When I wrote Let Africa Sink all those years ago, one of my main arguments for so doing was that giving aid to Africa just didn’t work, and was a waste of money.
Needless to say, I was called a “racist”, “stupid” and “heartless” (among other names) by the Bleeding Heart Set.
Well now, lookee here:
Feel free to read the details for reasons why, but if you’re pressed for time, don’t bother. It’s just the usual African catalog of corruption, venality and inefficiency.
So the next time some celebrity asks you to give money to some fashionable charity, save your money and spend it on something that actually provides a benefit to someone — you (e.g. with a new gun, fine liquor or similar). Or if you’d rather invest the money, head to a casino because your odds of winning there are better than your donation to Pore & Starvin Inc. making a difference.
Yeah, I’m heartless.
“One farmer, who earned £160 ‘in a good year’, told me he had to hand over one bag of maize in the project’s first year, then three of the nine bags grown the next year.”
9 bags of corn was his total harvest? I don’t know if the guy’s got a tiny plot, there was a drought, those were gigantic bags, he’s incompetent, or something else, but that’s not a very impressive take.
But, Kim, think of all those hapless(useless) six-figure per-year bureaucrats who would be thrown off the NGO/.gov payrolls if that cash-flow was stopped. Have you no pity?!?