UN: Negative Africa Development in

by John Hawkins | June 11, 2002 7:16 pm

UN: Negative Africa Development in ’90s: I found this article[1] discussing the UN’s view of Africa’s economic development interesting for a couple reasons. First off, it mentions that…

“Overseas development assistance flows far from growing, actually declined over the decade by as much as about 43 percent.

While he said investment laws “for the most part were indeed liberalized,” investment flows to the region “were insignificant and concentrated mainly in oil and mining based countries,” Botchwey said.”

Now why would that be? Could it be because the money sent to a lot of these governments is being spent on Swiss bank accounts, weapons, and palaces for the thugs and dictators that run most of these countries instead of on hospitals, schools, and roads? Where’s the accountability? Is it surprising that govenments don’t want to give money to people who waste it?

Furthermore, everyone seems to be jumping on the “Bono bandwagon” and declaring that we have to waive off all of the African nation’s debts. That’s a nice idea, but you do realize that money still has to come from somewhere right? Either government or businesses are going to have to eat that debt. If the governments have to do it, expect a big cut in the amount of money given to Africa to make up for it. If businesses do it, African nations can forget about getting more loans. There is no free lunch.

Here was the real shocker in the article…

“Another lesson was the need to avoid an “overriding reliance on liberalization, privatization and marked-based reforms.”

The panel believes that such reliance had distinct limits and in many cases “proved counter-productive in accelerating development and alleviating poverty.” Instead, every African country “must evolve its own development strategy.”

Excuse me? The only hope these nations have is “liberalization, privatization and marked-based reforms.” The clowns who run half these countries aren’t qualified to run a lemonade stand and the UN wants them to get deeply involved in directing their national economies? I think it’s highly amusing that the most prosperous nations in the world have “liberalization, privatization and marked-based reforms” out the wazoo and yet the UN doesn’t think that’s what these African nations should be trying to do. If “liberalization, privatization and marked-based reforms” are such economic death, why don’t the “UNocrats” go back to Europe and suggest that the EU implement an old school, Soviet style economy so Europe can reap the wondrous benefits of a centralized economy? What’s good for the goose is good for gander right?

People have to understand that debt relief isn’t going to make much of a difference for Africa in the long run. Furthermore, Western charity isn’t going to get the job done either. We only have so much money to give and it’s just going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what Africa actually needs. So what will help? Capitalism, free trade, Democracy, and freedom. The same things that made the Western world and part of the Eastern world prosperous can work in Africa too. They just have to give those principles a chance.

Endnotes:
  1. this article: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=11062002-090005-5665r

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