The highlight of the first day was a trade of words and opinions between Andrew Mwenda and Bono.
(Photo courtesy of White African.com)
Andrew posited that aid and the Marshall Plan were a waste of time for Africa. His theme was that so much aid had been poured into Africa at great cost to the nations receiving this aid. He said the solution was in enterprise and that if aid was to be supplied to African countries that it should never be at the cost of the countries integrity. He finishes by stating that a good speech should be like a miniskirt “short enough to create interest but long enough to cover the subject!”
Bono then gets to the stage and responds to Mwenda telling him that Germany benefited form the Marshall Plan and Ireland also benefited from aid. He sets out the concept of his group Data (Debt Aids Trade for Africa) as being able to highlight the need for aid.
Before the session ended I spoke to Bono and told him I was a critic, that I think his organisation has misplaced the focus from debt to trade. If marginal allowances could be made for trade in African countries why isn’t more emphasis placed on this as efficiency rather than this constant message of dependency. He was swiftly ushered oout nby his press secretary.
I noticed that when both speeches finished, Mwenda was largely applauded in a standing ovation by the African audience and when Bono finished it was largely by the non African audience. That, for me, spoke volumes.
Talking to a number of people afterwards there were many mixed messages. Most believed that trade should be the primary focus but with incumbent governments still very dependent on aid that the focus should change. Personally I lean more to the position of Mwenda. Here is a man looking at the situation from the ground, and with possible prison sentences hanging over him from his native Uganda. OK he may not have all the solutions but his disdain for people looking down at Africa trying to solve issues from the outside in definitely resonated with me and many others.
How ironic that just a few posts back I was posting on this same thing.
The old adage comes to mind here: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a life time” Surely what some countries in the continent of Africa is need is enterprise, help to learn how to run an efficient, productive economy.
As with the weaning process there comes a time to give the country the tools it needs and allow it to feed itself regardless of the mess that is made in the process, that is how we learn. The assumption that constant spoon feeding will eventually lead to independence is misguided.
Africa has skills, talents, resources and intelligence these may not be used effectively in some countries but they are in many. Me thinks it’s time to celebrate what is great in Africa and use that as a template to create more outstanding countries.
Time for Africa to be treated like the adult continent it is!
the empowerment philosophy rings true in every civilization through human history. it’s no surprise that the probable answer is to ‘teach the continent to fish’ through enterprise than ‘giving them fish’ through aid.
the only danger, however, is that many enterprises have mastered the art of capitalism and legislature to ultimately make it damn near impossible for any establishment to ‘come up’ larger than them. conversely, having an opportunity to ‘come up’ in spite of corporate greed is all one needs to create a new destiny.
Great review of a great TED! Thanks for mentioning Dance4Life! Lets stay in touch
Peace
Thanks for your thoughts and observations of these contrasting speeches. To me it means a lot that you saw the Africans in the room standing for the trade opportunities! People want to make their living! Of course, the near slavery that is going on in China doesn’t help any developing country as far as labor-intensive tradeable goods go.