Register
Events
Popular
More
Post #1
What are your thoughts on donating money to buy food for children in Africa?
The quote "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." comes in to my mind a lot.
Also it feels like we are prolonging there death.
(User was banned for this post ("No debate presented" - Megafan))
-
-
I think it's a good thing temporarily, but in the long run we should focus trade, not aid.
-
AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
except you are also ignoring that a lot of charities work to provide vaccinations, installation of clean water supplies, education, farming equipment, loans, infrastructure and security as well as food
also can you elaborate on which countries?
-
What exactly is your argument on this subject?
Why should we or should we not donate to children in Africa?
-
I belive directly providing anything needed for living is devastating for a country's ability to provide for itself. This applies for food, clothing, housing and so forth. Allow me to explain.
You are M'boga (Forgive the borderline racist stereotype name here, it is late and I cannot think of something better). You have a family of wife and five kids. You own a piece of land at the edge of your village. You are a farmer. You grow whatever you can, feed your family with that, and still have crops left to sell at the end of the month. You are poor, the people around you are poor, but everyone can afford the crops you sell.
One day, a big, white truck rolls into your village. White men in blue hats are driving it. You can read the side says U.N. The truck parks and starts unloading. Heavy sacks. The men in blue hats starts handing out the sacks. For free. They contain rice. You are overjoyed with yours and your entire village's new gift. You go home, cook a nice, big meal for everyone, because now you have both the crops you grow, AND free rice. You and your family are no longer hungry when you go to bed. For a while.
The white truck becomes a regular occurance. Once every week or so, it rolls in, gives free rice, and moves on. At first, this is a gift. But then you notice people in your village stop buying your crops. You get stuck with more than you need. The excess crops are left to rot, because what else to do with them? No one is buying, anyway. Soon, you realize you can live on free rice alone, too. It's free, it's edible, and it takes zero effort instead of you keeping your crops alive and well every day from sunrise to sunset.
You are M'boga. You have a family of wife and five kids. You own a piece of land at the edge of your village. You are without a job. Your fields lie barren, disused, since there is no longer a market. You can in no way sell your crops at a price lower than the free rice from the white truck and the blue hats.
Infrastructure, production equipment and medicine is great. But free food, free clothes, maybe also free housing is a plauge. It starves out the ones that make the clothes, that grow the food, and that builds the houses.
-
AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
Can you give me a real life example of this happening today?
-
it does and will happen. To truly move up out of poverty, developing nations need trade, not aid.
-
AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
Can you give me an example though?
-
I had a project on it a while ago. About a clothes manufacturer going out of buisness because of free donated clothing. Quite a few people went out of work. My example was, of course, somewhat overblown, since you would still keep the farm going, if nothing else then just for your family, since rice-based food is rather crappy to live on, nutritionally speaking. It was just the most concrete way of putting it, just dragging in one family instead of the women and girls of an entire town.
Edited:
Here is a more well-educated take on the same issue.
-
no, but I can show you examples of Africans asking for trade, not aid.
http://www.goodafrican.com/index.php...e-not-aid.html
http://www.newafricanmagazine.com/fe...-trade-not-aid
-
The only way to solve African poverty problems is to invest in technology that will bring about water purification and less scarcity. Any amount of charity will solve problems temporarily but we cannot fool ourselves. Dean Kamen's water purification systems seem to be a great idea to save millions of lives.
-
Stopping disease, offering clean water and rebuilding infrastructure should be main focuses. Without disease, workforce goes up and amount of children born go down, since you don't need twenty kids to have five reach maturity. With clean water, basic production goes up, you can water your crops and keep your cattle fed, solving much of the hunger-problem. With infrastructure comes trade, which is, in the current form of society, the base of all growth and improvements of living-standards.
-
I think it's bullshit. First of all, most of that money never even gets to Africa. Secondly, what the hell does buying them a meal or two do besides foster a nation of dependence??
It boils down to the West's habit of treating the symptoms and hoping the problem itself goes away. Donating food money is nice and all, but it's only treating one symptom in Africa. The actual problem, which measures like that do fuck all to solve, is that these nations lack basic infrastructure. They don't have electricity, they don't have clean running water, they don't have schools, they don't have adequate medical facilities, they don't have roadways and railways...they don't really have a goddamn thing. THAT is why they live in the conditions they live in.
Giving them food isn't going to give them nice roads and clean running water, so we shouldn't give them food. We should instead help them build and maintain the infrastructure they need to make their own food instead. All we accomplish by giving them food aid is making them dependent on our food aid to survive, which is actually setting them back.
-
I'd say that long term aid should be in the form of education and farming equipment. They're both things that last a lot longer than a bag of rice, improve their economy while their at it
-
What are people debating about some aid packages, seriously, OP didn't even think that far.
And besides, you are all ignoring other bigger problems that makes the lives of African children so horrible. It is through some complicated equation where middle-wealthy people all over the world are buying and consuming shit from their local store that was cheaply mined and hauled from Africa originally. Not necessarily from Africa, but from somewhere where there are a lot of (poor) people around who certainly wouldn't mind the "royalties."
-
So so sad, I wish the aid would be more effective!
-
We should industrialize africa and make them earn money and food instead.
-
I think that the first step should be to stop the constant devaluing of their currency. It's the reason why most of Africa's countries remain poor. Have you looked at Nigeria's exchange rate?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econo...eria#section_4
Imagine your 100 (choice of currency) now being worth 0.01.
Doesn't the World Bank and IMF offer the choice to devalue currency?
