awayman wrote:duncanlondon wrote:awayman wrote:duncanlondon wrote:
This whole African aid thing has been going on since europeans first set foot there. there has only been partial development of the continent. It is consistently stalled by the geographical constraints, sickness, tribal wars, climate etc. Its unlikely to develop in the way we would imagine.
Its not surprising that the money bought weapons. The gun is everything in africa, it gets you anything you want easily.
Also many of the people you see as 'homeless' are part of a vast group of people known as the bayeye. who are already homeless living in effect a nomadic lifestyle; wearing modern clothes and carrying modern tools. this is how they live on the move from area to area.
I'm not going to disagree with you, but I'll ask you this. Besides a poor quality BBC piece that's hotly disputed, have you seen any evidence for the assertions that BBC piece made?
That's usually the kind of thing that Europeans expect to see. A nice cleaned up space with a building on it, new fields where agriculture is thriving and happy healthy people going about an industrious life. This kind of 'progress' often appears as evidence that it had been attempted or abandoned. The kind of problems I mentioned above all too often reoccur.
So with that kind of result its difficult to prove or disprove that the money was used in any other way than what it was intended for. It may well have been spent on a failed idea or plan, it may well have been used for weapons. The outward appearance of african life remains the same in either case.
You can pour money into Africa for centuries and it is very likely to continue being as it is now. Digging wells and small scale projects like that are the kind of level of progress that one can expect to be reasonably successful in Africa. But that isn't progress to a European.
Also Europeans may think they know what's good for Africa. But Africans themselves know what does and doesn't work in their own country, probably better then Europeans do, so they use the money how they see fit. Often that is simply to rebuild their small armies. that would be the more likely place to look for evidence that the money was spent there.
So that's a no then?
Don't you mean yes? I am more of the opinion that the money bought weapons. I expect most people will go along with idea too.
But how well are these things accounted for? If millions of money goes out of a country, surely it should show up as a deficit, in the overall gross domestic accounting? Where does that occur in our system? Is it easily seen or conveniently concealed?
And in the case of fraud. Even in a country of educated people fraud cases are abandoned because people simply can't follow the complexities involved.
Again this is human folly. An idea got about in the most excitable way,and it was only afterwards that people began to implement what they had started.
As far as the BBC are bothered, why are they doing this now 25 years later. is it some cynical anniversary present. What do they hope to get out of this? Its daft.
