Linking aid to responsible government: African Continent is stymied by corruption, poverty

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | February 9, 2002 | DON MELVIN

[Cincinatus' Wife]

London -- The future of Africa, a continent beset by disease, poverty, war and corruption, may be determined to a large extent this summer in Canada.

In late June, the Group of Eight industrialized countries will meet near Calgary, Alberta. There the assembled heads of state will take up three related items: terrorism, global economic recovery -- and Africa.

"This is the first time Africa has ever been accorded by the rich countries such an important profile," said John Stremlau, head of the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

African leaders are seeking $64 billion a year in aid to revive the continent's foundering economies. But this time, the leaders say, there is a difference. Under an African-led initiative called the New Partnership for Africa's Development, international aid would be linked to responsible governance at home.

The plan "has something fresh and new," said Stremlau, who has written about Africa for three decades. "Namely the willingness of Africans to point to what is the heart of the matter of Africa, which is bad government, the weak state problem."

Africa's problems -- poverty, AIDS, ecological damage, corruption and more -- would seem to require strong and capable governments as part of the solution. And those have been in short supply in recent African history.

"Most of our governments have so much corruption," said Neo Simudanyi, a researcher at the University of Zambia's Institute of Economic and Social Research. "The government institutions and structure themselves, they are weak, and then you don't have a civil society that can hold governments accountable."

Half the people living on the continent get by on $1 a day or less. A host of countries have been involved in a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a huge country at the continent's heart. With elections approaching in March, Zimbabwe threatens to erupt in civil war.

Africa's largest country, Sudan, has been ravaged for more than two decades by a civil war that has caused repeated cycles of famine. The most populous country, Nigeria, riven by ethnic and religious conflict, seems on the brink of chaos.

"It's not a secure world when a whole continent slips off the globalization process and becomes increasingly marginalized," Stremlau said.

As it stands now, the continent is a breeding ground for terrorism, experts say. South Africa has a large and highly politicized Muslim population, and there is some evidence that an al-Qaida cell may be operating in Durban, Stremlau said. Nigeria has a history of supporting drug cartels.

Yet there are positive signs. South Africa, for all its difficulty with crime and AIDS, has rid itself of apartheid. According to a report by Freedom House, a U.S.-based advocacy group, African governments are more accountable today than ever before.

Although the United States does not seem prepared to make a major effort to aid Africa -- the Bush administration's budget contains little money for new initiatives -- interest in Europe has never been more intense. The government of France has taken a strong interest in Africa. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is finishing a four-day trip through western Africa this weekend and pushing for strong action at the Canada summit in June.

And Africa may offer the members of the European Union a good place to practice their new desire to work together, Stremlau said.

"I think in a curious way, since Europe has exploited Africa in much more greedy and destructive ways for so long, maybe it should exploit Africa one more time to sort out some of its own processes of collective action," he said. "They're learning to act together. It's a good experiment for the EU."

If the political will to help Africa is sustained, Stremlau said, "there's a good chance that the next 10 years will look a lot better than the last 10 years. The '90s were pretty horrible."

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Mugabe's militia in new wave of terror: Opposition leaders kidnapped and tortured for two days

Africa's coming hunger

[ken5050]

".....Africa accorded such a rich profile"....

How'd that happen?....(g)..thought everyone was against profiling....

Seriously, we have to quarantine the entire continent soon...

[Cincinatus' Wife]

We need to "profile" the despots that are filling their pockets and murdering the people. I'd say that would rate as a capital offense.

[steve50]

This aid is a joke. We send taxdollars to the third world crooks, they take their cut and send the rest back to our crooks, don't think this scam can go on much longer.

[cincinnati_Steve]

I have personally known people like this entire continent...they squander what they have, waste what is given to them, and expect somebody else to guve 'em more. As a matter of fact, we've spent trillions of dollars in the USA on people of this very mindset. They'll always be poor and "marginalized" by choice.

I'll cede to the Africans one point: That they have brutal, corrupt governments. But that comes with a caveat...they allow themselves to be subjugated due to their own laziness and apathy.

We became the country we are now because we have been willing to fight and die for what we feel is right. Unlike left-wingers and the large global entitlement class, there are some people still willing to do for themselves what the aforementioned want others to do for them. Screw these couch potatoes. Hut potatoes. Cave potatoes. Whatever. Barf.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

That's why the "responsible government" link is important.

The Bush administration is making the same demand on Haiti and Cuba.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

they allow themselves to be subjugated due to their own laziness and apathy.

Well, let's say they haven't had a fighting chance.
They're hardly in the position to do much about it.
Ignorance and poverty don't give you much to work with.
Cut off the funding to these "leaders" and watch how fast they'll lose their "friends."

[ken5050]

Remember the"anti-colonial fervor" of the 60's...kicked all the Europeans out of African colonies...createda whole bunch of nations that weren't ready for self-governance....well, they created 50 years of misery..killed tens of millions, and the living standards in Africa are WORSE than a half-century ago...

[umgud]

Africa has more than enough resources to not only support its masses, but to become an economic giant. Its inhabitants have proven (pre & post colonialism) that they simply are not capable of self rule.

[Dutch Boy]

I totally agree. Africa used to be a supplier of food products to the world. Now the many of African people are starving. The biggest "aid" they need is ridding the corrupt government. Continuous food drives do nothing except prolong the fact they will die sometime a little later down the road.

[ken5050]

The resources may be there..but ONLY oin the lower half of the continent....but there's no infrastructure to support them....look at diamond mines.....technologically 50 years behind the times, because labor...actually LIFE..is the cheapest commodity......and lack of education means that it will take several generations to get the population up to rudimentary levels.....but the point I was a making in my earlier comment was that blacks did this to their own....farworse than any "white man's " oppression...hey, maybe we can ask some of the despots for reparations..

[Tijeras_Slim]

Unfortunately, this aid money will be wasted. You can no more bribe the human animal of any continent into having civic responsibility if they don't want it, than you can fly by flapping your arms.

[ken5050]

McDonald's is doing terribly. Losing market share...If they tried wildebeest or zebra burgers......they could cause an economic renaissance in Africa..

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[Substitute any Marxist hell hole] What the Afghans need is colonizing What will we do this time round?-- By Mark Steyn. [Excerpt] Will we stick Zahir Shah back on his throne to preside over a ramshackle coalition of mutually hostile Commies, theocrats and gangsters, and hope the poor old gentleman hangs in there till we've cleared Afghan airspace? Or will we understand Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on pluralism for what it is? The most unstable parts of the world today are on the perimeter between Islam and the infidel -- places such as the Sudan, where vast numbers of Christians have been slaughtered -- and given the vast illegal immigration of Muslims into western Europe and elsewhere that perimeter is expanding. Afghanistan needs not just food parcels, but British courts and Canadian police and Indian civil servants and U.S. town clerks and Australian newspapers. So does much of the rest of the region. Given the billions of dollars of damage done to the world economy by September 11th, massive engagement in the region will be cheaper than the alternative.

America has prided itself on being the first non-imperial superpower, but the viability of that strategy was demolished on September 11th. For its own security, it needs to do what it did to Japan and Germany after the war: civilize them. It needs to take up (in Kipling's words), "the white man's burden," a phrase that will have to be modified in the age of Colin Powell and Condi Rice but whose spirit is generous and admirable. [End Excerpt]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A dilemma. A product? What could that be? Education and health understanding needs to be aggressively pursued. Then tourism, national resources and eventually businessmen that like the area and what it has to offer (including stability and a workforce), will follow. This won't happen overnight. The tribal hatred must somehow be overcome. All this hinges on getting rid of corrupt governments that count on and nurture the division of uneducated, desperate people.

[ken5050]

You cannot begin to raise Africa out of its misery unless you have basic freedoms, property rights, and the rule of law....and without those, economic growth is NOT possible.....That's why the upcoming, decade long, war on terrorism, which the US will, of necessity, do by itself, with some assistance from the GB, Canada, and Australia, will, once ended, enable Africa to start the long journey out of its misery. And it's why war against the "evil axis" in inevitable, not only to destroy the dangers they pose to us, but to convince every other nation of the terrible price to pay if you harbor terrorists...It;s the only way we can kill the terror cells.....Yet look what's happening RIGHT NOW in our own hemisphere...Venezuala is transforming itself into another Cuba, at the same time that Cuba may finally be ready to become free..after Castro dies. And Columbia is really a drug-run state, and Argentina, well, who knows what will happen there. And the Brazilian economy is fragile....so as we project power and aide half way around the world, our own sphere of influence is under increasing pressure..

[Cincinatus' Wife]

You've nailed it Ken5050. And that is why I've been posting on these two trouble spots. The marxists are working overtime to secure their dream for the perfect world crafted under their toolage of justice for all. They encourage upheaval as it gives them the opening to move in and "care." Private property is their foe. They need to be stopped before this unnecessary suffering can end.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Absent an imperial/geopolitical reason, an economic reason, why should the advanced nations of the world sally forth and subdue the savages once again even if it were politically popular and it isn't?

Because it is the right thing to do? Why wouldn't it be politcally popular? Look at Clinton. He did squat. Just paled around with a commie. Since the LIBERALS will make this an issue of "justice" to promote their commie friends, let's get the jump on them and make it an issue to promote freedom.