I have no clue.

What I'm saying is that at least private organizations know that their funding, for a fact, is going to those whom need it most as they deliver it personally.

Relying on the US gov't to funnel funding into African gov'ts has the propensity to end up in the bellies, garages, and homes of African politicians as opposed to the children that need it.

turnea, we all agree about the end goal - development of africa and its people's advancement. The dispute is about the means. Here is an article written just before the G8 which features, among others, a Kenyan economist asking us to please stop sending aid.



As a believer in free markets, I humbly disagree here turnea. A few more snippets from der spiegel.

Bill Gates has the right idea. I do some volunteer work for United Way and we treat service providers the same way, and have increased efficiencies, and this helped far more people vs. the previous non-business method.

The self-serving bureaucracies in the UN and NGOs are largely inept and many wouldn't survive for a day in the real world of business and economics. Let's scrap them completely for the sake of a continent.

I am increasingly thinking that by either arming the right people (Darfur) or by toppling the wrong people (Mugabe), eliminating farm subsidies and trade restrictions, completely privatizing aid, or a combination of all these things, we will be much more effective vs. simply sending more and more aid. However, I see no evidence that our governments have the will to do what is necessary and instead they will send more money.

I think this will serve to be a very enlightening analogy.

Apologies for sounding condescending (I'm not) but I think an important point is being missed here.

Think about what you are actually saying both in terms of forward implications, and backwards to the cause the the situation.

Why is the DMV not privatized?

or perhaps to make my point more clear.

How could the DMV be privatized?

Registration of vehicle is expressly a governmental concern. It serves both to document vehicles and their drivers thereby creating a database for referral in crimes or accidents and to garner funding in taxes for the roadways.

Where does the private sector fit in that scheme?

Shall we allow them to sell registration and pockets the profits (Hellooo corruption )?

Will the profits go directly into their banking?

Will they then be expected to build the roads?

Which roads?

If one thinks this can only lead to at least state-wide, if not regional monopolies.

If they have competitors that means there must be organization between the two to ensure standards and regulation by the government figure which company will build which roads.

I could go on but what happens is an inevitable explosion of bureaucracy caused by necessary dealing both between these companies and government (who have a vested interests in adequate transportation and record keeping) and between competing companies

What you would hope to streamline would instead become far more complicated.


We do, we call them private schools...

Some people will inevitably be unable to afford this premium, who pays for their education?

We are back to the taxpayers, or to poor ignorant kids roaming the streets are they used to do before compulsory education.


Not all projects, just some.

The fact is some sectors dealing with basic access necessarily require governmental input to avoid creating an underclass of deprived citizens. Other involve issue so large like this nations highway system a single private entity couldn't get a handle on them.

Private groups can build a bridge. They can't build an interstate system


Our society has been both inconsistent and unwise in its giving. We give more to Egypt to buy fighter jets than we do to Ethiopia to feed it's people.

Our giving plummeted in the 90's and is just now starting to dig itself back out.

Most of it is emergency aid, not development aid that can be expected to improve conditions.

How we give is as important as how much.


Unfortunately relying on private organization has accomplished even less.

They don't have the funds or the manpower to build ports of provide education for a whole region of a country.

I think you're not getting my point, which is the simplified backbone of Capitalism.

If privatization does not work, how do we maintain telephone and electric service?? These were originally regionalized monopolies, that have since been privatized. How do we keep healthcare?

The bottom line is that bureaucracy has never proven to be more effective than competition, which is exactly the argument that I make about private schooling; in which there are nearly evident statistics that children sent to private school are more apt to go to college, score higher on SAT/ACT tests, etc. People whom pay the premium expect more.

This applies to aid in general as well. What if we took the private funds, set goals, and allowed private companies to bid on these jobs??? Instead, we allow gov't agencies and international pork-belly operators (ie. Kofi Annan's kid) to steal our hard earned tax money....

Back to the DMV situation. Let's tie it to electricty, which is governed by Public Utilities Commissions across the nation. The electric and phone companies have to adhere to certain standards, fork-over a portion of their income, and submit the proper paperwork to the state. Isn't this exactly what the DMV does???

The DMV has to adhere to law, send in money, and submit proper paperwork. If we allowed "BOB JONES REGISTRATION SERVICE" to take on DMV activities, and charge whatever the economy would sustain, the gov't wouldn't lose money, still could require certain standards, and would lessen the burden on the customer's time and patience (for if BOB was as slow as the DMV, why would people pay more???)

Use car inspections as a good example. In many states (TX included), this is privatized. However, somehow the gov't gets what it needs from the deal... hmmm....

If the gov't said; we need goals x, y, and z accomplished in Africa, I would venture to guess that in most cases companies would save the American tax payer money, and we'd have someone to hold accountable.

Right now, we are still paying the money, but getting no bang for our buck. This seemingly isn't going to change unless we decide to make it change by electing people whom aren't going to perpetuate this cycle of inefficiency... or conversely take matters into our own hands, and provide the aid ourselves...

But I guess providing the aid ourselves would be more than talking points wouldn't it...!!!

Again this has to do with basic services versus luxuries.

Even now the government must foot the bill for those unable to afford these services.

Understand that in Africa that means pretty much everyone.

User fees are entirely unrealistic in impoverished countries they are called poor because they have no money.



Those who can afford private schools can also afford other advantages which help create this disparity.

I've seen highly efficient public schools and horribly run private schools. This is not a hard and fast rule.

You are falling prey to oversimplification here.

Private > Public is not the answer to every problem.

You saw in the DMV example how the private sector would horribly botch that concern. Roads are unprofitable without user fees which removes the incentive to build.

Yet people have to drive.

Instate user fees for all roads and some people will inevitably be unable to pay, leaving them unable to drive, which counts them right out of any hopes to escape poverty.

This is even worse in Africa where poverty rates are off the charts.

Remember what we are talking about here. Private versus public aid.

A private charity group can be rich, but they don't have a trillion dollar budget like the US government.


"Took the private funds"?

What do you mean by that? The private funds are in the hands of the private organizations now but the jobs aren't happening.

They simply don't have the billions to spend like the government does


Oh, you mean contracting out with gov't funds?

Well we already do that.

I thought you were talking about getting the funds from private donors, which ain't gonna happen.

Again, this is going on as we speak.

Private groups could fund development anytime they wanted, but they aren't doing it.

Aid is not a profitable business. Building a road for people to poof to pay tolls gets you no where.

The government is the only sector with the incentive.

I don't think that I'm oversimplifying anything here, yet believe that you're arguing my point non-objectively.

First of all, "user fees" and your argument of poverty stricken people not being able to escape poverty without a motor vehicle or the ability to pay is more than absurd. There are a large number of poeple whom don't drive and are not poverty stricken. (Consider large metropolitan areas such as NYC, Chicago, or DC) This doesn't even broach the idea that many people whom are below the poverty level own legally licensed motor vehicles. Also- I have no idea what you're talking about when you say that "You saw in the DMV example how the private sector would horribly botch that concern. Roads are unprofitable without user fees which removes the incentive to build. "

Frankly- the DMV doesn't work efficiently because they have no incentive to do so. This is really where we are with foreign aid....the goverment has basically engaged in "flag waiving" for the past 15 years; getting little to nothing actually done.

Secondly, you never addressed my pertinent analogy that in many states "inspection" stickers are given by private companies, but regulated by the government. Why couldn't this happen with foreign aid??? (or the DMV for that matter... I'm attempting to keep this thread on track) The inspection sticker process is as efficient as any in the motor-vehicle related process. (Frankly, a whole lot more efficient)

What you're also insinuating is that the DMV is more essential than electric companies???? You said, and I quote; "Again this has to do with basic services versus luxuries"; when replying to the notion that electric and telephone companies have successfully gone private. In terms of life function, the dmv is far less necessary.

That being said, what you're negating is the idea that capitalism does increase efficiency and productivity in many matters. It actually nearly always increases efficiency. Non-profit companies nationwide are adopting profitable business strategies every day.... basically because it's the only way that their organizations will remain solvent. The US gov't, however, has the ability to spend endlessly without consequence.

What I propose as a solution in this matter; is that if the US government must spend tax dollars on African aid, that the aid is undertaken by individual companies whom have an interest in getting the job done effectively.

However- if it were up to me, I'd completely ax this portion of the federal government and allow the tax payer to make the decisions about whom benefits from our charitable spending... afterall, that's what it is, isn't it???

You say that "individual efforts" don't have the capacity to do the good that the federal budget does, but you never address the idea that the federal budget is entirely funded by the US taxpayer. Either way... it couldn't be more inefficient than the way it's being done now, and I wouldn't be forced to engage in congressional and presidential "flag waiving" while building African military forces and buying diplomats Land Rovers...

1. Remember we are talking about African poor, the vast majority of whom do not live in urban areas and have no access to mas transportation.

Remember as well that even mass transportation is actually as privatized as the power companies. The bus costs money that people don't have in Africa.

2. The government has funded military dictatorships to garner and ignored infrastructure in poor nations. It has consistently given less than was promised.

That is is source of the failure.


..and how would one do this with foreign aid.

There are no "stickers" to be handed out. Aid is not about documentation, it is far more complicated that the DMV.


Many, yes. Not all.

The private sector is not a cure-all it has been at work for decades in Africa and the result has only been a concentration of wealth into a few urban areas.


That is simply unrealistic.

It is being done were it is possible. The government does contract out on certain projects.

On others it is simply not possible. So what is a company builds private schools in Mozambique. The people are already dirt poor, why would they have extra money to send kids to school.

If the private sector can provide basic infrastructure without user fees, I'm all for it.

But they can't.


Where back to that backwards thinking.

I have my attention to the goal which is alleviating poverty.

The private sector cannot do that alone.

I don't really care how Americans give as much as whether it can do they job.

We don't force our own school children to rely on the private sector.

We shouldn't experiment with kids who needs the help far more.

turnea, for once we agree on this topic. When my sister was in the Eighth grade, her school did this program where African children would be brought to America for an entire semester of proper education. The crux of the issue is that the children needed room and board. So it was pitched: "By the goodness of your heart, an African child can experience what real education feels like." We took in a girl my sisters age from Kenya and the little amounts of basic, rudimentary things she did not know was shocking.

Education in Africa cannot even be called education. Its purpose is mainly to give them a grasp of their own language and perhaps some basic English, how to count and how to identify things they were likely to come across in everyday life. In rural Africa education must be provided for by outside sources. They have lost an entire generation already, the elders are sick and dying by the hundreds, perhaps the thousands, when all is said and done their shall be no one but those we are denying proper education today.

How will they effectively lead their nations without the skills to know more than an American-born pre-schooler? Education to Africa is so important, to deny them that is to deny them everything.


I almost have myself convinced we need to increase foreign aid simply for educational-proposes... In the words of Yoda: "meditate on this, I will."

Here we are.... stuck at the basic premise of liberal vs. conservative!!

Let's put this into usable and easily understood/quantifiable terms. I'm not sure what you consider to be a usable denomination of money in reference to aid, but I'd like to make an analogy.

Consider a round number of 500,000 motor vehicles in the state of TX (of which we all know is extremely conservative.)
If it costs an average of $45 to get your car inspected in TX, multiplied by 500,000 vehicles, the state earns 22,500,000 just off of those "stickers".
Is 22 Million dollars an easily usable number??? How many nations would love that $22M???

It's not stickers, but you're thinking bureaucratically. How much money does the state save by "farming it out" to individual companies? Consider that it takes nearly no employess (figuratively), no buildings, no overhead, etc to keep the state vehicle inspection system running. So, let's say that the inspection stations garner a fee of $15 for an inspection that takes no capital expenditure and little labor; let's use 15 minutes as an example. That's a clean $30 profit for the state, the driver is in and out quickly, they can go somewhere locally, and the process still puts $30 in the state's pocket.

What you're suggesting is that aid functions couldn't be "farmed-out" to private organizations. Why couldn't private organizations do it?? What about the Red Cross?? They're international aren't they??
Why couldn't we give the RC a large portion of our budget and ask them to handle tasks that we'd like to get accomplished? ? I imagine that because they have the infrastructure, experience, and aptitidude that they could get the same jobs done for far less... all the while actually allowing the tax payer to hold a private organization accountable.

As it stands; to make another analogy; what we're doing is allowing the gov't to build inspection stations in every little po-dunk TX town, staff them, pay the applicable rent and bldg insurance, pay workers benefits and direct labor costs, while it surely isn't effective or profitable.

What I'm saying is that the gov't could write a check to someone that would actually get the job done effectively as opposed to flushing our money straight down the toilet...

My references to mass transportation, the poor and indigent, and the DMV are simply easily usable analogies that we all can relate to. The bottom line is that American foreign aid is a bureaucratically driven flag-waiving function that resolves little. Consider the legacy of the Clinton administration (this isn't partisan politics, yet Clinton was the last president...). We didn't go to Rwanda when we should've, left Somalia high and dry, and spent HUGE amounts of money in the Balkans while people in the Congo could've used our support. (Not talking about military $$$... but humanitarian aid). All of these efforts were either carried out by American troops (of which are neither trained humanitarian aid workers nor the most efficient means by which to do this) or in the form of checks in which case we cannot control the expenditure on the backside.

Should the US double it's spending in Africa??? Heck no. We should allow professional Americans to handle the job of getting aid to these people efficiently. When you consider that humanitarian aid takes a large amount of logistical support, staffing, and overall capital expenditure- it's easy to see where money and effective funding can be lost.

Economist Blames Aid for Africa Famine



With everything in life, when we make an investment we have to have a plan in order to see that what we invested in becomes a success. The problem that I see with the American Aid packages is that we are just handing out money to whoever needs it without setting strict guidelines and helping the people along the way to improve their respective nations. We cannot expect governments that ran their nation's economies into the ground to put out an effective strategy at improving their infrastructure. Also, there are many corrupt regimes in Africa who never intend to help their people in the first place.

I support foreign aid to an extent because when the United States invests money into a nation. they are hoping for improved conditions, namely economic ones where trade and consumerism benefits American interests. Thats why we give foreign aid...not for the goodwill of humanity. But in order for the aid to be truly affective...the US and other nations must work with the African governments to spend that money wisely and truly improve the way of life of the African people.