Don’t ask me why, but occasionally my mind turns to the problem of Africa, of people living in poverty, dying of starvation or disease, people who seem to perpetually need our help. And therein lies the rub, because despite the billions we’ve poured into Africa we seem no closer to solving the problems.
My theory has been that we need to pick a nation, one with a stable and open-minded government, then attack the problems in that country as a showcase to the rest. The help would mainly be through advice and expertise. The first issue is feeding the country, aside from the obvious issue that you can’t achieve anything if your people are starving, it avoids the need for handouts and frees up money used to buy in food for other things.
So you look at improving farming techniques, run schools for farmers on how to improve crop yields, simple stuff, tailored to their environment and crops, but enough so the country is capable not just of feeding itself, but also generating a surplus to sell. Continue reading
