Dambisa Moyo on the problems of aid dependency

[donatafolla]

you have an awesome video..thanks for sharing!

[dnifty1]

The problem I was pointing out is that no form of serious development in Africa will happen without planning and that planning is implicitly based around creating and sustaining communities, economic systems and industries FOR AFRICANS.

The point is that the plan is necessary in order to build an economic system of trade, commerce and development that is the PRIMARY means for Africans getting the good and services they will need going into the future. That does not come from AID.

[dnifty1]

PLANNING is used to determine how much infrastructure is required to meet the needs of housing, development and infrastructure for a region based on forecasts of population growth and settlement. From this comes plans for financing, plans for economic development to support growth and analysis of the resources required to support such development. This becomes part of the demand forecast within various resource markets like steel, copper, etc.

Planning is a standard part of development.

[dnifty1]

The governments role in all of this is to provide a framework and plan for the benefit of all parties.

So for example, how much steel is required to build the infrastructure required in Southern Africa over the next 40 years? How much growth will occur in cash, jobs and business opportunities according to this forecast? The next step is to ensure that the system is in place to enact the plan: financing, industry and so forth. Who are the players and what do they bring to the table?

[davidg1234]

dnifty1, it sounds like you have fallen in to the same trap as the people pushing for aid and NGO central planning for Africa. How on earth can a Central Govt predict the steel requirements of every single business in their country? It is the market that decides, not the Government. Africans must be empowered to respond to market opportunities and not be held back by arbitrary government plans. The players are not for the Govt to decide, that is for free men to decide.

[dnifty1]

What I said was that the economy of Africa is still largely based on the colonial model. The colonial model was a policy, a system and a plan for creating a network of white enterprises that would be mutually supporting of based off the labor and resources of Africans. Africans were relegated to being peasant laborers who owned nothing and were shut out of the network. What Africans need is a system of economics to benefit AFRICANS, not a system based on exploiting their labor and resources.

[dnifty1]

It is all about the network of industry and trade and whether or not it benefits Africans. If there are a whole host of industries in South Africa that make all sorts of specialty pipe and tube along with systems for flow regulation, then why don't Africans have irrigation systems for their farms? How else are bridges going to get built, electrical plants and irrigation systems? By industry. Government doesn't do it, industry does. But this industry only currently serves whites.

[dnifty1]

You buying "cheap African goods" is not the issue. The issue is Africans having an economic system that gives them access to all the goods and services from Africa and elsewhere PROVIDE for their own well being. The colonial history of UK built the system that allows you to get cheap products from Africa, Asia and everywhere else. You having access to cheap products does not equate to Africans having access to proper infrastructure or health care. THAT system is not created by AID.

[davidg1234]

What does colonialism have to do with anything? India was colonized but they embraced globalization and are benefiting from the comparative advantage of us outsourcing customer service and other industries over there. Who is stopping Africa from building infrastructure? You have been vague about what you are actually proposing but you seem to think that if Africa builds a big brick wall around it and turns isolationist then all their problems will be solved.

[dnifty1]

Common sense. What is an economic system? Industry and trade. What is the purpose of industry and trade? Provide goods and services and wealth for a people. It has been that way on this planet for the last 5 million years. People make the things (industry) that they need to live. And then what they don't have they trade with others to get them. That is economics and of course it is correct. Colonial systems are not economics. They are destroy correct economic systems by design.

[davidg1234]

But that is what Dambisa is arguing for. Eg, as a UK citizen I could be helping Africa significantly without even having to think about it. If I go to the shops and the cheapest products are from Africa, they are the ones I will buy, and Africa will receive a lot of my money. But instead we both have to suffer from import tariffs and protectionism and then I get emotional blackmail to help Africa instead. If there wasn't protectionism then an enormous % of my income would be going to Africa!

[dnifty1]

The problem is that the medical care industry in Africa is NOT FOR Africans. That is the problem. 1 billion dollars put into building some roads, building some warehouses and buying some trucks would go a LONG WAY to fixing the health care "crisis" in Africa. But even above all of that the are already HUGE multinational pharma companies IN AFRICA. So why aren't the providing the health care? Look up pharmacare South Africa. As I say below the problem is the economic system itself.

[davidg1234]

So what exactly do you suggest is the "correct" economic system?

[dnifty1]

I agree with Miss Mboyo but I disagree with the solution. The problem is the international economic system which is based primarily on the colonial European system of theft and plunder of African and other non European countries. This system was never designed to benefit anyone but Europeans. AID is simply PR to make people think that Europe has changed, but it hasn't. Europeans still take billions of dollars of resources out of Africa every year.

[dnifty1]

It is the colonial economic model now called globalization, that is responsible for the problems in Africa. It is a problem because this system has never done anything to benefit Africans. The only thing it has ever done is to take from Africans. As an example, South Africa is the most industrialized country in Africa. They have all sorts of capabilities in manufacturing, specialty services, infrastructure and so forth. But how much of that is actually BENEFITING Africans?

[dnifty1]

If a multinational mining company needs goods and services including infrastructure, trucks, construction equipment, electrical facilities, technical services and raw materials, there is a whole network of companies in Africa ready to help. But if black Africans need a highway or bridge built, suddenly it is an impossible task. Yet these mining companies and other Euro colonial enterprises can bring huge excavators, dump trucks and bulldozers in and out of Africa with no problem.

[dnifty1]

When a European or some other global foreign multinational or white owned large commercial farmer needs to get support including irrigation systems, electricity, infrastructure, construction equipment, technical services and so forth, there are all sorts of enterprises ready to help in Africa. Yet when Africans need to make a farm to feed Africans, all of a sudden there is a problem. The technology isn't available. There are no pumps and suddenly Africa has no industry.

[dnifty1]

There are hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, of dollars in resources in Africa to finance African development, in addition to hundreds of billions of dollars more in products and services associated with the extraction and processing of those resources. Therefore, Africa has everything it needs to develop. The problem is that industry in Africa is primarily the legacy of the Euro Colonial network of industries created during the colonial era.

[dnifty1]

Just like there is more than enough resources in terms of raw materials in Africa, there is more than enough industry in Africa to rebuild Africa as well as more than enough labor. So why isn't there more infrastructure and development? Again, the answer is that the economic model in Africa is a European colonial agency designed to support European wealth and not build anything for Africans. Replace that system with one built to benefit Africans and things will change.

[TheReaganRevolution]

WOW! this is very true in many aspects. Welfare here in the United States has become a crutch for many. El Centro, California has a 20% unemployement rate and with it a rise on welfare dependancy and a concern that a comfortable life style may become a demand and not a privilage.

[enyawix]

This is what i will mold my female children to be

[gdrouet]

I'm coming back from a mission in Comoros and totally agree with your points on aid dependency and the fact it facilitates laziness. 5 years ago, a capacity building plan was launched, cleaning the administrative apparatus which eats 76% of national budget. 4 years after, the government had recruited back the same number of civil servants, leaving the burden of their salary on the shoulders of the foreign aid. And next year, a new combined WB-UNDP-EC-BAD capacity building plan will be launched!