What is The West doing to Africa? (4 Viewers)

[reformer]

Yeah, but GDP is one thing, GNP is another. And neither say anything about the distribution of wealth within and among African countries.

Africa's very resource-rich, but little of the wealth stays in the continent.

That article sets all those figures in a bigger context, which I think is farly convincing if you accept the level of analysis it's taking place at.

Saying growth is blah or blah means nothing if you don't set it in a context. The general context, confirmed by Maddison's pioneering work, is rising inequality. Bob Sutcliffe is a bit of a head on this. Here's his page: http://www.geocities.com/bobsutcl/Articles.html

yeah,pardon me,my optimism was based on remembering a report i had read some time back which showed a drop in absolute poverty worldwide as opposed to africa alone which this thread is about so apologies.and after further looking into the report it seems that a huge percentage of the people moved above absolute poverty were in china while a lot of african countries actually regressed.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2040450

however i still maintain that we do need to keep trading with african countries/companies and not just endlessly hand out food aid,rather giving cash directly to the people who need it may indeed work better as it would provide a boost to local economies unlike food shipped in which helps clear farm surplus (back to unfair subsidies again) back in the u.s./europe while allowing us to look benevolent

 

[ITalkShite]

however i still maintain that we do need to keep trading with african countries/companies and not just endlessly hand out food aid,rather giving cash directly to the people who need it may indeed work better as it would provide a boost to local economies unlike food shipped in which helps clear farm surplus (back to unfair subsidies again) back in the u.s./europe while allowing us to look benevolent

Well, I'm convinced

 

[reformer]

great contribution.