Africa and aid: read this
Came across this illuminating chart which shows the march of freedom from colonialism, war and dictatorship in Africa. It’s based on this spreadsheet, which details the history country by country, year by year.
The blog that contains it, by Rav Casley Gera, is a font of thoughtful comment, info and links on the subject of development and aid in Africa. For now, he appears to like Bono’s friend Jeffrey Sachs rather more than I do. Unlike Sachs, I don’t accept that Hayek was wrong, and I’m more of a mind with William Easterly. His Planners vs Searchers speech (PDF) to the Asian Development Bank last year is required reading, in my humble view. Dani Rodrik has some views on Easterly, with feedback from Easterly himself. Sachs versus Easterly is a fascinating debate, well worth following. Speaking of Bono, this fellow isn’t too keen on his sanctimonious saviour image either. Go on, take the afternoon off. Read. Enjoy. I did.
Africa is getting all of this attention for one reason and one reason only. Its natural resources and I don’t mean its people.
China is exploring for oil in the Sudan. Everyone is interested in Africa. Didn’t Bush and the vile evil neo cons use humanitarin reasons as excuses for invading iraq and destroying its infrastructure, bombing its people who could not defend themselves from us, bombing its museums and libraries.
If I were you I would attempt to get attention OFF of Africa.
Not quite. While China’s newfound interest in Africa may be due to its desperate need to secure guaranteed supplies of natural resources, the motivations of everybody else are a lot more complicated.
While the US is also seeking to gain more of its oil from west Africa, its primary focus on the continent is security. More specifically, it wishes to prevent al-Qaeda and similar groups from establishing a foothold in Africa while simultaneously stabilising Africa’s countries so as to prevent such radicalism from taking root. This is a good thing, since it means they’re willing to give us money for peacekeeping and train African soldiers to be more effective and less brutal, while the enhanced security encourages development. Logically, there’s simply no way the intended US involvement in Africa could be anything less than beneficial to the continent’s people.
Finally, there’s the moral aspect. As Live 8 and other movements show, there’s widespread sympathy in the West for Africa’s plight and its lack of development. This moral concern is the reason for the West’s pressure on Sudan over Darfur and the presence of AU and UN peacekeepers in the country, rather than any concern over resources or security.
Combined, these three developments are actually good for Africa, not the other way around. The increased attention means the provision of greater resources to stabilise, support and invest in Africa. Even the attention of China, often feared because of its lack of concern over human rights, is positive because it is forced to build expensive infrastructure in order to gain the favour of its suppliers. Make no mistake, if Africa’s leaders are smart, the next decade represents the biggest opportunity for proper development and advancement that the continent has seen in a very long time.
As for your comments on Iraq, you’re more than a little off. The US did not bomb Iraq’s museums and libraries, and it destroyed very little of its infrastructure (far more was destroyed by retreated Republican Guard units). Moreover, humanitarian reasons were never the chief reason for going to war with Iraq, they were merely one of about a dozen or so interlinked reasons, including security, the belief that Saddam had WMDs and a desire to create an Arab democracy of sorts as an alternative to the usual theocrat/Arab nationalist cycle.