Africa’s population crisis is fictitious

[Sophist]

Africa’s population crisis is fictitious

 

Misspent billions: Africa aid

 

 

 

By: Dr Jama ELMI

 

 

 

The hunger and poverty that still plague many parts of the Africa have nothing to do with the simplistic claim that land shortages cause food shortages. Despite all the destruction by international agencies of fisheries and rich agricultural lands, more food is being produced than ever before, in rich and poor countries alike. India and China are self-sufficient in rice. The Western world's granaries are overflowing, leading to grain wars among Canada, the United States and Europe. Even Saudi Arabia is exporting wheat! Most of the world's people are better fed today than at any time in history, consuming more per person than ever before. The problems are not global in scale, but local.

 

 

 

Where tragedy in the Third World has hit hardest--Africa--is also where population densities are relatively low: less than one-tenth that of India. The cause for the brutal starvation in Somalia recently, or in Rwanda, Ethiopia, and elsewhere several years ago, is almost always war, or repression of various kinds. Africa is poor because its leaders subjugate its peoples, because development agencies foist unsound development on them, and because Africa debt--which was incurred without the public's approval--kept people poor.

 

 

 

To the great frustration of Africa citizens' groups, most Westerners do not understand these facts-on-the-ground: when asked what the Africa's number one problem is, Westerners generally cite the fictitious "population crisis." These African groups know that as long as Western governments and international agencies like the World Bank are able to focus Westerners--who fund most of the Africa's destruction--on imaginary problems the funding of more devastating development projects will continue. Afrcan citizens' groups also want Western citizens to know that foreign aid-funded development has only bred dependence. The countries that receive the most foreign aid, in fact, are worse off than they were before the development dollars started flowing. While aid to Africa increased more than tenfold between 1970 and 1988, Africans are poorer. After $100 billion in investments, Africa's economy shrank by 20%--the GNP of that entire continent compares to that of Belgium, which has a land mass of 1% the size of Africa

 

The basic problem with any type of foreign aid is that they strengthen the institutions which prevent progress while weakening the institutions of Africa which could bring true prosperity. Aid increases the role of government and bureaucracy in the economic life of the continent, while it minimizes the role of markets and private entrepreneurship. If they want to help developing nations prosper, they must find a method that creates a bigger role for institutions such as the market.

 

One way of aiding African nations is through free trade. By lowering their (Western) import barriers, they can allow the private sectors of the continent (Africa) easier access to Western markets. With the huge markets of the Europe and N. America available for their products, entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to develop new industries or expand old ones. As Lord Bauer writes, removing protectionist barriers will allow more African countries to experience the success of such Pacific Basin countries as Hong Kong and Singapore:

 

As for economic development, the West can best promote this by the reduction of its often severe barriers to imports from poor countries. External commerce is an effective stimulus to economic progress. It is commercial intercourse with the West which has transformed economic life in the Far East, South-East Asia, and parts of Africa and Latin America.25

 

Free trade also has the advantage of helping Western own economy. While this is no place to explode the numerous protectionist fallacies, free trade will increase Western wealth with a great influx of goods and services from abroad. Like all voluntary exchanges, international trade is a positive sum activity; both America and the Africa benefit from it.

 

Foreign aid fails as a development policy because it destroys the incentives of the marketplace and extends the power of ruling elites. Because it leads Africa away from the free market, it actually increases Africa’s poverty. On the other hand, the alternative policy of free trade will give the private sector of the LDCs an opportunity to expand and flourish.

 

It must be emphasized that free trade alone will not solve all the problems of Africa poverty. Free trade only increases the opportunities of the less developed nations. It will not eliminate the shackles of government regulation and intervention that dominate Africa’s economies. That task can only be done by the people of Africa themselves. Yet, eliminating foreign aid and instituting free trade will at least encourage African peoples to develop institutions such as private property rights and free markets which will lead to growth and prosperity.

 

You (Westerners) must not let government aid agencies get away with blaming the people of Africa for the governments' failed attempts at development. Development won't come to Africa and other poor parts of Africa until people are empowered, and able to direct their development. That's why Probe International has been working with grassroots citizens' groups in Africa to defend their customary rights to the land, forests, air, and water that they depend upon. Until these decentralized and democratic resource-use systems are recognized and enforced in law--systems that have sustained Africa’s populations for millennia--unaccountable development as practised by International Financial Aid Donors and other government aid agencies will continue to undermine Africa’s populations and their environments

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Dr. Jama Elmi , Sr. Research Scientist and The Founder of Biogas as Alternative Energy of Horn of Africa

 

elmij@yahoo.com

[Muhammad]

good reading.

 

I would've liked if Dr. Elmi mentioned the correlation between income and literacy(education) in Africa.

 

the countries that mostly suffer from hunger and poverty are those with lowwer literacy rates.

 

I would even go to the extreme and say that there is a possible correlation between civil war(conflict) and illiteracy

 

somalia, sierra leone, liberia, cote d'ivoire, eritrea, ethiopia have a literacy rate of 50% or less. the sudan: 61% rwanda: 70%

 

According to UNESCO: In Sub-Saharan Africa since 1980, primary school enrollment has declined, going from 58 percent to 50 percent.

[Cara.]

I have never heard that Africa's problems are caused by over-population. Asia, yeah, but not Africa. If anything, Africa has too few adults, decimated as they are by diseases (particularly AIDS) and wars.