Is aid to Africa doing more harm than good?
Yes
Side Score: 12
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No
Side Score: 1
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Considering that most recepients of aid are autocratic nations where the power is maintained only by a few people - I would say yes, it does do more harm. It's quite well known already that only a small portion of the aid money actually goes into alleviating the suffering. Most of it is pocketed by dictators and autocrats who use the money to pay off their cronies and military generals for the sake of keeping power. They are also not very eager to better the condition of their people - not only because it would empower the people, but also because if the situation becomes acceptable, then they will no longer be getting foreign aid. In order to have constant injections of cash, the government deliberately keeps the people in the gutter. Foreign aid essentially enables dictatorships to continue. The best thing you could do for Africa is to cut all aid. A financial problem for autocrats is essentially a political one as well - if they can no longer pay the military, then the military won't be loyal. It happened with Lybia, it happened with Mubarak, it happened with Rhodesia and most likely it would happen to other African nations as well. As such, foreign aid is mostly a political tool which governments use to buy favors. For democratic African countries, the use of aid is more transparent and giving them money may well be justified. Side: Yes
2
points
Sometimes. You've all heard the expression "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." I feel most of the aid Africa receives is aid along the lines of "giving a man a fish." We are more likely to send a box of food than we are to fix their agriculture, for example. So we are addressing the symptoms and not the disease. This wouldn't be harmful, except, going back to the expression I mentioned, when a man cant feed himself and you choose to give him food instead of teaching him how to feed himself, he brings that food home and his family thrives for a short time and next thing you know it's not only the man who needs food, but his wife and kid. So you feed him again, and next time around you have to feed him, his wife, and three kids. And then those kids have kids, and they all need food, and the problem not only continues but worsens over time. I feel a lot of the aid Africa receives doesn't actually fix any of the problems with Africa, it just allows individual Africans to continue living beyond their means, a demand that, once shouldered as a burden, will only grow. If a country has an agriculture, economy, and ecosystem that is unable to allow humans to flourish (or even survive), we should either allow the environment to curb the population or we should fix the environment. Postponing impending death while simultaneously making the problem bigger and bigger is not a way to fix things. Side: Yes
1
point
Put simply, unless a massive worldwide effort is mounted, Africa must be left alone. Providing food and nothing else is a problem that will grow until we are in poverty as dire as they are. If you feed 100,000 people for one year, next year there will be 110,000~ people who still can't feed themselves. Tell me, how does that solve anything? They need infrastructure and sustainable means of supporting themselves. They either should develop it themselves or we should do it for them, but merely feeding them is actually doing no good at all. 'People are starving' That's unpleasant and all, but after a while their population will shrink until they develop and become independent. That's how civilisation forms. Side: Yes
1
point
1
point
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How is helping and supporting people in poverty doing more harm than good? While we are sitting here debating this, people in Africa are dying and suffering due to the hard conditions they live in, they struggle to live as they are to poor to afford food something that almost all of us take for granted, not really appreciating what a blessing it is. The only harm some few individuals get from helping them is that they are too selfish and would rather spend their wealth on their pleasure rather than help those who could potentially die because they can't afford a meal. Furthermore for the individuals who do send help to Africa in whatever form, I would say it is actually more of a benefit for them than a loss, at the expense of some money it teaches them to value life and appreciate it, to understand the blessings they have and by helping people who are in more need I would say it makes them happier as those individuals would understand no matter how hard our lives get there are always people in a worse position. Side: No
3
points
How is helping and supporting people in poverty doing more harm than good? If you first presume the premise to be false, then you cannot ask, incredulously, how the premise can possibly be true. While we are sitting here debating this, people in Africa are dying and suffering due to the hard conditions they live in Then they ought to change their conditions, or migrate. they are to[o] poor to afford food Then perhaps they should not attempt to buy food, and should instead hunt and kill an animal, or cultivate crops, or exploit their water sources for fish. They may do that which every other civilization in history has done, and fight for survival. If they survive, huzzah, and if not, then they shall simply be a small addition to the vast list of dead and forgotten civilizations. The only harm some few individuals get from helping them is that they are too selfish and would rather spend their wealth on their pleasure rather than help those who could potentially die because they can't afford a meal. How can we alleviate a problem which arises from a primitive nation being unable to operate a modern economy, by causing it to become inured to the trappings of a modern economy? Viz, why should we impose modern currency and finance, upon a barbarous, pre-medieval society? Surely, we should allow other civilizations to evolve on their own, and contrive their own solutions to their own problems. Who aided the Greeks? Who aided the Aztecs? The Romans? The Chinese? were these civilizations miraculously protected from the sufferings which plague humanity? Did Greece never feel the sting of drought, nor China the throb of famine? Are the Africans the only people in history who are so inept, as to be unable to even feed themselves? Side: Yes
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