Africa is the poorest continent in the world. This could be explained by a lot of different things. One of the main reasons is that the country has always (since the Africa’s colonization by the European) been dependant of the donations and help of Western countries. To illustrate this point, we can just watch the number and see that during the last 50 years Africa received $400 billion of Aids, with no significant results. The fact that a lot of money has been sent to Africa and that the continent is still in a very bad economic posture had produced a donor fatigue.
This fatigue is expressed by a common feeling of the donors who begin to think that Africa won’t be able to develop an economic market that will provide the basic structure for the continent’s development. This has caused a decrease of the donation over the past twenty years. What express also this donor fatigue is the fact that some African countries found a way to be economically sufficient like South Africa and Botswana. This contributes also to make the donors believe that their money wasn’t used in the right way. What donors see it is that their donation is only contributing to corruption.
Governors of countries receiving aids are living in extremely good conditions while people in these countries are dying of hunger and almost receive nothing from the country. This corruption is also source of civil war, pushing people to fight for the governance of the country. The fatigue is also due to the financial problem of donor countries. It is easy to make the connection between the 2008 crisis and the decline amount of the donations. Another financial problem that the donor countries are facing is the increasing numbers of retirees caused by the Baby Boom.
Seeing that their money was just source of corruption in Africa, West countries prefer to keep this money. These points amplify and explain the donor fatigue. Western countries have also understood that their donations weren’t helping to decrease the percentage of people sick in the continent. The diseases are still a big problem in Africa and it’s getting worse. The problem is that Western countries have never asked in return anything for their donations. They were just sending money (for good consciousness? ) and now they are tired because their money wasn’t used in the right way.
This is a really different approach of the Chinese’s way. They are actually giving a lot of money to Africa but they are also asking for results and they are, in a way, helping them by trying to make money in Africa. That is one of the impacts of this donor fatigue. Countries in Africa will have to change their approach to economy. With this decrease of donation of West countries they will have to find a new way to have money. Both of them, Africa and China have seen a good opportunity to develop something in common to make money and finally have an economy in the whole Africa’s continent.
This fatigue has also a really helpful consequence for Africa. It has given them the awareness that they couldn’t continue to depend on the Western’s donations. When Senegal’s President Wale said “I’ve never seen a country develop itself through aid or credit” 1 it really show the change of thinking of Africa’s politics and the desire to create a good economical environment for the continent. There are no only good consequences of the shrinking of the donations. What will happen in very corruptive countries is that the decrease of available money will directly affect the poor people and no the way their governors lived.
However this is surely a step by which these countries have to go to be able to build a strong economy based on real values. For my part, I think there is a sort of fatigue by western country but this fatigue is about sending donation to the politics. This fatigue is really caused by “the 4 forces of Africa’s apocalypse (Corruption, disease, poverty and war)” 2 but Western countries are always more giving their time and experience to help Africa. I think this is how we should help Africa. Money will never be as useful as knowledge and help for the development of this continent.
The fact that the 2010 soccer World Cup occurred in South Africa is a really good sign that the world is getting in the right direction. They begin to consider Africa has a continent with resources who can host these kind of event. I am pretty sure that Olympic Games will go there in a short time, which will impact even more the world about Africa. For the bad part of this fatigue, I think Africa’s population could misunderstand it. That’s the danger for Western countries. Africa will maybe turn itself to deal with only Asian countries thinking that Western countries took what they wanted from them and then left.
Maybe the collaboration with China will be a great success but I think it will be better for Europe and North America to continue their relationship with Africa and vice-versa. In the short-term, as I said before, it will cause a few problems for the poor people who will have to live with even less, if it is possible, than what they have now. Perhaps this will be the hardest step in Africa’s history but it is the road they have to follow if they want to finally be really independent. [pic] 1 page 149 2 page 151.