Africa and foreign aid

Having returned from a grueling week abroad, dispensing wisom to an adoring public, your Savant looked forward to a spot of well deserved R&R.; However, my fragile peace of mind was shattered by a confluence of events. First a missive from the Department of Money Wastage, apparently sent out to every citizen in the country, telling us how Ireland’s foreign aid would approach nearly €1 billion this year, Ghana, the ‘success story’ of Africa, would be a substantial beneficiary of said aid.

I then read elsewhere that Ghana would be forking out about $30 million of this aid on ‘celebrating’ 50 years of ‘independence’. I use independence in the loosest meaning of the term, in that the country keps afloat only through the absorpyion of billions of dollars/Euros in foreign aid each year. Foreign aid makes up no less than 75% of government expenditure. Some independence! Despite this aid, the average daily per capita income is exactly €1. As I have pointed out in earlier posts, at time of gaining independence Ghana was a jewel, wealthier than South Korea and a lot of other Asian countries, but as they prospered, Ghana – remember, this is Africa’s success story – fell progressively into deep poverty. And this despite buckets of foreign aid.

It would be bad enough if foreign aid were just useless. Unfortunately, it’s worse than useless. First, it consolidates whatever despot is in power by, first, giving him resources to divvy out to the cronies who keep him in power. But, the small amount of aid that gets through acts as a vent for popular discontent, further strengthening the ruling elite’s position. But the aid flows on, as our current reigning orthodoxies demand that we be oblivious to the obvious. Here we should remember Aristotle, who showed us that impractical morality (cf. Del Boy and Rodney) is no morality.

Ghana represented your Savant’s introduction to Africa and was, to say the least, and eye-opener. Many was the lesson I learned, but the most important was this. Apart from the odd exception, Africans don’t give a fuck about the broader community, and will unhesitatingly exploit everyone and everything outside their own narrow circle. Achieving power is simply a means to acquiring, and holding onto, wealth. As I've shown in other posts, there are others reasons also to explain the failure of Africa.

The only solution is to stop all aid, let the various wars continue, and don’t offer any assistance on AIDS. This is the natural and Darwinian was to getting them to sort themselves out. It’s called tough love - just like when you stop providing your beloved drug-addicted child with money to feed their habit. Bring on the cleansing hellfire! Site feed