Lack of Entrepreneurships……….……………………………………..3

Money is Often Spent Inefficiently…...…………………………...…….4

Africa Does Very Little to Help Itself….………………….……………5

Corrupt African Governments…..………………………..……………7

Foreign Aid Does Not Help Africa……………………………………...8

Visual Aid: World Bank Loans and Economic Growth…………………..8

What Can We Do?……………………..………………………….……..9

Reference List…………………………………………………………...10

Introduction of Foreign Aid to Africa

Every year millions of dollars of American money, your money, are being spent. However, contrary to popular belief, these millions of dollars are not being spent on roads, bridges, public schools, or even libraries. In fact, this money is not even being spent here in the United States; much of it is being spent over three thousand miles away – in Africa. Although, the U.S. is not sending t

One of the biggest and most prominent reasons why foreign aid money is ineffective in Africa is because of various corrupt governments. The United States has been sending money to Africa for nearly forty years and it is still the poorest continent on Earth. A reason for Africa’s poverty could be the continent's abundance of extremely rich leaders. Not all, but many of the African governments are corrupt and greedy. Whenever aid comes in, these corrupt governments simply keep it rather than distributing the money throughout their countries. Instead, these governments should be using these “green gifts” for building better roads, bridges, more public schools, etc. By providing certain governments with bundles of extra cash, international aid can actually accelerate and aggravate the disastrous politicization of life in the Third World. This is a classic example of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. By keeping the foreign aid money, governments are able to further isolate themselves from the rest of the country and in turn isolating their people from the rest of the world.

For example, two years ago a Peace Corps group from northern Wisconsin went over to Africa. They spent two years there trying to teach one village how to make and care for small vegetable gardens. After returning home, Jennifer Hoepner, one of the volunteers commented (personal communication, September 22, 2001): “The people in Africa were often lazy. They wanted us [the Peace Corps volunteers] to do all of the work. Then they just sat back and reaped the benefits.” In addition to their failed attempts, many Peace Corps members say that giving foreign aid to Africa is simply a waste of time. Perhaps the reason the African villagers mentioned above were unwilling to cooperate was because they didn’t want the Peace Corps workers there in the first place. There is also the possibility that the villagers were told – for as long as they can remember – by African governments that said whatever comes from the Western world is evil and wrong. Other governments, in order to keep a tight and domestic control over their country, may claim that Americans are there solely there to exploit the African people and to keep them dependant on the Western ways of life.

The United States government is not the only institute that has tried to help Africa with financial assistance. The World Bank Group (WBG) has tried for nearly 40 years to industrialize Africa (Johnson, 2001). As you can see below, in Figure 1, the World Bank Group has sent over $20,000,000,000 to at least seven of the African countries and that resulted in only an 8% increase in the per capita GDP. As of late, the WBG has reevaluated the success of the aid that they are sending, or more correctly, wasting in Africa and are seriously considering to halt their aid efforts there (Luna et. al, 2001).

Currant levels of aid to Africa are more than four times those in the early 1970’s (Shultz, 1986). Between 1983 and 1986, a period of just three years, our government provided Africa with $2.4 billion in food and emergency assistance alone. Although it was not intended, given the current policies, much more money went to Africa to be spent on futile industries that would fall flat in only five years’ time (Shultz, 1986). With all the money that is being spent in Africa, one would think that it would rise up out of poverty and would be on its way to being a leader in the world economy. Regrettably, this is not the case. In some instances, it even seems to be that the more money the United Stat

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