Submitted by darth_nadoma t3_yixcuc in Futurology
Able-Emotion4416 t1_iumvp3a wrote
Reply to comment by ajabardar1 in Clean air activists condemn 'silent pandemic' of pollution in African cities by darth_nadoma
I agree that development requires stability. But IMHO the biggest problem African countries face today is the unfair and scandalous economic warfare: e.g. dumping of subsidized goods and services into African markets.
Heavily subsidized Western agricultural goods have ruined African agribusiness, and kept over 70% of African in subsistence farming (as customers would rather buy cheap Western staple food, than local ones. And thus agribusiness is unprofitable, and banks make no loans for a green revolution, i.e. mechanization, modern tools, better fertilizers, pesticides, etc Basically, most Africans still farm like Europe used to do in the Middle Ages....).
Another very obvious ones are 2nd hand stuff, from clothes, to bicycles. These goods devastated entire industries. Just one example, in the early 80s, Kenya had over 500k workers in the textile industry. Then came IMF/world bank imposed austerity on steroids, blind deregulation and privatizations, and indiscriminate opening of borders to all Western goods, including 2nd hand clothes. By late 1980s, the Kenyan textile industry collapsed to just 20k workers, and mostly focused only on the 2nd hand clothing industry... quiet a tragedy! Millions lost their jobs on the continent. And the African street wear was forever changed. For the worse.
And last but not least, most of international aid money is used to pay the donor country's own companies to provide services/goods to African country. For example, a few years ago, a West African country wanted to create a form of eGovernment, or at least an online presence with a platform for its population to use for many different basic bureaucratic necessities, as to streamline governmental services, reducing costs and waiting time for tax-payers and citizens (and donors of course).
Anyways, there was a fair competition. And an African software company won the bid. It was simply better, and cheaper. However, a French company that had also participated and lost (too expensive, too over-engineered, culturally insensitive to local taste, est. ), lobbied the French government. And France in turn blackmailed that country to either give the contract to a French company or risk losing a good chunk of its aid money.... WTF!?! That's just one example.
But there are many other examples of aid money actually benefiting Western and other rich countries' companies and economy, while making African countries carry the debt, and the often useless/in adapted infrastructure and other goods/services.
ajabardar1 t1_iumwwj7 wrote
imho the biggest problem is the current economic system.
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