Myers on Africa...

cabinteelytom

Cannibal Ox wrote: »

More and more funding will/should be put in to developing agriculture, but that's going to take time.

And time is not what you've got, when each generation has 7 children by the age of 30.

Ethiopia is one of Irish Aid's 'priority countries' ; see www.irishaid. How are we doing?

How many agricultural colleges is Ireland funding in Ethiopia?
How much expertise do we have concerning irrigation in semi-desert areas near the equator?
Has the Ethiopian government been persuaded to switch military spending to capital hungry irrigation projects, and training the next generation of agticultural advisors? (Persuasion means, giving them no other choice). Are we part of concerted donor blackmail? ' ten less tanks facing Eritrea accross that desert, and fund this agricultural college instead, or the foreign aid budget gets cut'.
And, how much of the Irish Aid budget is spent in Ireland; on staff, mortgages and self-congratulatory public relations exercises? A question which I suspect would have a very embarrassing answer.

ei.sdraob

in case anyone is wondering

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=military+spending+ethiopia

$398.6 million per year (US dollars per year) (2006 estimate)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=irish+aid

$1.022 billion per year (US dollars per year) (2006 estimate)

DJDC

The big elephant in the room is the controversial subject of IQ and the 20+ point gap between Sub-Saharan Africans and White Europeans and then the gap becoming even larger when the former is compared to Han Chinese. First let me say I am not of the belief that the gap is predominantly due to genetic factors but that it is instead due to historical, cultural and nutritional differences. However it does exist and creates a completely unfair balance as we are seeing now with China, doing exactly what Europeans did in terms of taking advantage of Africas natural resources for their own personal gain. The real hope for the continent is narrowing this IQ gap so that a more equal footing exists and commerce can flourish. The problem is how?

Cannibal Ox

cabinteelytom wrote:

How many agricultural colleges is Ireland funding in Ethiopia?

None. Officially, about 30% of boys make it to secondary school, less girls, and the completion rates are even lower. I have no idea what the stats are for the percentage of population that make it to university, though I’d imagine it’s tiny. Most education funding goes in to primary education.

As far as I remember, Awassa, Haramaya and Jimma either are agri uni/colleges, or have a large agri department. Addis Ababa Uni probably has an argi department, but I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell you who funds them. I would imagine it’s majority state funded and a minority from student fees/donations from Western Universities/philanthropists.

Irish Aid funds food/cash for work programmes. I’m sure they fund/are partners with NGOs or UN/EU/WB programmes that are involved in agricultural work, but I’d imagine it’s not a huge output of their funding. Most of that goes to education, health and the food programmes.

cabinteelytom wrote:

How much expertise do we have concerning irrigation in semi-desert areas near the equator?

Who is we? If Irish Aid wanted to fund irrigation programmes, they’d fund NGOs that work/have expertise in irrigation. Do they? I have no idea. I’d imagine some money is filtered through to them one way or another.

Development programmes or projects tend to involve multiple donors, NGOs, UN sections and government agencies. Funding can come from multiple governments for any single programme. Irish Aid doesn't just go in to a school and start handing money out, it works with NGOs like Save the Children, or the WFP, or it works with UNICEF, and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, or the Ethiopian Ministry of Women's Affairs, or all of the above, on any single programme or project.

cabinteelytom wrote:

Has the Ethiopian government been persuaded to switch military spending to capital hungry irrigation projects, and training the next generation of agticultural advisors?

Military expenditure accounts for something like 3% of GDP.

cabinteelytom wrote:

(Persuasion means, giving them no other choice).

I think you’ll find that should be “colonialism means giving them no other choice.” :P

cabinteelytom wrote:

A question which I suspect would have a very embarrassing answer.

I suspect you’d be disappointed.

There is massive poverty in Ethiopia. A minority can afford to finish primary school. A minority can afford to irrigate their lands. If it were as simple as throwing a few thousand euro’s at an agriculture college, someone would've done it by now. The entire structure is being slowly funded, prodded and encouraged towards development, not just one element. Kids now need to be given the opportunity to finish primary school, and their kids need to be given the chance to finish secondary school, and their kids the chance to go to college. Farmers now need to be given the means to improve how they farm, so that they can produce more food, so that their sons or daughters can produce enough food to maybe even sell some of it, so that their sons and daughters can produce enough food not just to feed their own country, but to export it to other countries.

This isn’t something that’s going to change over night. There are family planning programmes going on across Ethiopia, encouraging parents not to have so many children. But that isn’t going to happen tomorrow. It is going to take time, like everything else. If you try to rush it, it isn’t going to work.

Euronews (short) video about Ethiopia, micro credit and irrigation. After about three minutes in, it's sort of related to the topic.

MrMicra

Should the implantation of a long term contraceptive accompany the distribution of food aid?

sceptre

MrMicra wrote: »

Should the implantation of a long term contraceptive accompany the distribution of food aid?

Implantation? No. But if you like, you can make a case for a few leaflets and a few million condoms.

dan719

bonkey wrote: »

Starvation is a control of population.

For the people who argue in favour of population control of those nations who are (far) worse off...why not just suggest we let them starve?

Once you get past your outrage (and this isn't just aimed at the person I'm posting to...if you're reading this and outraged, I'm addressing you) ask yourself honestly....if you favour population control, what is wrong with starvation and deprivation as mechanisms to achieve this?

What is wrong with it? Why is there any sort of expectation for us to bail another country out? What is the current Irish aid budget? 800 million give or a take a few jaunts on the private government jet? Slash that to zero, combine that with the other planned cuts, and maybe we'll return to a balanced budget 4-6 months early.

Life is **** for plenty of people right here in Ireland. Why should we piss away Money which we are borrowing at a premium on countries which will prob ensure it's spent on weapons anyway, before trying to help out people here?

djpbarry

dan719 wrote: »

Life is **** for plenty of people right here in Ireland.

Relative to what? No matter how bad things get in Ireland (and let's have a little bit of a reality check here, things aren't that bad), they simply don't compare to many parts of the developing world.

Cannibal Ox

dan719 wrote:

What is the current Irish aid budget? 800 million give or a take a few jaunts on the private government jet?

800€ million. It's between 0.39% to 0.48% of GDP depending on what source you consult (from Board Snip to Mary Robinson). It was cut by 24% last year, €222m, and it's likely to be cut again with the next budget (give or take, close to a €100m apparently).

dan719 wrote:

...combine that with the other planned cuts, and maybe we'll return to a balanced budget 4-6 months early.

So, keeping the above in mind, that happening is unlikely. All you'd be doing is cutting funding to people who are in situations beyond anything you're ever likely to experience in your life, and for absolutely no reason.

DublinWriter

dan719 wrote: »

Life is **** for plenty of people right here in Ireland. Why should we piss away Money which we are borrowing at a premium on countries which will prob ensure it's spent on weapons anyway, before trying to help out people here?

I think we in the West have a very naive notion of African politics.

Many people make the argument that Live Aid actually killed more people than it saved through it's indirect prolonging of a brutal civil war and subsequent resettlement programme.

I was dumbstruck when I originally heard that argument, but it's essentially valid when you research what happened at the time.

It's a very unpopular argument to make as we all did our bit for char-a-dee at the time and wept at the video of little starving black babies between the Phil Collins and Queen slots.

dan719

Cannibal Ox wrote: »

800€ million. It's between 0.39% to 0.48% of GDP depending on what source you consult (from Board Snip to Mary Robinson). It was cut by 24% last year, €222m, and it's likely to be cut again with the next budget (give or take, close to a €100m apparently).


So, keeping the above in mind, that happening is unlikely. All you'd be doing is cutting funding to people who are in situations beyond anything you're ever likely to experience in your life, and for absolutely no reason.

It's also just under four percent of our expected budget deficit for this year. It should be cut. For the simple reason that we cannot afford it.

What reason can you give to maintain a situation, where we borrow money, simply to give it away.

FTA69

DublinWriter wrote: »

I think we in the West have a very naive notion of African politics.

Many people make the argument that Live Aid actually killed more people than it saved through it's indirect prolonging of a brutal civil war and subsequent resettlement programme.

Some people in aid agencies will also make the argument that if you prevent combatants from accessing food aid they will simply pillage civilians in order to take what they need, thus causing even more hardship e.g the SPLA in Sudan.

diverdriver

Years ago, well OK over thirty years ago, lads from my year in school held a 24 hour fast for Concern collecting money to save the starving in Africa. It wasn't much of a fast as apparently soup wasn't considered 'food' hmm.

Anyway flash forward to now and I look at the heartrending ads for Concern right now where they promise they have a 'cure for starvation'. And I'm set to wondering why they think they can do it now when the obviously failed to do it in the last thirty years. In between we have Live aid and the all the rest. But it's only got worse. Myers is right. We cannot fix Africa, only Africans can fix Africa.

I don't believe in all that baloney about IQ. Africans are no less intelligent than many other peoples but I do believe it's about tribalism and more importantly culture. It's also a criticism I have levelled at ourselves the Irish in that our inherent tribalism and culture has prevented us from developing like other European countries and landed us in the biggest mess we ever constructed for ourselves. So we really cannot look down on Africans in any way.

Neither do I believe that African geography held them back. It didn't hold back the Asians or the Indians which have directly comparable conditions and geography and big game animals. Not only that, this assumes that all of Africa was and is like big game reserves. It's not true. There are plenty places, particulary in coastal regions which in other continents would have produced city states that soon plundered the surrounding territory, killed all the game animals and tore down the forests. This theory was invented to explain away the complete lack of any civilisation and cities away from the more Arabic regions. To stop the racists from calling the African stupid.

Quite simply, Africa did not and has not developed like the rest of the world. Claiming colonisation as the reason is to ignore the fact of the soaring development of the former Asian colonies.

Africa remains a problem because for the most part the Africans themselves failed to grasp the potential of their countries when they became independant. That's their problem. It's clear many of you haven't had much contact with Africans. I have spent time with several, admittedly Nigerians mostly but most they left not because they were starving, often they were highly educated but they knew the society they lived was not conducive to improvement so they come west. They are quick to point out the oppressiveness of the regime, the corruption etc. The same applies all over Africa.

So what to do. I don't have the answer. None of us has really. But Myers is right, only the Africans themselves can fix it.