"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

Http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

Let's be clear here, what Shikwait should really be saying is not "Stop the aid." but "Start doing smarter things with it. Stop sending us worthless or harmful aid." The idea of simply packing up and abandoning Africa is ridiculous. Changing the form and function of world-aid is not.

Africa is being flooded with surplus grain from around the world; this aid is then touted as "What we are doing for Africa." The solution? Cut the farm subsidies in mid-west America and Europe, lower the tariffs on imported produce, and allow the important of grains and other produce from Africa. In other words, give them a market to sell to!

The "Overstated AIDS problem": In all honesty, I cannot understand -how- you can overstate the spread of AIDS in Africa. You can, as recent studies have shown, mismeasure the spread of the disease, or place its epicenter in the wrong place; However, you cannot overstate the spread of a disease that takes the lives of millions.

The numbers of Africans being treated for AIDS by world-aid-organization is in the tens or hundreds of thousands, the number of Africans infected with the disease is in the millions. Once again, Shikwait's grandstanding misleads his audience. African NEEDS this aid to fight AIDS, however, it does not need it in the form of uncontrolled, untracked, and unlimited amounts of money. It would be better to ship stocks of anti-retrovirals and *gasp* condoms, along with providing education programs to Africans.

Stop sending aid? What a silly notion. How about simply thinking about how we spend it first?


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