What will be the long term effects of Live8?

[Accounting Troll]

Will it just result in some token government initiatives over the next few months? Or will there be a long-term improvement in the quality of life for people living in Africa?

[FullAuto]

Let's face it, if we really gave a toss, we'd cancel Third World debt.

[Solitaire]

That debt could have been cancelled a hundred times already, and let's face it - even if it were cancelled another one would be run up soon enough, and Africa would still be dependant on foreign aid. I'm a very cynical kind of guy but I really think many of the artists were there for the good publicity it earned them, I can't see many of them still promoting the cause over the next few months (there are exceptions of course - Geldof, Cold Play seme prety active in that area, those sorts of guys) it reeks of falsness to me.

[FullAuto]

Revenue generated by charities? Hundred million every few years, at best, say.

Third weld debt is in the billions. So, actually, I think it'd make more of a difference then letting media leeches like effing Coldplay et al sell a few more records off the back of our guilty consciences.

[Slaughter]

If all those people protesting in anticipation of the G8 meeting would do a decent days work and give the money to Africa, something good might actually come out of it. Instead they run around for days waving banners...

[Bomb Bloke]

Live8? Can't say I've heard of it before. It says a lot that the introduction of a political section marks my first update on current affairs in an age, I was beginning to think there weren't any.

 

Do the African leaders live in poverty?

[FullAuto]

I very much doubt it, BB. But that's the way most, if not all governments work.

[Bomb Bloke]

I feel like I've just been told Santa doesn't exist.

 

...

 

Gah, Pete's mangled the smily panel. *re-adds the sad smily*

 

But seriously though, who's behind Live8? I've never heard of it. Is it charity or goverment funded? If goverment, then which?

 

Edit: Garh! Sad smily was entirely wrecked!

[Carlos the Jackal]

The African people are always going to be living under the shadow of hunger, oppresion and ignorance as long as they live under the rule of corrupt governments and brutal militias. Throwing more money and aid at the problem is a band-aid. Regional stability and reform needs to be imposed and the African peoples given basic freedoms before we'll see real improvement.

 

It's going to take either bullets or the threat of bullets to change Africa, not more U.N boxed grain for militias to horde, and not more funds for corrupt governments to use to prop up their regimes with black-market tanks and old Soviet-block rifles.

[FullAuto]

People don't usually respond well to threats, and somehow I don't think rattling the sabre will get the job done.

Thousands of soldiers die (on BOTH sides), none of whom have anything to do with the dictator, they're just trying to support their families. After a successful campaign (which is a big assumption in itself), you then have to occupy and hold the country against insurgents, who either resent outside interference or were supporters of the old regime. Apart from that, you've got every other country close by wondering if they're going to be next, and either openly opposing you or funneling materiel and men to support resistance.

Not a good day out.

[Carlos the Jackal]

I'm not proposing an occupation of the African continent. A more proactive U.N taskforce with the powers to actively deter the deliberate targeting or genocide of civilians, and ensure effective food distribution, combined with a zealous oversight commitiee ensuring that aid money given to existing governments is spent where its needed rather than on arms would be a damn good start.

[FullAuto]

And will never happen. The UN is effectively hamstrung.

[Carlos the Jackal]

And will never happen.  The UN is effectively hamstrung.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Then let's sit back and watch Africa fail for a few more decades.

[Slaughter]

Agreed Carlos.

 

Edit: That was in reply to what UN should do

[FullAuto]

That's exactly what we're going to do!

[Accounting Troll]

It's not just the dictators and the food shortages. We haven't done anything about the HIV pandemic in Africa. It now compares with the black death outbreak that wiped out a third of the population of Europe in the mid-14th century.

[Carlos the Jackal]

We haven't done anything about the HIV pandemic in Africa. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The fact that African leaders maintain that there is NOT an AIDS pandemic hampers our efforts in cleaning up other people's problems.

 

Also:

 

https://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4651/200506173me.gif

[Carlos the Jackal]

Just to kick this debate back into gear and add something new, a Kenyan ecconomics expert has requested the ENDING of African aid.

 

Interview here

 

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

 

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.

 

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.

 

SPIEGEL: Would Africa actually be able to solve these problems on its own?

 

Shikwati: Of course. Hunger should not be a problem in most of the countries south of the Sahara. In addition, there are vast natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds. Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either.

 

SPIEGEL: But AIDS didn't exist at that time.

 

Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

 

SPIEGEL: And why's that?

 

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

 

SPIEGEL: The Americans and Europeans have frozen funds previously pledged to Kenya. The country is too corrupt, they say.

 

Shikwati: I am afraid, though, that the money will still be transfered before long. After all, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the Europeans' devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason. It makes no sense whatsoever that directly after the new Kenyan government was elected -- a leadership change that ended the dictatorship of Daniel arap Mois -- the faucets were suddenly opened and streams of money poured into the country.

 

SPIEGEL: Such aid is usually earmarked for a specific objective, though.

 

Shikwati: That doesn't change anything. Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: "The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it."

 

SPIEGEL: In the West, there are many compassionate citizens wanting to help Africa. Each year, they donate money and pack their old clothes into collection bags ...

 

Shikwati: ... and they flood our markets with that stuff. We can buy these donated clothes cheaply at our so-called Mitumba markets. There are Germans who spend a few dollars to get used Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen jerseys, in other words, clothes that that some German kids sent to Africa for a good cause. After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany -- for three times the price. That's insanity ...

 

SPIEGEL: ... and hopefully an exception.

 

Shikwati: Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They're in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria's textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.

 

SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn't that qualify as successful development aid?

 

Shikwati: In Germany's case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.

 

SPIEGEL: If they did that, many jobs would be immediately lost ...

 

Shikwati: ... jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality. Jobs with foreign aid organizations are, of course, quite popular, and they can be very selective in choosing the best people. When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it's unacceptable that the aid worker's chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently -- and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That's just crazy!

 

SPIEGEL: The German government takes pride in precisely monitoring the recipients of its funds.

 

Shikwati: And what's the result? A disaster. The German government threw money right at Rwanda's president Paul Kagame. This is a man who has the deaths of a million people on his conscience -- people that his army killed in the neighboring country of Congo.

 

SPIEGEL: What are the Germans supposed to do?

 

Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

 

Interview conducted by Thilo Thielke

 

Translated from the German by Patrick Kessler

[FullAuto]

I'm not particularly surprised by that. I always thought aid was a bloody waste or just self-perpetuating.

[Accounting Troll]

What annoys me is that some modern African politicans blame European colonialism for the current problems of their countries.

 

However, European rule resulted in the building of a transport infrastructure and created an international demand for produce from African countries. Most African countries were well placed to make a lot of money from exporting minerals, and cash crops such as tobacco to markets in Europe and the Americas. It is not the fault of the West if their leaders were too corrupt or incompetant to take advantage of this legacy.

 

Look at Nigeria. It has massive mineral resources and lots of fertile land. Nigeria has a massive income from oil exports and is a member of OPEC. Yet most of its citizens live in grinding poverty because the country has been plundered by corrupt officials for decades. The current president of Nigeria is trying to stamp out corruption, but it has become so endemic that all he has acheived is to stop airport customs officials openly asking Western businesspeople for bribes.

 

As for the slave trade, European, American and Arab traders brought prisoners of war from local rulers in Africa. They rarely bothered with direct raids on African villages. In other words, Africans are just as responsible as the West for the slave trade and the human misery it caused.

 

Instead of merely sending out more money to Africa, what if we were to send out engineers and teachers? A country with a well educated population and a decent transport and health infrastructure will be well placed to cope in the global economy. Some of the corrupt regimes won't like it because their people might cotton on to the rackets their leaders have been running over the years. In that case, the corrupt African leaders will have relieved the West of any moral obligation to help their people.

[FullAuto]

I think we're running low on teachers as it is.

[Accounting Troll]

Only because they get into trouble if they give a disruptive pupil a good clip round the ear. They used to think of that as the biggest perk of the job

[sir-roosio]

As for the slave trade, European, American and Arab traders brought prisoners of war from local rulers in Africa. They rarely bothered with direct raids on African villages. In other words, Africans are just as responsible as the West for the slave trade and the human misery it caused.

 

And may people forget (or don't get taught as it's not politicaly correct) that african slave ships used to clear out whole villages on the Southern English and Irish coasts in the 15th - 18th centuries.

 

However, European rule resulted in the building of a transport infrastructure and created an international demand for produce from African countries. Most African countries were well placed to make a lot of money from exporting minerals, and cash crops such as tobacco to markets in Europe and the Americas. It is not the fault of the West if their leaders were too corrupt or incompetant to take advantage of this legacy.

 

Another fact that people handily forget or don't get taught. The British army never had anywhere near enough troops to control the Empire thorugh force. The British Empire was mostly controlled by trade, the promise of wealth and development kept most subjects in line leaving the army with enough men to cope with any small uprisings that happened (unless they allied with the French, pah, of all the low down dirty tricks!)

[Accounting Troll]

I think a bit of national pride was also involved in the effort to air-brush the Barbary Coast pirates out of history. Most maritime European nations ended up paying tribute to the pirates so their shipping and coastal towns would be spared. Even the United States was forced into a somewhat one sided treaty with the Barbary Coast pirates when it gained its independence. It took a generation before the US navy was strong enough to be able to give adequate protection against the barbary Coast pirates. No nation likes to remember the humiliating concessions it has had to make.

[sir-roosio]

I think a bit of national pride was also involved in the effort to air-brush the Barbary Coast pirates out of history.  Most maritime European nations ended up paying tribute to the pirates so their shipping and coastal towns would be spared.  Even the United States was forced into a somewhat one sided treaty with the Barbary Coast pirates when it gained its independence.  It took a generation before the US navy was strong enough to be able to give adequate protection against the barbary Coast pirates.  No nation likes to remember the humiliating concessions it has had to make.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thats their name! i couldnt remember it for the life of me!

 

and too true bout national pride! take the French, as far as their concerned they've never fought in a war ever, hoest!