"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

Spiegel interviews 35 year old African Economics expert, from Kenya, James Shikwati. Shikwati says that "aid to Africa does more harm than good. He is a proponent of "globalization" and talks about the "disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem."

When asked to comment on the fact that, because of G8 summit, the international community is about to significantly increase economic aid to Africa, Mr. Shikwati's response was "... for God's sake, please just stop."

After Mr. Shikwati commented that

"it makes no sense whatsoever that directly after the new Kenyan government was elected -- a leadership change that ended the dictatorship of Daniel arap Mois -- the faucets were suddenly opened and streams of money poured into the country,"

the interviewer from DER SPIEGEL displayed typical Western naiveté and remarked,

"Such aid is usually earmarked for a specific objective, though."

It apparently does not occur to the interviewer that even though we might tell them how to use the money that we give them, it just might not be used that way.

Thanks to the reader who made an anonymous comment and furnished me with the link to this article from DER SPIEGEL.

Go read the entire interview, for it is good.