Today, I bring you two articles by prominent Africans that basically say:
Dear G8 nations,
Please stop sending us aid! Not that we aren’t grateful for what you’ve given over the years, but we are starting to think that we are coming out on the short end of the stick.
For example, subsidized food is great — that is, when it actually gets to the people who need it instead of being hijacked by greedy dictators or sitting on a dock rotting or being withheld for favors — but our farmers can’t compete with “almost free.” Famine relief is driving them out of business!
And AIDS. It turns out that when you actually run tests, it isn’t anywhere near as prevalent as we thought. We have discovered the hard way what you learned over a decade ago, you can’t tell whether someone has AIDS from looking at them and hearing them cough. It turns out that Malaria is a much bigger problem.
You know what you can do? Get more nations in on debt relief. And don’t erect artificial barriers to African immigrants in your countries that want to send money home to their families. And help us get our education infrastructure in order so we can make the best of our resources and tell when our government is the problem.
Thanks!
Africa