This week's Economist published an article called "They came, they jawed, they failed to conquer" on the G8 summit last week in Japan. One paragraph stoodout to me:

On Africa, higher food prices seemed to make a mockery of G8 pledges made three years ago to raise annual aid levels by $25 billion until 2010, even before NGOs warned that the commitment was already slipping.

My mindset on aid to Africa is slowly but surely changing. I am beginning to see the absolute uselessness of it and how it actually may be keeping the people down in poverty. Not to say that some aid isn't needed, but it has to be with the mindset that it is a temporary help to pull the people up and make them self-sufficient. A while back (2002) WorldNetDaily published an article on "What Africa Needs: Sustainable Truth" and was a response at the time to street protestors in Davos and Seattle over the World Economic Forum that same year (you may have to check my facts on this, but I believe this was the reason for the protests). Anyway, two points stand out in the well-written (and almost prophetic, seeing it was written more than six years ago and many of the same issues have continued and even grown more serious) article:

Africa needs to face the fact that its famines are man-made, from Ethiopia (because of Soviet intervention), Zimbabwe (because of Mugabe's anti-white farm cleansing) and Malawi (because the World Bank said to sell off all the grain reserves). Perhaps GE foods can be blamed on the current famine in Malawi, but the issue goes far deeper than that.

Second, the world throws away enough food to feed billions. Argentina, if farmed properly could most likely feed the entire world's population. Koreans are very keen gardeners, so why is South Korea flooded with food while North Koreans only 50 miles north of Seoul eat bugs and the roots of trees? It's Stalinism, stupid - from Laos to Cuba to the Ukraine, Marxists create food shortages through their misguided, collectivist policies and lack of support for agriculture while spending money on arms.

Books like Giles Bolton's Africa Doesn't Matter are beginning to sway me away from some of my previous paradigms of small, localized aid programs (though I still believe those are the best methods to get the aid directly to the people) to more macro-economic aid to governments that prove they have integrity and are not siphoning millions into foreign accounts or bloated with tribal interests. (I'll also add that Bolton's book pointed out how stifling foreign aid can be on a government, with all the strings attached to the money given. Again, many times it actually accentuates the poverty.) I'm not there yet as I don't see enough integrity in all but a few of the governments (especially Kenya, where I have the most experience), but I can see myself being swayed in that direction.

In any case to summarize, Africa does need aid, but pretty soon Africa needs to step up to the plate and show that it is ready to jump into the global economy and become less reliant on foreign aid. And the West needs to realize that if it truly wants to help Africa, it must rid itself of self-interest and protectionism and truly help African in a way that will truly help Africa, not the US or Europe or especially China. Because right now, billions, almost hundreds of billions, are being sent over each year and nothing is happening save for another generation of people becoming poorer and most disease-ridden while dying at tragic rates.