JAD_333

Interesting. Free trade is not necessarily unfair. What is the difference in your view with respect to Africa and why should food aid be stopped?

__________________
To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education. (Plato)

dark-alias

felakuti,
its hard to teach a man how to fish when the man doesnt really want to learn.

Oscar

The negative side of Food aid it's that it is killing the agriculture of their country. Just imagine the effects on Microsoft and all the high tech economy of a free flood of PCs and internet services!!

astralis

felakuti,

free trade IS fair trade. i suspect we're arguing the same thing but you've misunderstood the vocabulary. what africa has now is NOT free trade- those european (and to a lesser extent) and american agricultural subsides destroy african trade.

stopping food aid would be a good thing, too, but only in conjunction with free trade. stopping food aid would mean the US would stop flooding the african market with foodstuffs, which destroys local agriculture. free trade would give africans incentive to grow more to export.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Oscar

Who told you they didn't want to learn? Maybe because except for oil and some raw materials no one wants to invest in Africa.

JAD_333

Isn't food aid a result of the inability of agricuture to provide all of Africa's food needs? To condemn food aid you would have to demonstrate that it creates a dependency that discourages agriculture. You would also have to look at its affects not from a continental point of view, but country by country.

dark-alias

If you see the the west cease aid to africa, there will be a wave of outrage from the world. We are trying to turn things into a winning equation where both parties benefit istead of just one.

Oscar

That's why I talked of the negative effects of food aid for the Africans. The positive one being obviously that we don't see them starving to death.

For the dependency I used the example of PCs in my previous post; who would be stupid enough to buy computers in shops if you can have them for free? That's the same for African agricultural goods. But I agree we can't generalise for the whole continent.

dark-alias

If foodstuffs are so readily available, then why still the suffering and starvation? Could it be the militants?

Seriously though we are getting way off thread topic here guys!

Oscar

It's not all the time on WAB we can talk about Africa

But the first step for the most backwards African countries to make would be the establishment of the rule of law and then free trade. Just like Asia.

dark-alias

This is true, if you feel so passionate about it start a new thread in the appropriate sub-forum

Oscar

I don't feel passionate at all but for the first time in history there's a possibility that an African American president gets elected and finds an appropriate policy to help this oft forgotten continent.

dark-alias

Sooner or later America and its friends (the top 3 we know whom they are) will stop caring and then what will the world do?

dark-alias

What is it that makes you think because he is African-American that it makes Africa more important to him than any other white politician?

Oscar

Well for one, Bill Clinton or GWB's fathers are not kenyans