Today's WaPo Outlook section has a lengthy piece by Gebreselassie Tesfamichael, former Eritrean finance minister, that recaps Africa's developmental woes. The Man Bites Dog aspect is that he's not pleading for big bucks. He's pleading, instead, for support of Africa's reformers.
His emphasis is spot-on. With transparancy, accountability, and the rule of law, a nation can develop with surprising speed, with relatively little extra funding. Without these, money simply gets wasted. The term "kleptocracy" was created with Africa's rulers in mind.
Money graf:
"The fundamental problem in Africa is not lack of resources, but the failure of political leadership. The modern African state is a colonial creation, extractive in its design. Its mission was not to serve the people, but to dominate and exploit them. Despite independence, and despite improvements brought by numerous recent democratic elections, the nature of that state remains intact. The primary solution is to change it."
Sunday, July 24, 2005
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3 comments:
Hi, Im from Melbourne Australia.
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One of the points made in The White Man’s Burden (by William Easterly) is that no association is made by most of the major aid organizations between aid given to a country and how democratic it is (p. 133). We are via Western compassion keeping tyrants and revolutionaries well fed... which will slow the economy and development of any nation.
Sad state of affairs.
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