Inspired by the thread with all the Americans.
Myvoice said that
This thread is to discuss Africa’s problems and to discuss ideas, no matter how radical, for resolving them.
I will be jotting down various random thoughts as we go.
Re: The African Problem
Probably the first problem of Africa is political. The most successful African country , South Africa, has been a full and fair democracy longer than any other country, having gone over a decade since the abolition of apartheid.
Even before that, under apartheid, South Africa was as I understand a functional democracy, though voting rights were held by a minority. This is important, because a functional democracy, even by a minority, encourages competent administration. South Africa never underwent violent internal conflict ever since the Boers were given a damned good spanking.
Many other African countries either are stooge, unfair democracies such as Zimbabwe, or deeply corrupt democracies such as Nigeria, or dictarships that are not run in a manner consistent more consistent with the best interests of the rulers' wallets than of the country.
Dictatorship is common because many African countries suffer the kind of tribal or clan based politics, where people support rulers because of what they are or who endorses them, rather than because they actually know about and support policies. Cronyism wins the day.
Re: The African Problem
Poverty and drought follow on from Dictatorship and the cult of cronyism. When the country is looted for individuals, and those doing the looting stay in power either by force or by the ignorance of voters, poverty spreads. The experience of some of the Gulf states and of the Jewish entity in Palestine have shown that when money spent on agriculturem, even parched land can be made bountiful.
The failure of African countries to invest in their infrastructure has left them vulnerable to drought.
Re: The African Problem
let's start with letting them come to europe and america to pick up some white slaves
Re: The African Problem
Maddy, a lot of African countries are suffering from the repercussions of IMF/World Bank reform policies, such as Zambia. They were forced to cut down social spending and privatise state-owned companies such as the ZCCM (Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines) in return for loans. Now these countries are heavily in debt and trying to undo the damage done by these IFIs.
Re: The African Problem
Catty, What can be done now though to correct those past problems, internally at least.
If you became dictator of the USSSA (United States of Sub Saharan Africa) what would you do to combat the problems of the continent?
Re: The African Problem
I should start reading the 'Africa' section of the newspaper :(
Re: The African Problem
Here's a Modest Proposal that will never happen.
The UN could declare Africa a lost continent and, with some notable exceptions (like SA), remove the existing governments from power. The UN (or appointed UN Members) would become the administrators of Africa or parts of Africa. The 50 year or 100 year objective would be for the administrators to build the political, educational, economic, health and societal infrastructures necessary to ultimately turn self-governance back to the people of the various countries. Some areas would no doubt experience faster progress and the turnover to self-governance would occur in phases over the 50 to 100 years.
Under the auspices of international administrators who would control economic development and international funding and who could assure political stability, huge contracts for development work would lure major international corporations to Africa.
Re: The African Problem
^ what an aweful..aweful scenario. Africa is better off under the current governance paradigm then with morons from the UN at the helm. Africa doesn;t need more bureaucracy, it needs growth capital and corporate attention. Look at FDI and FII flows into africa. Communal policies of European colonization and the abrupt departure left a continent with little in terms of infra both physical and institutional. These can be reparied without the need of UN mucking siht up. Private capital has been the only lacing aspect of international attention into the region. Why do I think, Private capital is the last hope....private capital bring greater accountability than any other form of aid or governance.
Re: The African Problem
If they do not stop having unprotected sex with each other enmasse, there is nothing you can do to help them. You cannot have 10% of your population sick with a deadly disease and expect progress. However, we are not their parents. You cannot jump up and down and scream at them not to go roll in the hay whenever they are able.
With infection rates so high, there is no hope of treating all of the sick, there are too few caregivers. There are too few farmers. There are too many orphans. The UN would have to essentially support all aspects of infrastructure and society. It cannot be done.
My conclusion is that until the "morality issue" is dealt with frankly and openly there is no hope. There has been no leader, white or black who has stood up and said that things will not get better until you are faithful in your marriage and monogamous in your relationships. Political correctness has stopped us from saying what must be said. The only other logical conclusion is that the disease just "flames out", by taking all those whose morals allow them to become infected. It is frankly a modern day Soddom and Gemorah, via disease.
Africa needs a leader who will change society and change the culture. Barring a cure or a vaccine, there is no hope otherwise for Africa. Behaviors must change.
Re: The African Problem
Pinny: No one is going to make the investment commitment that is necessary to build African infrastructure in an environment where tribal and internecine warfare and rampant genocide predominate. Any money sent to African countries is like flushing it down the toilet as whichever thug is in power loots his own country treasury. There is no cohesive Continental economic structure possible in the current environment.
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, various administrators were appointed over former parts of the Ottoman Empire until soveriegnity of nations could be restored. While the present Middle East is no great endorsement for this kind of proposal, international administration could probably be done better today than it was then.
I share your lack of confidence in the UN. However, after 30-50 million die in AFrica because of AIDS and other diseases and a few million more die of starvation and genocide, the international community will have to do something to pick up the pieces anyway. If nothing more than to bury the corpses.
Without political stability and without confidence that contracts and investment will be honored and secure, forget about private investment in Africa. It won't happen.
Re: The African Problem
OG the only way to change behavior is to educate the people on all levels and provide condoms, both the male and female variety.
Re: The African Problem
Cmon UTD. You’ve got West African christians practicing child sacrifice (as we’ve seen in another thread) after they get educated in the Bible. Exactly how do you propose educating the “people on all levels” and distributing the condoms on a continental basis in the current environment? As good as it is, your stick people artwork is not going to be sufficient to educate the people on all levels even if your pictures come with every condom that is dropped by plane in the jungle.
Re: The African Problem
UTD, it is more than that. In many parts of Africa condom availability is fine, there is a ton of education, but behaviors do not change. In a few key cities the opposite is true. The politically incorrect notion that no one wants to say out loud is that people hate to use condoms. Not only are condoms only partially effective, between a 1 to 7% failure rate, but they must be used consistantly. One estimate is that to provide 17 condoms for every man on the continent would only cost $47million dollars. If it was that easy, this would have been wrapped up decades ago.
People still have unprotected sex after they know they have aids. They claim that condoms are a white mans plot to keep the black man from reproducing. In short, the "just use condoms" arguement is glaringly obvious but there are societal norms and mores that prevent this from being effective. Why? Well obviously people are having a lot of physical pleasure from screwing anywhere anytime. Perhaps it is an expression of hoplessness, but nowhere in the world has a disease solely based on sex spread so fast. They are having a LOT of unprotected sex with multiple partners, and that is the "vector", and they will not stop. And it will kill millions.
Re: The African Problem
^ NOt to mention a twisted belief that sleeping with a virgin will "cure" one of AIDS. That's why a lot of young children are being infected. Women cannot refuse their husbands, most of them don't have the right to ask to use condoms or refuse sex flat out. And I think everyone knows, education doesnt do shiit sometimes. Muslims will cut off their daughters' genitals because of the sick idea that women aren't meant to have pleasure.
Re: The African Problem
Well the facts fly in the face of OG and MV’s analysis of the situation. MV, you fail to grasp what I have been saying and think that I’m saying the solution is to drop condoms in jungles which i’ve never supported in doing. Education and talking openly about AIDS and how it is spread, how it can be prevented, and providing prevention methods (that means more than just condoms) is the solution and the fact is results show that.
http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/october02_index.php?l=4
Re: The African Problem
That’s great progress UTD. So 28 million will die of AIDS instead of 30 million. Your own citation indicates one of the problems with the “education solution” is lack of infrastructure. You can’t educate everyone on the African continent without the political, educational, transportation, health, etc. infrastructures in place. You can’t educate everyone while the Hutus are commiting genocide against the Tutsis and vice versa. You can’t educate everyone when the death rate from hunger caused by drought and poverty is so appalling. You can’t educate everyone when the government is nothing more than the the latest guy to command the most troops.
This thread is not just about AIDS. It is about all of Africa and all of the problems the people have on the continent that looks as if it has been forsaken by God.
As to AIDS, tell me how it is remotely possible to educate everyone about safe sex and condom use without fixing a whole bunch of things that need fixing before you can even think about educating people. While a generation of babies and children are dieing from malnutrition, hunger, poverty, genocidal warfare, etc., you want to talk to their parents about using condoms? Will the Tutsis declare a recess from their slaughter of Hutus so you can tell both sides about condoms while singing Kumbaya around a campfire?
Re: The African Problem
The UN made enough of a hash of Kosovo and Bosnia's administration to be dependable.
Maybe, in the fictional scenario, the G-8 could be put in charge of administration.
Otherwise, restore the post-WW1 Mandate system and farm out administration of African nations to leading world powers.
Re: The African Problem
UTD,
I don’t think that you are grasping the severity of the situation. Today the US has about one million people living with aids. Africa has over 25 million. There are over 12 million children orphaned by aids. There were over 2.3million deaths from aids last year and 3.1 million new cases. At some point the epidemic will peak, and new cases will fall off, and then the deaths will cascade.
The time for condoms was 10 years ago. Now you are faced with 25 million carriers of the disease, and changing the behaviors of those people. The vast majority of those that are ill may suspect that they have the disease, but most (80%) have not had a lab test to confirm the diagnosis. You have huge countries like South Africa where over 5 million are infected, representing 21% of the adult population. One in five has the disease. You may be able to post a success story or two, but that does not mean that the disease will not blossom in that population later, see below.
The horse is out of the barn. If education and condoms was to have worked it must have worked early in the epidemic. More than likely it will not work now.
How are different countries in Africa affected?
Large variations exist between individual countries. In some African countries, the epidemic is still growing despite its severity. Others face a growing danger of explosive growth. The sharp rise in HIV prevalence among pregnant women in Cameroon (more than doubling to over 11% among those aged 20-24 between 1998 and 2000) shows how suddenly the epidemic can surge.
National HIV prevalence rates vary greatly between countries. In Somalia and Gambia the prevalence is under 2% of the adult population, whereas in South Africa and Zambia around 20% of the adult population is infected.
In four southern African countries, the national adult HIV prevalence rate has risen higher than was thought possible and now exceeds 24%. These countries are Botswana (37.3%), Lesotho (28.9%), Swaziland (38.8%) and Zimbabwe (24.6%).
West Africa is relatively less affected by HIV infection, but the prevalence rates in some countries are creeping up. In west and central Africa HIV prevalence is estimated to exceed 5% in several countries including Cameroon (6.9%), Central African Republic (13.5%), Côte d’Ivoire (7.0%) and Nigeria (5.4%).
Until recently the national prevalence rate has remained relatively low in Nigeria, the most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa. The rate has grown slowly from 1.9% in 1993 to 5.4% in 2003. But some states in Nigeria are already experiencing HIV prevalence rates as high as those now found in Cameroon. Already around 3.6 million Nigerians are estimated to be living with HIV.
HIV infection in Eastern Africa varies between adult prevalence rates of 2.7% in Eritrea to 8.8% in Tanzania. In Uganda the countrywide prevalence among the adult population is 4.1%.
Actually Maddy may have a point that some sort of Colonial system within the g-8 would be a much more streamlined administrative process. But then you are essentially occupying a country. As much as that might be needed simple human pride would prevent it. So the liberals would be ranting, “It’s all about the Zinc!”. That is radical enough that it might actually work. But can you imagine the conference to divide up the countries? Who would take the Muslim countries? Oh wouldn’t that generate screams.
Re: The African Problem
It sounds like your solution OG is to do nothing just let it go, is that correct?