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Gerald Kirangama

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Africa does not need any more aid to develop, it needs moral support and guidance to harness her resources to develop

Since the days of colonialism, western countries have always had an obligation to support former colonial territories in term of development. Colonial governments set up social, political and economic structures.
However, after independence, we were not trained how to manage and develop the resources we had.
They have injected billions of dollars funding various development projects. Irrespective of all this, African counties especially sub- saran Africa, has gotten even worse. Corruption and mismanagement of public funds, assets and resources is becoming the order of the day.
The reason for this is partly because we are just given resources whose value we do not know because we do not work for them. Recently, the US ambassador to Uganda said they would massively cut on direct budgetary support to the country in order to look at financial crisis back home. As humans, we mostly look after what we value, and we mostly value what we work hard for.
And i totally agree. What do you say about this?

Topics: Africa Aid and Development Foreign Aid
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    Zachary Perry

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    Dec 23 2011: I think that the best outside help Africa could receive is from profitable enterprises rather than non-profit organizations. What if a large corporation were to outsource labor to Africa and set up "factory towns" that put locals to work and sold them needed goods and provided affordable housing? There would be microcosm economies that could be fairly stable unto themselves.

    • Caitlin Butler

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      Dec 23 2011: Thats basically what Invisible Children do. Though they do not provide housing, they do provide jobs and scholarships for those who want to gain an education.
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        Zachary Perry

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        Dec 23 2011: Interesting. I need to look into IC. One thing that I thing could also help poor African communities is to have conditional scholarships. I was thinking something akin to a military ROTC program where a student is given a scholarship to, for example become a doctor, but along with that education is required to spend a given set of years working in his community. I think this would prevent them from learning a skill and taking it elsewhere, merely sending money home instead of contributing that skill to the improvement of their entire home communities.
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      Karina Eisner 10+

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      Jan 6 2012: Turning Africa into "factory towns"????

      What?

      There is surely a solution, I believe is underway, and it is coming from Africa itself!
      Nelson Mandela, Arch. Desmond Tutu, and others are working together to come up with ideas that keep intact their traditions and dignity while insuring long term sustainability of the action plan. (look into The Elders)

      A wonderful example of a recent meaningful, transforming, and effective socio-economic solution is in Bangladesh: the Grameen bank created by M. Yunis, who won the Nobel Prize for his efforts.
      And guess what -women were the key to his plan! Watch this video directly from the Nobel site http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=146
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        Zachary Perry

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        Jan 6 2012: i'd just like to point out that the industrial revolution drove economic growth in the east and the west. why not africa? a steady income leads to steady living and the ability to improve upon your life rather than surviving day to day...
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          Karina Eisner 10+

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          Jan 7 2012: Yes, Zachary it did.

          And then what happened?

          I mean, after the boom of the "global" and unlimited exploitation of natural resources, after the elimination of small family business replaced by large corporations, after few got very rich and many became locked into the new massive lower class: the factory worker (oh, wait, there was also the coal miner!), after the most pristine skies of the world become clogged with smog, and whole local, indigenous cultures were wiped out in the name of “progress”.
          What happened to quality of life and long lived traditions when the need for workers drove many to a few cities causing quick, indiscriminate urban growth -do slums, bubonic pest, women working, children sweatshops, unemployment of skilled workers, and social unrest ring a bell?

          Do we want the same for our vibrant, diverse, culturally wealthy African brothers?

          If history lessons are not learned, they are bound to be repeated.

        • Gerald Kirangama

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          Jan 7 2012: I do agree with Karina, yes we need development, but at what expense, there MUST be certain elements of society we cannot give away in the name of development. Our environment, culture, history and our heritage. Because if we do, we will be destroying the world for the next generation. Compare Western countries with Japan and China, which path of development would you rather take?

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