Was listening to a podcast this week that interviewed BInyavanga Wainaina. He’s a journalist and critic in Kenya, and he was talking about how western aid (money, projects, etc.) is destroying his country.
I’ve written about this before. I have long been looking at the situation in Africa and trying to get a handle on what’s going on. Mr. B.W. says that these swoop-down-and-save-them projects usually are not working with the infrastructure that is there, and end up as broken-down slums after the project runs out of funding from the Westerners who started it.
It’s a particular problem…That the western ‘compassionate’ eyes do not see how to work WITH the people and resources that are there…There is a lot of preconcieved notions and prejudiced ideas.
I thought I would share this article he wrote…it seems dead on the money. I’d call it satire, but it rings too true: