What can be done for Africa?

[anotheoldgit]

After cancelling Africa's debt, talk of doubling Africa's aid, it is asked what more can we do for Africa?

Or should we ask what can Africa do for itself?

[Gromit]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question38 8160.html

[Reverandfunk]

A good form of birth control would be a good start.

[Loosehead]

Has the debt been cancelled? If it has then great but have they cut up their credit cards or are they just going to run them up again? Like the hapless credit junkie of the high street it's pointless cancelling debt without changing habits.

As fas as aid goes I refer you to the answer I gave in the question in Gromit's link.

[Reverandfunk]

It's a never ending circle:

Get debt, wipe it out, get debt.

Have kids, kids die in famine, have more kids

Have civil war, have a bit of peace, have civil war

[anotheoldgit]

Yes I know Gromit, I am sorry but I am also fed up with same question each and every time I pick up a newspaper or switch on the news.

It was Blairs fault today, pontificating on about us doing more for Africa. I'm fed, fed, fed, fedup with it all.

[kwicky]

I think China are going to pick up the tab in future. The Chinese were talking with Robert Mugabe last week so maybe if we kept quiet they may take over the whole Africa caboogle.

[jake-the-peg]

We could all agree to stop selling arms to tin pot dictators out there for a start!

[wired]

I have some very old ,19th century,copies of Punch and the same questions were being asked then.Money was given and squandered,tractors donated and used until they broke down and then left to rust.I think for too many years the aid given was trying to "westernise" the Africans.
It's a never ending story I'm afraid.

[kwicky]

Its all to do with trade. If we set them up with some factories we could then outsource some work to them. I sure they would prefer this method to handouts.

[ELVIS68]

It`s a never ending story, the amount of money they have had over the last 25 years yet nothing changes

Bono really p!sses me off when he keeps harping on about third world debt and poverty, how much does he donate out of his multi -million pound fortune?

[jake-the-peg]

It's a never ending story of lies and decit on our side.

We promise aid and give trade credits so that they can only buy from us at our prices.

We do the "give a man a fish" speech and then errect trade barriers so they can't sell into our markets.

We talk about how they waste the aid we give them but yet we are still selling them arms and munitions.

And the west still hasn't deliverred on the promises made at Gleneagles

http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&articl e=418781&lng=1

So when we talk about how nothing changes - why exactly is that?

Well quite possibly because the one thing that would really help Africa is dropping trade barriers selling into Europe and America. But that would cost jobs

So who's up for helping Africa by raising unemployment?

[NikkiB]

We are all descended from Africans. Africans are not inferior people. They've just had inferior opportunities. The West has done all it can. So let's not treat them like children. Let them now, as a continent, make their own luck.

[kwicky]

Pledges like indefinate engagement to marry proposals are just pie in the sky. They don't mean a thing!