Dambisa Moyo, Author of “Dead Aid”, explains how in aiding the African countries, we have actually hurt them in the process. Many of these points she explains include the fact that since the 1970s the percentage of Africans living on a dollar a day has risen from 10% to 70%, 60% of the African population are now 24 and under, and that the income per capita has fallen dramatically. Moyo states that Africa has become “addicted to aid” meaning that most of the governments’ money is from aid. However none of this money made it to the people causing unrest and coups throughout Africa; being that the only way to acquire a lot of money is to be in control of the government. She also states that the African governments are not acting on behalf of their …show more content…
Many of the western countries are pouring money into “government to government” packages. One other thing that is being done is, mosquito nets are being given to the people by western nations in order to help stop the spread of malaria, while good in concept, this means that the mosquito net supplier in Africa will be put out of business. Moya explains certain ways to “fix” these issues and “put a dent in poverty.” She starts off explaining that China has been coming to African countries to do business and not acting out of pity for them and building roads, ports, and railways. China has also invested in resources, banks, agriculture and many other African businesses; causing an increase in income to the poor and stopping those people from choosing the other options. Africans also need to look into alliances with countries that are interested in the goods and services being produced by Africans. Moya states that another way to help the African people would be to provide a small loan to get the poor entrepreneurs “off their feet” and jump start their businesses and create more
“Africa is failing to keep up with population growth not because it has exhausted its potential, but instead because too little has been invested in reaching that potential.” Paarlberg backs this claim with evidence that India’s food issue was solved with foreign assistance in development and offers that the solution to Africa’s food shortage is also development and farm modernization endorsed by foreign aid.
The impact of the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by International Financial Intuitions (IFIs) such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the developing countries of Africa has led to the destruction of Africa’s social sectors and has handicapped Africa in its fight with poverty, the AIDS pandemic, and keeping children in school.
Every year, more and more money is donated to Africa to promote democracy in order to get rid of the powerful coups in many countries through out the continent. While the coups are declining and democratic governments are being established, the economic growth and development of Africa is not anywhere it should be considering the abundant natural resources and coastline that the continent possesses. Even though countries, like the United States of America, donate millions of dollars they are a large reason why Africa is underdeveloped economically. The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade is the most devastating event in the history of the world. Nearly 14,000,000 men, women, and children were displaced, sold into slavery, and killed by the trade routes.(
Probably one of the most recognized events of the 1980’s is the collapse of communism but first it is important to look at events that leading up to this collapse to provide a better context of events post collapse. One very significant period of time was the mid 1980’s when it seemed all eyes were on Africa in its entirety. The release of the song “We are the World” in 1985, the “Break the Chains” campaign of 1987, and the focus on the influential figure, Desmond Tutu, during 1986 are all examples of how the United States and other countries were focused on providing aid to africa. In her book, Enlightened Aid: U.S. Development as Foreign Policy in Ethiopia, Amanda McVety explains this aid and how United Sates foreign aid was a cold war project, “It offered a Cold War weapon that was not a weapon and promised peace through peaceful me... ...
... aid across the world. As we have established that we do have an obligation to redistribute globally in a cosmopolitan perspective, distributing wealth however we may need to rethink what the best assistance is. Amaryta Sen conveys that before sending aid to the third world state, we would need to fully understand the limitation of freedom in the country. Redistributing wealth to global countries requires it to be evaluated by the economic shortage that they are suffering and to see whether it will be efficient in the long run. The more effective ways to contribute would be to international relief agencies or NGO’s that would pursue international development projects to help those in poverty or the alternative option by Tom Campbell’s idea of a ‘Global humanitarian levy’ which suggests a more appropriate taxation on all citizens to collectively aid those in need.
Focusing on different perspectives, Charles Kenny’s “Haiti Doesn’t Need Your Old T-Shirt” and Tate Watkins’s “How Oliberte, the Anti-TOMS, Makes Shoes and Jobs in Africa” both discuss the ways to help the poor. Kenny pays attention to the way of donation while Watkins cares about the enterprises’ behaviors toward the poor. By comparing these two essays, we can come up with a better solution for helping the poor---giving loans. Giving loans to the companies in poor countries can boom indigenous economy, making up the shortcomings of other solutions.
As a child growing up in America, we have all been taught by our parents, teachers, and adults in general to lend a helping hand to others when we can as if it is a part of our social responsibilities. Often politically driven agendas lead the Unites States to help other countries in various capacities, this however isn’t always requested by these countries. The perception is that we are fulfilling some moral, universal responsibility. This isn’t how this behavior is often viewed from the other perspective. There are certainly times when this aid is both needed and appreciated. This can also be a very destructive process for a number of reasons if there are cultural boundaries crossed. When one country imposes itself within the borders of another regardless of the reasons, there is an impact felt from the those in power all the way down to lowest parts of their society. Expectations of repayment for help that was not requested to begin with, can
The United States is one of the leading suppliers of Foreign Aid in the world, and even though the US gives billions, European countries give aid money to the same countries, this causes many areas of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to be almost fully dependent on foreign aid. This means that without aid from other countries, they would not be able to support themselves at all. Foreign aid is meant to help countries that are struggling with civil unrest, disease, or natural disasters, it is not meant to help keep the country out of debt, but that is where more and more of the US and The EU’s foreign aid budget is going. The question is, does all this money actually go where it is intended? It should be going towards the government and to help the people, but in many cases, the countries government does not have the resources to properly track the flow of money. The countries in most cases have poor infrastructure and corrupt or oppressive leaders, not always at a national level, but in the towns and cities. So this means there is almost no way to oversee the flow of foreign aid through the country, all we can see is that their situations aren't getting any better and the countries are still impoverished. If this is the case, where are the millions of dollars going? Countries like Afghanistan and Iraq receive the most money from American foreign aid and European aid, yet they are still under oppressive governmental rule and there is still an extreme difference between the rich and poor. Garrett Harding’s theory of “Lifeboat Ethics” exemplifies how not giving aid to others will allow the strongest of society to thrive, while teaching the impoverished to help themselves. He believes that giving aid to poor countries will only make ...
Accessed 06 March 2005. 11. Garten, Jeffrey E, “Don't Just Throw Money At The World's Poor” BusinessWeek, March 7, 2005.
The main massage of this book is that Western aid programs in Africa do not work. Moyo, seeks to account for this failure by trying to answer the question of why most sub-Saharan countries ‘flounder in a seemingly never-ending cycle of corruption, disease, poverty, and aid-dependency’. This is the reality, Moyo, concludes after more than one trillion dollars have been transferred from rich countries to African countries over the past sixty years. This aid...
They adapt to local conditions and don’t grow as planned. Chapter 4 and 5 focuses on the type of governments poor countries have. Most poor countries fail due to corruption in their governments. That’s where the richer countries tend to help by sending aid. But this flops again because the richer countries send things the poor don’t need.
In Monika Krause’s, The Good Project, it is argued that humanitarian organizations present a desire to help people in need of assistance, but their underlying goal is on creating profitable, sustainable projects to present to donors. Krause presents the work of NGOs as commodities, things that are sought after and can be “bought” or “sold” to donors and the beneficiaries, the people in need. In turn, because donors are choosing where to place their money, the beneficiaries become commodified in the decision of how they will receive the project and if they are beneficial to serve. Utilizing her argument, I will apply it to the proposal presented by Malaria No More. Throughout their proposal there is evidence of beneficiaries becoming commodities
This is in part due to these countries no longer wishing to do business with them and they will create their own internal collective organization to help each other. This will lead to “Western industries will quickly be deprived of their overseas markets. Then the monopolies will realize that their true interests lie in giving aid to underdeveloped countries”. The author’s final message is for these Western powers to use their wealth to help people across the
Africans should not blame Mr. Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain, The World Bank, George W. Bush, the president of the United States of America, any western developed country or the United Nations for attempting to redress through the Commission for Africa report, and decades of imbalances and injustices visited on Africans by both African rulers and their western collaborators. It is this callous and wicked conspiracy that has brought the beautiful and virgin continent on her knees, largely impoverishing its people and turned them into beggars, crying babies and laughing stocks of the global community.
At the height of the conflict, about one third of the country's people were displaced. The chronic financial crisis became severe and the economy was close to collapsing. Poverty has become deeper in the rural areas of the Congo where poor people are now powerless, vulnerable and isolated. This is a big contributor to the poverty Congo is experiencing today, because little has improved and won’t improve until these problems are fixed. Overall, Central Africa’s dependence on agriculture could improve the wellbeing of the people but a long history of corruption, violence, and prevalent transportation issues have hindered an improvement in the economy resulting in poverty in the region.