We Should Stop Helping Africa!

Sending money and other humanitarian aid including relief supplies will not end the hunger in Africa. We should immediately stop paying so much money that is wasted!

I know this thesis is provoking you. But please let me explain in this article what I am thinking of.

First of all, helping poor people in Africa who are dying of hunger because of the terrible drought they are facing, is a good thing. Or let me rephrase it: The intention behind it is a good thing.

The problem with all this humanitarian help, all the money and all the relief goods is, that we deliberately destroy African economies. We destroy their businesses, we destroy their farmers.

Let me further explain this to you with three examples:

1. The European Union and the USA are sending wheat, corn and rice to Africa. This wheat does mostly come from a surplus production that we - the Western countries - are paying for with our taxes. The keyword here is subsidies. We give this wheat or rice for free in order to feed the Africans and to stop the hunger. Have you every thought about the local farmers who are trying to sell wheat, rice or other basic staple food? As soon as free food arrives, they can forget selling their harvest on the market.

2. The same goes for meat, especially chicken. Europe and the US export many tons of cheap chicken wings to to Africa. When sold on a market there, the price is lower than when you buy a chicken from a local farmer! So how should this help the farmer?

3. Second hand clothing is another huge problem. We donate our old clothing, e.g. to the Red Cross (at least we do in Germany). They sort the best pieces out for selling them within the own country, the rubbish goes in the bin and the average second hand piece gets shipped to Africa. When you have read number 2, you now know what happens: It is getting sold very inexpensively on local African markets and the local textile industry does not have a chance to beat that low price!

So what I would like to tell you here is, that we should rather concentrate on helping them building up their own economy instead of constantly pushing it down. Wouldn't that be more effective?

What do you think?