Development has to be internally driven in any society. The only helpful external interventions are those that can help developing countries build their weak internal state capacity, & focus on understanding and tackling the root causes of underdevelopment. “Foreign aid”doesn’t.
With few exceptions, aid is the projection of “soft power”, a tool to promote the worldviews of donor countries. It’s a business model, as most of the contractors/consultants are from the same donor countries. It’s also partly a “guilt complex” of some in the west to “atone”
for the “sin” of colonialism. The first thing every poor country that becomes a rising power does is to STOP receiving foreign and establish its own aid program. Brazil, China, India. Whether the aid is from the west or the east, most of it goes to one continent - Africa.
The comfort level our leaders have with these kinds of relationships is one important reason African countries remain poor, while Asian ones are rising. #EmergingAfrica The motto of my alma mata the London School of Economics:Rerum cognoscere causas (To know the causes of things)
This is why African countries need to carefully reappraise their relations with China. We must avoid going from “frying pan” in the West to “fire” in the East.
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