CBC.ca The National Archive Politics/Economy Dambisa Moyo
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In this CBC interview, Dr. Dambisa Moyo, an economist and author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How there Is a Better Way for Africa, explains why bilateral aid has failed to raise African countries out of poverty.
Governments in developing countries become answerable to their foreign benefactors and not to their people's demands for infrastructure, health care and education, Moyo told the CBC. Furthermore, factions engage in violent conflicts for control of government, where all the wealth is located. You can imagine the consequences. Innocent civilians are caught in the middle, chased from their homes, impoverished and left to languish in refugee camps.
Great. So governments in rich countries are, at best, wilfully blind to the havoc they wreak when they sign cheques to sooth their conscience. At worst, they have some sort of economic or geopolitical interest in propping up these corrupt and evil governments. Which makes donor countries--and by extension us, the tax payers who provide them with funds--complicit.
It reminds me of what I saw when I went to Cambodia, one of only 25 countries hand picked by Canadian PM Harper for bilateral aid, despite the fact that Cambodian PM Hun Sen is responsible for serious human rights violations. We're talking torture, murder and forced evictions that help out his buddies in real estate, from whom he gets handsome kick backs. Oh, yeah, and he's a former Khmer Rouge cadre, but never mind about that. We'll keep sending him money because...uh...What does Harper imagine that Hun Sen does with his bilateral aid?
Anyways, I'm starting to believe that, as Moyo says, private investments (like China's doing) may be more beneficial to lifting African and other countries out of poverty. Here she is discussing better development solutions with Dr. Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on micro financing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUPqyFk2Mq8
What do you think?
ReplyDeleteHelen, you wrote an article in www.orato.com. It's appreciated that you took an interest in the rezoning issue of St John's United (not Presbyterian) Church into a 22-storey tower. But I encourage you to check into this more. It's MUCH more than just a gift of space for Qmunity in return for Qmunity's endorsement of the controversial project. There are millions of dollars of tax subsidies for the developer Westbank/Peterson, which is using this tactic to split the community. Also, dramatic changes in the current consensus community plan for the area, etc. For more info see www.westendneighbours.com
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous, thank you for taking the time to comment on my blog post. I thought it was Saint John's United Church, but when I went to the site to take pictures, I saw that the sign post (literally marked in stone) said Saint John's PRESBYTARIAN Church. You can contact me at helzmail7 at yahoo dot com, and I can send you a picture of the sign. I would appreciate some clarification on this if possible. Thank you.
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