Africa: What Africa Needs - Roads and Bridges, Cooking Oil and Cement

allAfrica ^ | November 2, 2017 | Boakai Fofana

[Forward the Light Brigade]

what south of the sahara Africa needs is a brilliant black Napoleon to unite the tribes, form a black empire and bring order and end corruption. I think he should be a Zulu Tribesman, educated and able, as Napoleon was in old France.

[Redwood71]

And condoms.

rwood

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Christianity has grown in leaps and bounds in Africa over the last 30 years. Unfortunately, heresies like ‘oneness pentecostalism’ and the related ‘word-faith’ are very popular in Africa, spread by African false prophets rather than American ‘word-faith’ false prophets.

[familyop]

Every country needs cement. It’s outrageously expensive now. Sure, political class Americans want to divert more cement to other countries. And it’s a sure sign that the rent is about to go up again.

The EPA
Cement Manufacturing Enforcement Initiative
https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/cement-manufacturing-enforcement-initiative
“The cement sector is the third largest industrial source of pollution, emitting more than 500,000 tons per year of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and carbon monoxide.”

Enjoy the slide...and your homelessness.

As for Africa, why are self-described philanthropists making it our problem? Maybe they should choose to stay there, marry into the population and inject more of their masterful social abilities in lieu of ingenuity and physical coordination. Granted, the spoiled trust fund babies can’t turn a wrench, so maybe they can start their hippie farms there. The brats are so good at running our U.S.A. as though it were a plantation!

[ebshumidors]

They need to quit breeding on someone else’s dime.

[ptsal]

The binder for this recipe is a juicy bribe.

Call Hillary she got the experience.

[familyop]

You may be right about leaving Africa to indigenous methods of rule, culture and determination. We’ve saturated the various regions of Africa with democracy, religion and technologies many times over, but each of them appears to naturally return to communal living and elements of religions of African origin.

One would think that with environmentalists’ penchant for leaving plant and animal populations to their natural tendencies, they would want to allow the same with various peoples.

[familyop]

"Christianity has grown in leaps and bounds in Africa over the last 30 years. Unfortunately, heresies like ‘oneness pentecostalism’ and the related ‘word-faith’ are very popular in Africa, spread by African false prophets rather than American ‘word-faith’ false prophets."

My mother was into some wild holy roller religion off and on. I said, "Ma! It's voodoo."

[familyop]

"They won’t, they have a priceless commodity to the Chinese, women and land."

A professional civil engineer from China had a piece of land near my place on the Rockies a few years back and stopped by to chat. He told me about Chinese men going to Africa to look for wives. He read the reaction on my face and laughed very loudly, like a character in an old Chinese movie! He thought it was hilarious! He was a fun and informative man to talk with and listen to for sure.

I still find some things about Chinese culture to be an enigma. It appears to me that many of them have a kind of fearlessness about living perilously in some ways while being much afraid of other things that don't bother me.

[DesertRhino]

They’re on the right track. Now it’s time for a good-hearted paternalistic discussion on why we have those things to give away and they don’t.
This is what is known as a teachable moment.

[Little Ray]

“Africa needs” to get to work, then.
It is not anyone else’s job to provide these things and they have the people and resources of the entire African continent with which to work.

[Little Ray]

More capitalism is what they need.

[FreedomPoster]

Africa always wins.

[FreedomPoster]

Your add on and your last comment are at direct odds with each other.

[LadyDoc]

The good news is that the Chinese are taking over the economy and don't pay attention to the green westerners...they aim to invest in growing crops, stealing their resources and building factories to export stuff.

Capitalism at it's best...

[mad_as_he$$]

The ChiComs are doing more in Africa than just about everyone else put together. Roads, bridges and infrastructure are big on their agenda. They encourage the “help” because they are confident that their sphere of influence will soon be inpentratable.

[CodeToad]

They need a higher IQ population. There has been ridiculous amounts of money poured into the place with no improvement of the native population.

[csvset]

Lao Yang is the logistics chief for a Chinese firm building a 300 km highway in the DR Congo. The highway would facilitate future mining operations.

The film, Empire of Dust, looks at the problems Lao encounters while trying to depend on locals to get the job done.

[Jimmy Valentine]

“Africa always wins”. Succinct and accurate if a bit cynical.

[cgbg]

This story about Nigeria seems appropriate here.

I knew someone who visited Nigeria to meet her husband’s family.

They lived in a small city (about 20,000 people) far from the capital or the largest city. They stayed for several weeks and she got to learn a lot about the local culture.

The small city was ruled by fear and envy.

Everyone pretended they were poor whether they were or not. They also pretended to be un-intelligent when around strangers.

The reason for the local’s behavior was that they knew that at any moment either government or rebel troops could descend on the town and strip them of their possessions.

On the way back my friend got a reinforcement of the lesson as rebel troops attacked their vehicle, held their driver at gunpoint, and stole everything out of the vehicle.

The notion that outside aid could help such a country is laughable on its face.

Nigeria’s issues are systemic and cultural—and foreign aid is not going to fix any of it.