Sunday, July 8, 2007

Someone tell Bono

I am all for providing aid to countries who need a push to get on their feet, but aid is often a band-aid (no pun intended) when what is needed is free trade and investment. Others agree.

Andrew Mwenda, an outspoken Ugandan journalist who was jailed last year for criticizing President Museveni, lambasted the Western world's "international cocktail of good intentions" for robbing Africa of its future. After all, what country has ever gotten rich from aid? What Africa needs is investment.

Posted by FreeMarket at 8:40 PM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

FreeMarket,

You're right. Aid as a dole-out can sometimes cause the recipients to become less motivated to be self-sufficient. Fortunately there's been some better forms of aid in the recent past. For example, some aid can be in the form of micro-credit loans (e.g Grameen system) that has proven to be very effective in helping poor communities become small-scale entrepreneurs.

Other forms of aid can be channeled to education that is a great need in places like Africa where the public school system is not as well developed as in the US.

Bono supports all these other types of aid. He does speak more loudly on healthcare aid which some may call a dole-out but when there are people dying (150,000/month in Africa) from diseases that are preventable and treatable through drugs we can buy at any drug store, it makes us wonder why we are not doing more to prevent this kind of human catastrophe.

Here's a quote from Bono in his speech last year at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington:

Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market… that's a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents… That's a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents… that's a justice issue.

You can watch Bono's speech here:
www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/bononationalprayerbreakfast.htm

July 8, 2007 at 9:38 PM
Anonymous said...

I could not agree more. "Teach a man to fish..." My Father-in-law was in Africa last summer working on helping distribute AIDs assistance. His take. We need to provide basic training on organizational skills. He felt everyone was motivated but often did not know how to get started or finish.

July 9, 2007 at 6:10 AM
Anonymous said...

robin abello, very well said.

July 10, 2007 at 7:15 AM

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