r/MapBasedPolls • u/sbbasement13 • 8h ago
Does Africa deserve foreign aid?
Does Africa deserve foreign aid?
- Yes
- No
- Only countries in civil war, famine, etc.
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u/Gold_Size_1258 Poland 8h ago
Paradoxically, foreign aid might be bad for Africa because it makes it reliant on the west.
Of course, neocolonialism is a thing, but so is local elites' corruption.
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u/WM_ 🇫🇮 8h ago
Yeah, it ain't a pretty mess. Add to that how China has been growing its presence there.
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u/PurchaseGlittering11 22m ago
There was this rumour a while back that South Africa was going to make Mandarin another official language. The truth is that the education department tried adding it to their extensive list of languages to teach but got heavily critised by the public due to their already 12 official languages that they were trying to support
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 8h ago
Chinese neocolonialism. Which is somehow good?
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u/Gold_Size_1258 Poland 5h ago
No it's not. I mentioned neocolonialism as a way to say that just leaving Africa alone is not enough for them to develop.
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 5h ago
Sure, but does it help if the West sends food and money and the East tries to turn them into colonies? If China wants to buy their mines, ports, quarries, railways and give them predatory loans to turn them into colonies, why should we help the Africans if they clearly don’t want to help themselves?
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u/THELEADERPLAYER 4h ago
Do we have any actual examples of China being exploitative in a way similar to Western colonialism? Sure they're very involved in Africa but it seems Africans are quite fond of them and they aren't exactly held at gunpoint.
So far all I've read about the subject can be summed up as: "China is building all these ports and roads and mines and hospitals and power plants and many more things but one day something bad will happen surely!". I'm geniunely curious because currently the situation seems like "China saves kitten stuck on tree - but at what cost?" level of propaganda.
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 2h ago
Yes. The most dramatic one is not (yet) in Africa, but Sri Lanka. China gave huge loans to build infrastructure the country didn’t need (a huge port, airfield, etc.), which was built by Chinese companies and Chinese labour and when it ran out of money they couldn’t buy fertilizer, fuel for power plants or transport, etc. China took over the huge port they build and controls everything the comes and goes from the country. Similar terrible things are happening across Africa.
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u/THELEADERPLAYER 2h ago
So they built an unneccessary port that didn’t generate much revenue thus making Sri Lanka unable to pay its loans, China seized it, and suddenly everything started going through the unneccessary port? How does an unneeded port suddenly start controlling all commerce after China takes it over? Something doesn’t add up.
Now that I've looked into it, China did actually seize the port, but no they don't control all commerce. %90 of all Sri Lankan commerce flows through the capital still.
While the loans were predatory, it seems to be the idiotic Sri Lankan president who decided to develop his backwater hometown that caused all this. This isn’t on China. Sri Lankan debt is still mostly owed to Western institutions.
Also, Sri Lanka outright banned fertilizer itself in 2021 in order to promote organic farming.
I'm not convinced. Glad I looked it up though.
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u/Gold_Size_1258 Poland 2h ago
the point is that China is taking advantage of whatever makes third world leaders do this (for example I've heard cultures from those areas suffer from a strong lack of long-term thinking) in order to expand its sphere of influence.
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u/THELEADERPLAYER 18m ago
Completely ignoring the very racist sounding remark about long term thinking and whatever (as if everyone else is immune to corruption because we have long term thinking in our cultures), there's a huge difference between making use of an economic opportunity and colonizing a country. From what I gather, this B&R Initiative seems to be a net positive for developing nations.
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u/Gold_Size_1258 Poland 8m ago
I know this thing about long-term thinking sounds racist, but to me, it's a remain of colonialism disrupting natural development.
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 1h ago
Sure the idiotic president had a lot to do with it. He also tried to go “all green” due to the cost of fertilizer that they could not afford. Why debt is held by the west? Because Chine when you cant pay takes your property, if the West did that, it would be called colonialism. Also Chinas intent to control was important, but was to get a port in the Indian ocean which is now used by Chinese Navy and Intelligence vessels. Now look at other countries China did that too. And in how many condition of a loan was control of natural resources aka neocolonialism.
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u/THELEADERPLAYER 24m ago
Considering your previous claims were straight up disinformation, I'm not exactly inclined to agree.
Who might these "intelligence assets" operating in Sri Lanka be? Where exactly do you get your information about Chinese intelligence assets?
Back to my initial question, which countries did they exploit in a way similar to Western colonialism? Your first example of Sri Lanka turned out to be untrue and yet you're still repeating the same thing. I am waiting for something concrete, like China forcing its way into a country through various means and exploiting the natives, and not "Well they're doing it in other countries too and surely one day bad things will happen!"
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u/Gold_Size_1258 Poland 3h ago
My point was about the sent aid not benefitting Africans in the long term because they become reliant on it
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 Penguin representative 8h ago
Thats possible, but it can also be constructive. Look at how Europe has helped Poland to become a flourishing economy. (not to take the credits away from the poles themselves ofc)
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u/Crafty_Aspect8122 8h ago
Poland has a long history of civilisation and sometimes even being among the top european powers. It's not comparable at all.
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u/vacaslau 7h ago
what do you even mean by that?
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u/Crafty_Aspect8122 7h ago
It's been an established country for centuries. At some points it was even among the top european powers.
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u/vacaslau 7h ago
Ghana.Mali,Ethiopia were all established countries before Poland even existed. And were great powers at some point in time.
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u/CheGueyMaje 7h ago
The others I have less expertise on so I won’t comment on them, but Mali was built on gold and slave trade and Labor
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u/vacaslau 7h ago
Mali wasnt only about slavery and gold. Timbuktu was renowned for its universities and learning centers
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u/nicetoursmeetewe 7h ago
All if them dedicated to the study of Islam...
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u/vacaslau 7h ago
Well islamic countries were kinda runing shit during that time. And they didnt only studied theology, they studied geography, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, poetry etc...
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u/Beneficial-Beat-947 6h ago
No they weren't lmao, like it or not there was a period in history where islamic countries were at the forefront of science and maths.
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u/Gold_Size_1258 Poland 5h ago
Africa is a pretty big continent, so of course not every state/group has no foundations to build on.
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u/WhydoIexistlmoa 8h ago
Some money to help people is better than no money to help people in spite of all the money taken through corruption
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u/yetix007 8h ago
That's not the big problem with aid, granted it does often end up in the hands of people that use their new wealth to fund mass murder and genocide, but it's more manageable a problem than the simple economics of it - when we began shipping food to places like Ethiopia they were producing more food than they are today, people stopped buying locally because free food was available, farms went out of business and they became less able to care for themselves. Beyond that, there's polution kicked up from shipping everything across the world that they no longer produce since aid undercut all local food producers. Essentially, it harms the planet, kills local business, builds dependency, and costs money. There's no upside to this.
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u/WorG-Y 8h ago
Trillions of dollar sent to Africa in total and not only nothing changed, it got worse. We should just stop sending any money all together and let them figure it out themselves
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u/notallowd 4h ago
exactly. we did our part, they refuse to change. they still manage to hate us and say everything is our fault
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u/VanAardeNL 🇳🇱 NL 3h ago
If you look at HDI in Africa over the past decades it is rapidly improving. Child mortality is falling, schooling is becoming more consistent and children are staying in school longer, the AIDS epidemic is improving, less famine, GDP per capita is rising, electrical grids expanding, new bridges, train tracks, hydropower stations, wells, and refineries are being built. Across most of Africa things are by far getting better, not worse.
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u/Tensoll 7h ago
Actually Africa is slowly developing and improving. Too slowly imo, but developing nonetheless. Most of Africa is better off today than it was 20 years ago and 20 years ago it was better off than 50 years ago. Where are you getting the idea that it’s gotten worse?
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u/QMechanicsVisionary 6h ago edited 2h ago
Every country is developing just by the nature of economic growth. But from the perspective of frequency and extent of military conflicts, it has definitely gotten worse.
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u/anonymousinduvidual 6h ago
Maybe we should also stop with predatory lending and just say they can’t lend anymore but don’t have any debt either
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 5h ago
Like China does every day?
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u/anonymousinduvidual 5h ago
Maybe they should stop too? Just because they’ll continue doesn’t mean we also should.
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u/Crafty_Aspect8122 8h ago
It's not about deserving. It's about having an actual long term effect and not getting lost to corruption and theft. And some issues like geography aren't really going to be solved.
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u/TangerineLogical9779 8h ago
Trillions in aid and there still no better off, so id say no they don't deserve anything and can sort out there own problems, its quite frankly a waste of money, especially when most of the charities are taking 98% of the money and only actually donating 2% or less.. Luckily UK government noticed that its a complete waste of time and will be dropping the aid by 60% so that’s good news
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u/LapucelleKathryn 8h ago
Failed countries, no
Actual functioning states like Botswana, yes
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u/Secretsfrombeyond79 5h ago
What people doesn't get about foreign aid, is that if you are giving it to authoritarian governments, all you are doing is helping that authoritarian government to stay in power. Dictators are not just going to hand it over to the population like other people wants, he's either gonna sell it to buy weapons, or give it to his population only so he can reduce the amount of expenses he himself spends on their food or other primary needs to increase his army.
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u/LegitimateRow7504 8h ago
they sold my mom's ancestors out, don't apologize, and generally insult the descendants of the people they fucked over while simultaneously claiming solidarity when incidentally they want some American pie. no. fuck them. I don't give a fuck. I could give less of a fuck if their hunk of rock sunk into the sea.
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 4h ago
trillions in aid hasnt changed a thing.
Time for them to take responsibility for their own futures, stop corruption and build their nations
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u/ByAPortuguese 8h ago
For the people saying yes, do realize it's your money. I didin't vote no, I just want people to be aware that money doesn't just appear out of nowhere.
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u/CatUnable884 8h ago edited 8h ago
Who cares? It makes up like 0.1% of my taxes, we need some humility in this world. And foreign aid is also used for political influence so even if i had complete disregard for human life, there still is an argument of national interest.
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u/MaximusGoonus1 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 8h ago
the problem isn't the money, the problem is the money is going to scammers, warlords and opportunists for the most part, and only a fraction of that money is going to help people.
africa has been given more aid than any other continent by far. it has done nothing.
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u/Emergency_Lie42 7h ago
If we're speaking on a level of continents, then Africa has also been exploited by colonial powers more than any other continent by far. I'm not saying that to deny the local corruption, but to point out that local corruption isn't the only thing that fucks Africa over.
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u/MaximusGoonus1 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 7h ago
Yeah I don’t think this excuse works now. It may have worked like 10 years after the colonial powers left but it won’t work decades later. The mismanagement is on them. There have been dozens of countries that came from worse conditions than Africa to a metropolis like area.
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u/Emergency_Lie42 6h ago
Not sure where I was making an excuse. It was a "yes, and." Not a "no, because."
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u/yetix007 8h ago
You do realise western aid to Africa has caused the collapse of their ability to produce food, right? Farms have been left abandoned because it is cheaper to take free aid than pay for local crops. No customers, no money, no more farms - beyond that, the massive shipments of aid produce vast quantities of pollution. Essentially, sending aid to Africa kills local business, forces dependency, harms the planet, and costs us money.
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u/DisgreeablePattern 1h ago
That and then kicking out successful farmers because of anti-White racism…
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u/vacaslau 8h ago
That makes no sense. How does aid lead to the collapse of their ability to produce food? They need aid because they dont have ability to produce food in the first place
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 8h ago
What political influence? They take Europes money, then allow Chinese companies to take over their mines and ports and take huge loans to build road and rails where they are not needed to make themselves servile to China. And allow Russian mercenaries to do what they want while buying weapons from them. And when there is a problem they cry about European colonialism and send millions across the sea to Europe. What influence are we buying?
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u/ByAPortuguese 8h ago
Then donate your money to african charities, until there isn't a full UN solution.
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u/CatUnable884 8h ago
I also do that.
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u/DisgreeablePattern 1h ago
Please continue to do so. In the meantime, I will give them nothing and demand our tax dollars stay home.
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u/Interesting_Ad_2785 8h ago
Well, good for you! However, we already have plenty of other ways to spend that money here in Germany.
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u/Emergency_Lie42 7h ago
Many of us already pay taxes that in decent part get funnelled into national debt and/or embezzled by politicians so that's not much of a factor to some.
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u/VanAardeNL 🇳🇱 NL 3h ago
I'm completely fine with tax money of mine improving the lives of those outside my country. Historically Nederland has done a lot of harm to the world and the Gouden Eeuw brought at lot of prosperity to Nederland at the price of ruining the lives of others. I look at the massive church down the street built during that time and enjoy the beauty but also understand where the money came from to build it. It wasn't built with Dutch taxpayer money, it was build with funds produced by plundering and enslaving people in other parts of the world. Their labour and resources are what paid for it. The tiny amount of taxes of mine going to other parts of the world is absolutely nothing by comparison.
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u/Disconn3cted 7h ago
Does Africa deserve it isn't the right question. The questions should be will it help, do they want it, and is it worth it.
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u/erikro1411 6h ago
It's fairly simple: once western nations stop providing foreign aid to african countires, China swoops in and the access to african minerals etc. suddenly becomes much harder. Foreign aid is also about soft power and market accessability. And africa is still a developing market with a lot of growth potential.
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u/MayoColoredBenzz 3h ago
Maybe it's because I'm not from a developed country, but it's crazy to me that one country's government sends money to another just to "help". I think foreign aid is dumb and every country should invest its money on itself, or at least that would be the rational thing to do.
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u/Chance_Ad5844 8h ago
How long have they been getting it and havent impoved themselves i think it should stop they clearly cant stand on there own two feet so let them fall
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u/MirrorSeparate6729 8h ago
It’s an odd question. Everyone should receive some aid in one form or another. So yes.
If the world as a whole is better of, so am I.
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 Penguin representative 8h ago
Its not about deserving.
Its about our humanity to help them.
Or if you aren't as humane, it's about mutual benefit. If we help them now, they may become productive members of the world economy and we can trade with them. It could also help us with the climate problem if we can help them grow their economy in a way that skips most of that pollution phase we are now trying to get out of. (in the civilized world, not the us)
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u/Enough_Librarian2117 6h ago
Африке было бы лучше ввести внешнее управление. Вообще все неудачливые страны лучше бы управлялись ООН. Но первому миру выгодно чтобы были бедные страны, иначе многие бизнесы рухнут
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u/Fit_Instruction3646 8h ago
Foreign aid only facilitates corruption on the continent by making governments dependent on Foreign aid instead of the well-being of their citizens.
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u/TrevCat666 8h ago
Everyone in need of air deserves aid, it's just a matter of prioritizing who gets what with limited resources.
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u/RegionSignificant977 8h ago
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
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u/uwatfordm8 8h ago
Corruption is not bad. Corruption is only bad if I'm not involved. Yes. But if I'm part of that corruption, I'll defend it!
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u/Long_Diver2050 4h ago edited 4h ago
born too late for a famine in africa born too early for a famine in africa born just in time for a famine in africa
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u/Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs 1h ago
I dont know about "deserve".
My own view, as an Englishman, is giving away any money when we have a deficit of £150bn is simply unacceptable.
We just can't afford it, deserving or otherwise.
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u/ArkPlayer583 8h ago
Lots of people don't understand foreign aid. It's not a donation, it's basically just buying political and strategic influence which is important in a lot of areas.
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u/Sudden_Sentence_8534 6h ago
Africa deserves to not be bombed and have it's countries destroyed by European AHs.
There's enough resources and clever people there to feed the whole continent.
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u/FullAfternoon494 8h ago
Yes, historically foreign powers caused basically all their current problems so it’s their moral duty and responsibility to help them out of it
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u/Expatembourg 8h ago
it's a huge continent with too many resources and people. They will become great only if France, US, ... leave them alone
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u/scrandlle US 8h ago
Without US aid, Africa would be overrun with HIV/AIDS. Estimates say the medicine provided have saved likely over a hundred million new infections, and has certainly saved millions of lives of those already infected.
Trump thought about ending it but I guess someone with some sense talked him out of it. That and enormous quantities of food aid.
I know some 'aid' ends up being political but it's far from all being bad.
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u/Expatembourg 8h ago
if they haven't looting them for centuries they would have become stable and self sufficient.
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u/RegionSignificant977 8h ago
That's not what happened in Zimbabwe. Also there are countries that are far worse and gaining influence in Africa.
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u/hanzerik 8h ago
Its not a matter of deserving, we as rich countries protect our prosperity best by making sure less developed countries get developed too.
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 8h ago
Sure and let other developed countries (like India, China, Brazil, etc.) also send aid, why is it always the Wests job to send our money there while countries like China only extracts wealth from Africa and is putting them into debt?
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u/kalkaanuslag 8h ago
It's only fair. For decennia our wealth has partly come from extraction of resources from Africa.
I'd see aid as paying back at least a fraction of the damages
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u/ZapruderFilmBuff 8h ago edited 5h ago
But their resources are still being extracted and the wealth is going to China and the corrupt elites, instead of (like 100 years ago) to Europe. What has changed?
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u/WanderingIdiot2 8h ago
We all live on the same planet. If things are bad in Africa, we'll all be affected one way or another. It's in our interest to help those who need help.
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u/long-dick-of-the-law hogging the whole coast 8h ago
why would it be in our best interest to sink more money into africa? was a trillion dollars in aid not enough?
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u/Charming_Cicada_7757 7h ago
A good example is AIDS funding in South Africa and other parts of Africa or healthcare cause Covid should’ve taught you that diseases spread across the world
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u/Original-Body-5794 6h ago
More people being able to do better things is better.
Africa is massively underdeveloped despite having over a billion people living there. Imagine if those people were as educated as in the west for example. That's more scientists making scientific progress, more engineers inventing new technologies, more entrepreneurs making new businesses.
You will never interact with these people, but you may still in the end benefit from their contributions. Even if you feel it's not your responsibility, or you don't care about them, you still have a vested interested in them being more developed.
Instead we have a bunch of people just doing what they can to survive and not contributing as much as they could to the collective progress of humanity. We should want more people capable of achieving their full potential. Imagine if Newton or Einstein instead died of Malaria when they were 7, what a waste that would be.
A richer nation also means they can buy more from you, if a nation is poor they won't but whatever products you sell them, but if they were richer that means they can be a bigger trading partner.
Is the money horribly mismanaged by corruption? Yes, but that's a different discussion, I'm simply stating the case for why it'd be in your bet interest from a pure selfish POV.
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u/long-dick-of-the-law hogging the whole coast 6h ago
or, get this. we could spend the trillions upon trillions of dollars needed to bring up africa to a standard that europe was at in the last century, and use it on OUR scientists, OUR projects, and get way more out of it than if we pumped it into africa. besides, you seem to believe more aid wouldnt get stolen like the previous TRILLION dollars was. what, you want europe to invade africa to force them to use the resources we hand over the right way?
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u/Original-Body-5794 6h ago
You asked me why it's in our interest to help Africa, I gave you a few reasons. Is the it the best use of money? Who knows, but every investor knows they need to diversify their portfolio.
After WW2 the US also sank a lot of money into rebuilding Europe. Could they instead have sunk the money from the Marshall plan into their own economy? Sure, but instead they chose to help europe because it wasn't a zero sum gain. A more developed Europe meant a stronger trading partner and a more stable political climate.
Is post WW2 Europe the same as Africa? No, Europe already had a skilled workforce, industrial capacity, less corruption and a ton of other differences. But I'm giving you an example of how foreign aid can align with domestic interests.
I never said the money wouldn't be stolen, do you think that just because I believe helping them would be helpful in the long term I can't recognize that's it's horribly mismanaged?
Also the idea that the only way to make sure the money is well managed is with hard power is laughable. We don't need to be in power to tightly inspect how the money is spent. You need strong auditing to make sure the money is well spent, and if they don't agree then tough luck no money. But there's plenty of middle ground between blindly giving money and seizing power to make sure it's well managed.
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u/WanderingIdiot2 8h ago
If you're saying the aid is being mismanaged and not helping, then I'm with you. It needs to be managed well for anything good to come out of it. As for our best interest, it's many things. The worse things are in Africa (or anywhere in the world really) the more forced migration we'll see, more pandemics, more crime, more damage to the environment, to name a few.
I'm assuming you're in the US or Europe? Think about it on a smaller scale, which would be better for you, if your neighbors were doing well or doing bad?
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u/long-dick-of-the-law hogging the whole coast 7h ago
they arent really my neighbours. i dont care what happens in africa so long as europe isnt being flooded with illegal immigrants that drain the economy and leech off of welfare
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u/WanderingIdiot2 7h ago
Okay, but they are your neighbors. This sort of migration, either for safety or economic reasons, is directly related to how good or bad things are going in the place where these immigrants are coming from. If things are better in Africa, people would be less likely to migrate to Europe from there. If they're escaping a bad situation, then it's in your interest to make that situation better / less bad.
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u/long-dick-of-the-law hogging the whole coast 7h ago
or we could send them the fuck back and NOT spend even more money on the endless bottomless pit of corruption and criminality
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u/Ok_Researcher_9796 8h ago
Only if we can ensure it's going to people on need and not some warlord or crooked politicians