REAL Answers to Bono's Bogus Set-Up Question (Smart People Only). How to end poverty [in Africa]?

Question

I cannot believe all of the bad answers to this question I have read.

Charity nor the bible will eliminate poverty. There are not enough people, that can be hounded with guilt, to willfully fund the end of Africa's poverty and, if God wished to end poverty he would.

It is the end game of God or fate to see how people will deal with this issue, regardless of your perspective.

The answer does NOT include nations plundering their citizens for the money. Nor should anyone be compelled to contribute.

What are some real solutions? What are the logistically feasible options? I would like to see answers from smart and creative persons only. At the end I will tell you what I think.

Answer 1

It would require a mere 0.7 percent of rich countries GNP to end extreme poverty. We need to increase our current givings by about 50-60 billion. But thats not much considering we have a 11 trillion some dollar economy.
So lets start with some basic economics.
First lets talk about where the money would go. Infrastructure, education, health care, and disease control.
Infrastructure- For a country to participate in a market economy they need basic roads, telecommunications, electricity and water. Private companies aren't willing to invest in these kinds of things and state governments are the only ones who can. By giving the money to this we allow one of the first key aspects for market growth to occur, basic infrastructure. That way shipment of goods can occur. People can move freely encouraging economic activity. Communication systems are essential for businesses.
Education- With basic education we would help create a strong workforce for foreign investors and business. Businesses want low wage workers, but want them to have a certain level of skills and knowledge. Basic education is needed to accomplish such goals By providing basic education we allow for a society which employers want to help them expand their company without too high of a wage costs.
Health Care and Disease Control- By giving a country basic health care we insure the preservation of human capital. Without basic health care an economy cannot sustain itself because it lacks the ability to keep workers in the workforce, creates a great deal of AIDS orphans, who are economically unproductive (understandibly of course). When plague hits a society it is bound to hit an economic tripwire. By providing health care we prevent orphanage and we can maintain a solid and stable workforce and not one that is constantly dying. And with the declining birth rates due to birth control parents are more able to put money into each child for education and the like. Thus the child will become more successful.
If an economy doesn't have the basic requirements for a market based economy then it can't have the consistant growth of market economies. By increasing aid to these countries they will be given the neccessary tools to participate in the economy.
Now lets debunk some of the other answers on this site. Lets talk about hard work. As a whole the extreme poor value hardwork and are not lazy. They don't live off of handouts. In fact 80% of Nigerians believe kids should learn the value of hard work at home, as compared to 60% of Americans. So is it an issue of society or of geography? These countries are in places in which there has been little economic integration and thus little technology. If we want to give them the chance to move up we need to provide the basic infrastructure I mentioned above. Not to mention the fact that Africa is geographically not as rich in resources as the United States so of course it will not be as successful.
Corrupt Governments- Africa does have its share of corrupt governments. However they are no more corrupt than governments in the same low poverty bracket. Yet those countries are starting to move out of poverty. They're starting to move on up. If it weren't for Aids and geography Africa would do the exact same. Take China, the government is absolutely horrible, but the fact is that they have massive economic growth. There is a correlation between good trade policy and economic growth but good policy doesn't guarantee good performance if you don't have the basics to play the game of global economics in the first place.
The case for aid is not a hand out, but a way out. To provide the basics to give an oppurtunity for billions to get out of poverty.

It is in the interest of the U.S, to pursue aid because it will strengthen weak states. In fact one of the most common reasons listed for state collapse is economic turmoil. See Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia as examples. In fact over the last 50 years , nearly all U.S. wars have been fought with countries after they have suffered state collapse. And poor economic progres contributes to such collapse. The U.S. would have less to police if other economies were stronger.
The U.S. and the rest of the rich world made a pact in the U.N. millenium development goals to squelch world poverty. We have a commitment and we can do it with merely .7 percent of GNP, which we have failed to and currently fail to give enough.

To say the U.S. cannot be urged to do such is to insult the spirit of America itself. We fought a revolution against the world's most feared empire and won . We destroyed the scrouge of slavery, despite everyone saying it was impossible. We ended totalitarianism in World War 2 despite the isolationists demands. Gandhi was able to peacefully bring democracy to India despite going against the strongest empire in the world. All nonviolently, against all the critics doubts. We have the technology, we have the money. We can raise the political power. By uniting the religious right and left. By begging upon liberal tendencies in some politicians. Great things are never beyond the grasp of this great nation.

Answer 2

The root of deep, extreme poverty stems from:

1) Conflict. If Africa had peace for the past 10 years, if there was not the intense devastation only briefly glimpsed in the journals, you'd see a far more developed continent.
2) Disease. Between HIV, pneumonia and various parasitic diseases (including malaria, sleeping sickness, and river blindness), a substantial portion of the African peoples are disabled and die prematurely.
3) Hunger. Africa can be a productive land. The problem is in climactic change (ie, the expansion of the Sahara; this may be a natural process about which we can do nothing, but it is turning arable land nearby into marginal land) and more importantly in an infrastructure that doesn't work to bring food where it is needed.
4) Corruption. The dictators that rule many African nations are set to feed themselves at the cost of their peoples' lives.

The solutions are simple, then:
1) An absolute, multilateral cease-fire. I have no idea how to enforce this, since no leader trusts another enough to carry it through. But say we could just fiat it into existence.
2) Disease can be remedied more easily if charitable groups (MSF and others) are given opportunity to travel and are accepted by the peoples they approach.
3) Hunger can be combatted through a combination of infrastructure improvements (the money for which has mostly been spent on importing European luxuries for the rulers) and the introduction of drought-resistent crops, as well as food aid for the famine-stricken and the refugees.
4) Some leaders just need to be taken out. Mobutu tse-tse Seko should have been gunned down while stretching in the morning sun years ago. It would have saved substantial suffering.

So what can be done LOGICALLY and FEASIBLY? Not much at this point, unless we're willing to spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours at work there. But ultimately it comes down to fundamental and radical changes in the structure of African society (and I don't necessarily mean eliminating native culture, so much as instituting democratic systems and an empowered electorate) in order to make the fixes stick.

Answer 3

A couple of options:

1) Nuke the entire continent. Wait 50 years. Start over.

2) Assassinate all the leaders of the African nations. Install puppet governments who won't steal all the money we send them.

3) Somehow, have leaders that actually give a crap about their people. These leaders will know that education is the key to bringing about a massive change in African society. Without education, no one knows anything else.

4) Use economic and social sanctions to force the corrupt leaders into doing what is ethically correct. That would mean these leaders need to put a stop to the various genocides. They would also need to educate their people and distribute aid money in a way that will help all peoples, not just the leaders and their cronies.

It all comes back to education and corrupt leaders. Unfortunately, Africa has the wrong one of those things and not any of the other.

You're right though, the answer is not in simply funneling more money to Africa. Nor is it in forcing private people to donate. Perhaps this would be a great time for the various religious organizations in the world to step forward and start putting their vast amounts of money where their mouths are. (Hint Hint Vatican).

Answer 4

We can speculate on this, or have a real answer. Real answer is this: it will never happen. Not enough real interest from those in power to make a dent. Mostly lip service. There is no PR in helping the poor while receiving no money or services in return, which of course defeats the purpose. Most of the land where the poor live is not farmable, and there is the problem of irrigation if an attempt was made. It is not in the best interest of governments and the insanely wealthy to help. Uncontrollable violence. Not enough natural resources. It would cost untold billions.

Sad, but true.

Answer 5

I say do absolutely nothing to help them. If NO ONE gave money, food, healthcare, etc. to these people than
a) Their population would decline, which would increase everybody’s standard of living since there would be more food, resources, jobs available, etc. per person. Through helping 3rd world countries, were pretty much only encouraging their people to continue reproducing, and are in fact worsening the problem that were trying to solve.
b) The government would either eventually step up on its own and start to provide for its people through services such as free healthcare and free education or through instituting an expansionary fiscal policy, OR the people would protest against the current government. The government would then be forced to clean up its act, or the people would cause a new (better) government to come into power.

Answer 6

You get what you pay for. If you give handouts to bums you're paying the wages of bums and insuring an endless supply of bums. Billions of dollars of aid have been dumped into Africa lining the pockets of bureaucrats and dictitorial leaders and keeping them in power.

The best way to end poverty in Africa is to end all handouts. Let the Africans work it out themselves. When poverty doesn't pay it will go away.

Answer 7

They need good democratic free market leaders.
Unfortunately, there are not that many democratic free market leaders who would overthrow the dictator's in Africa even if they could.

I believe, the best way to end poverty in Africa is to stop foreign aid to the Continent....this aid enables the dictators in power now, to stay in power, and it also keeps them from developing any industry which would make them self-sufficient and significantly reduce poverty.

Good luck!

Josh K.

Answer 8

I suggest if you are involved in this problem to contact the charity set up and now run by Bill Gates. Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffet have combined their resources to address not only Africa, but poverty and human suffering in general.

Answer 9

How about jobs? Sending charitable aid only seems to fund the people who are roaming in their private armies. If there was a factory, people would stay in one place, and a town could be fortified, like in the days of the 'old west' in the United States and Canada.

Answer 10

This question has already been asked:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AuOQBGqg10atmzZjmyvu9VLsy6IX?qid=20060727135650AAijHoB

As we pontificate here, Africa is gaining wealth due to the current boom in commodities prices, due to Africa's vast mineral wealth. I am invested in several mining companies in Africa.

More over, the cause of poverty is deviance from Bible's rules regarding money and avarice (greed). The use of "usury" (debt) causes power to accumulate amongst the super-elite bankers, which gives them power (money) to run our governments.