Aid and preaching for the sake of preaching

Hallo again, before we go any further I must apologise for my slowness in writing something. I wish could present you with a legitimate reason beyond I could not decide on what to write and I went out too much last week, but I can't. Please be soft on me, this is my first real attempt to write a political blog and so I may descend into ramblings and I am sorry in advance if it is hard to follow. Everyone has to start somewhere. Saying that I am going to go for an ambitious first topic today I was struck by the FrontPage of the Independent today.

The Indy loves it's preachy front pages which tend to fall into three categories; firstly there is the REPENT FROM YOUR CARBON CONSUMING WAYS (dealing with the environment); then there is the REPENT FROM YOUR WAR MAKING WAYS (Iraq etc), and finally there is YOU ARE ALL CORRUPT AND WICKED PEOPLE AND AS SUCH ARE NOT AS GOOD AS US FOR WE ARE THE ENLIGHTENED ONES WHO KNOW BEST (for every possible domestic story). This is a crude generalisation but one most people I am sure will have some sympathy with, this front page however is a cross breed. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2611752.ece

in truth it was the tone of moral smugness which irritated me. It rightly points out that the G8 is failing to make good the pledge of 50 billion in aid, but then provides us with comparisons intended to tug at our heart strings and make us feel shame. Britain spends more on champagne then our government does on aid is one example. It seeks to demonstrate the gulf between our lives and those in the third world, and accuses us of forgetting about the rest of humanity. The paper has a point. The west could provide more money to Africa and certainly if it did promise money we should provide it, however what is the point of spending more money, money taken by taxes from hard working families when it is just going to be squandered? The articles did not argue that we should not donate money to charities but instead the government should spend more tax payer’s money on Africa. Individuals have the right to give as much or as little as they wish, and I am not going to talk about how people spend their own money, governments however only ever spend other people's money and as such they should attempt to spend only what is needed. More money is needed in African but even more important is good governance.

In the very same edition of the paper it admits that in Sierra Leone much of
the "country's £140m annual foreign aid income - is now being either misspent or squandered." Africa is still ruled largely by incompetent tyrants, who may be elected but have little regard for democracy. Even where elections are large free, as in South Africa a situation exists where the president refuses to believe in the AIDS crisis and will not spend money on the needed drugs. Africa needs good governance as much as it needs more aid money. While African dictators shift money into their own accounts, castles and family, poverty will remain. Indeed if we just continue to plough money into the Africa in ever increasing volumes all we are doing is setting them up for a fall. Corrupt governments use aid to replace the money the have stolen and wasted and so hold on to power, but when the aid stops all their failings will become apparent very quickly. It is not the job of the G8 to bankroll tyrants and incompetents, by all means give more money but only once we are sure it is being spent properly.

In fairness to the article it did point out that more than money is needed and suggested other measures as well as just ploughing money into the hole. But to condemn us for wasting our own money on luxuries instead of allowing African dictators to waste it for us is not the way to go.