'FOREIGN AID' IS A BRIBE

Many people outside of Africa would be surprised to hear that some Africans were glad about the recent US foreign aid cuts. To understand why, here's a very short 2022 video by activist and content creator @mariamtheugandan (Instagram) in which she calls out this so-called aid for what it really is - namely, a bribe paid to 'underdeveloped' countries for the right to keep on exploiting their resources.

A report published 2017 by UK and African equality and development campaigners and NGOs titled 'Honest Accounts 2017: How the World Profits from Africa's Wealth' detailed how Africa loses far more than it receives. While African countries get around $19 billion in aid in the form of grants annually, $68 billion is "taken out in capital flight, mainly by multinational companies deliberately misreporting the value of their imports or exports to reduce tax." Meanwhile, an "estimated $29 billion a year is being stolen from Africa in illegal logging, fishing and the trade in wildlife/plants."

As former African Union envoy to the US Arikana Chihombori-Quao said in a 2018 interview with Voice of America, "They [the West] loot from us at night, and during the day, they come back and give us a pittance of the loot in the name of aid."

This looting is only made possible by the African political elite, which pockets the supposed 'development aid' while rolling out the red carpet for their Western sponsors to come and extract resources. The aid rarely invests in infrastructure projects, which the continent is crying out for; instead, it prioritises vanity projects that serve the donating country far more than the recipient.

Video credit: @MariamTheUgandan (instagram)

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbSkljFfAJ8

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/24/world-is-plundering-africa-wealth-billions-of-dollars-a-year

https://curtisresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/honest_accounts_2017_web_final.pdf