18 June 2005
Tormented Continent
In his review of Africa Unchained in the June 17, 2005, Wall Street Journal, Martin Hutchinson rightfully lays part of the blame for the lack of political reform in Africa's development experience to the dominance of aid agencies, charities and NGOs in the Western cadres dealing with the continent. He bemoans the absence of the financiers and businessmen who commonly lead enterprise development in India and China. At the same time, he recognizes that economic aid needs to be dispensed in much smaller amounts than they have been traditionally.
These two conditions for faster and fairer creation of wealth in Africa conflict with each other. It is obvious that India's and China's economies are so much larger than the fragmented national economies of Africa. They provide the magnitude of incentives to which Western financiers and businessmen respond with their most inspired efforts. If the objective of aid policy in Africa is, indeed, "to help rob terrorists of a breeding ground", that should lend the urgency needed to find the monetary resources needed to attract, even if through artificial incentives, the kind of economic "literates" needed to meet the challenge of transforming Africa into a vibrant community of opportunity.
In his review of Africa Unchained in the June 17, 2005, Wall Street Journal, Martin Hutchinson rightfully lays part of the blame for the lack of political reform in Africa's development experience to the dominance of aid agencies, charities and NGOs in the Western cadres dealing with the continent. He bemoans the absence of the financiers and businessmen who commonly lead enterprise development in India and China. At the same time, he recognizes that economic aid needs to be dispensed in much smaller amounts than they have been traditionally.
These two conditions for faster and fairer creation of wealth in Africa conflict with each other. It is obvious that India's and China's economies are so much larger than the fragmented national economies of Africa. They provide the magnitude of incentives to which Western financiers and businessmen respond with their most inspired efforts. If the objective of aid policy in Africa is, indeed, "to help rob terrorists of a breeding ground", that should lend the urgency needed to find the monetary resources needed to attract, even if through artificial incentives, the kind of economic "literates" needed to meet the challenge of transforming Africa into a vibrant community of opportunity.
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