[governance] Re: Does Africa Need Help?

[David Goldstein]

I don't disagree with these comments about the failings of western policies. It still doesn't take away from the fact that many African countries are corrupt and incompetent and nobody here seems to want to address this issue and instead want to blame African government's failings only on western policies.

David



----- Original Message ----
From: Nyangkwe Agien Aaron <nyangkweagien at gmail.com>
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Daniel Oppermann <dan.oppermann at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, 20 June, 2008 8:05:17 PM
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: Does Africa Need Help?

Daniel

You hit the nail at th right point.

Aaron

On 6/19/08, Daniel Oppermann <dan.oppermann at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understood Stephane's comment in a different way. To me it seems that
> he put the finger on the fact that Northern (or Western or
> industrialized) countries do not spend money on development politics
> just because they are "nice" but because it serves their own interests.
>
> Development politics started during the Cold War to make sure who is on
> your side. For the reason of national interests today the financial
> flows go mainly to Asian and African countries almost ignoring poverty,
> civil war and the question of failing states in Latin America. Looking
> on the positive aspect: Latin American governments have to resolve their
> problems on their own or with regional support which is definitely
> better than waiting for someone to fix the problem.
>
> Here is an interesting paper about the effectiveness of aid politics:
>
> http://www.iadb.org/IDBDocs.cfm?docnum=1158725
>
>
>
> David Goldstein schrieb:
> > Stephane's comment is just like saying all African governments are
> incompetent and corrupt. It's partly true, it's changing, but definitely not
> always the case.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer at internatif.org>
> > To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Nyangkwe Agien Aaron
> <nyangkweagien at gmail.com>
> > Sent: Thursday, 19 June, 2008 7:53:05 PM
> > Subject: [governance] Re: Does Africa Needs Help?
> >
> >
> >
> > > Some recipient governments grasp exactly what donors want to hear,
> > > readily agreeing to 'capacity building' programmes emphasising
> > > increased accountability. They dutifully echo the donor's jargon,
> > > while laughing behind our backs, and flicking through the latest
> > > Mercedes catalogue for their new ministerial limousine.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > A long paper to avoid the obvious conclusion: aid is not intended to
> > help the local people but to subsidize northern industries such as
> > Mercedes (as in the above example) or Cisco (to take a example closer
> > from our field). That way, most aid will come back to the North.
> >
> >
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-- 
Aaron Agien Nyangkwe
Journalist/Outcome Mapper
Special Assistant To The President
Coach of ASAFE Camaroes Street Football Team.
ASAFE
P.O.Box 5213
Douala-Cameroon
Tel. 237 3337 50 22
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