What Africa Really Needs To Fight Ebola

Lasrick writes Laura Kahn, a physician on the research staff of Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, writes that the high tech solutions being promoted to help fight Ebola in Africa will make no difference. What Africa really needs is anti-corruption efforts, now. "A case in point is Liberia, which has received billions of dollars in international aid for over a decade, with little to show for it. The country ranks near the bottom of the United Nation's Human Development Index and near the bottom of Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer. And while international aid groups and non-governmental organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps provide important humanitarian assistance and medical care, they also inadvertently absolve African political leaders from developing medical and public health infrastructures."

Comments

Traditions in Africa Leadership

[BoRegardless]

Right. It has always been a tradition for the top tribal leader to line his and his family's pockets.

Re:Traditions in Africa Leadership

[whoever57]

Right. It has always been a tradition for the top tribal leader to line his and his family's pockets.

A traditional that has long been utilized by western economies.

Re:Traditions in Africa Leadership

[Livius]

Luckily that never happens on any other continent.

The RIver of Myths

[Corporate T00l]

Anti-corruption efforts are certainly important, especially in improving the economic conditions in a country. But focusing too strongly on just a single issue makes the problem seem unsolvable.

It is not.

World metrics have been improving steadily, some countries and regions faster than others, but systemic improvements have been dramatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYpX4l2UeZg

Re:The RIver of Myths

[Solandri]

Unfortunately, you and the video are focusing on the wrong metric. Things like child mortality, starvation, access to clean water, housing, etc. can all be artificially skewed by foreign aid.

The one true metric that matters is productivity per person. If each person (on average) is producing barely enough economic output to feed himself, then the country is a 3rd world developing country. Most European nations were in this state in the Middle Ages, where people had to work in the fields all day to barely keep themselves fed. And a single bad season or plague sidelining workers meant mass starvation.

If an average person is producing enough to easily feed himself and still have plenty left over to fritter away on extravagances like going to the movies, a high-end GPU for the latest Call of Duty, and the latest iPhone, then the country is a developed nation.

Corruption correlates fairly strongly with productivity per person. The more corrupt you are, the lower your GDP per capita. It's particularly revealing when you look at countries like South Korea, which by all accounts is a modernized country, yet its worker productivity has stalled at about 20%-30% lower than those of Europe and North America. Then you look at the level of corruption and it makes sense. Money which should be going from productive person to productive person thus increasing productivity even more, is instead being diverted into the pockets of corrupt non-productive people. Resulting in a lower amount of productivity per capita even though all the modern infrastructure for a thriving economy is there.

Giving people in developing countries medical care, food, clean water, and modern conveniences is pointless if they're going to continue to be dependent on foreign charity for those things in perpetuity. The primary goal of foreign assistance should always be domestic economic development (secondary being education to help staff those new domestic jobs being developed). Once these people have been set up with a functional economy where they can generate the maximum amount of productive work they're capable of, they will build their own hospitals and train their own doctors, plant their own farms, drill for or desalinate their own water, and build their own utilities and communications infrastructure.

Foreign aid like medical care, food, clean water may make the donor feel better, but its net effect doesn't really help the people in the country. And in some cases it even hurts (e.g. food donated as foreign aid depresses food prices and kills the economic viability of local farms). It should be reserved for times of calamity and bad luck, e.g. when a country which was just barely getting by gets hit by a natural disaster and crosses the threshold into regressing.

Re:The RIver of Myths

[rtb61]

Humanity is bound to two types of evolution individual and social evolution. Social evolution allows all those individuals to achieve far more as a group than they could ever achieve individually. So what really does happen when you attempt to force social evolution upon people who have not adapted to it. Individually a process of selection must occur that allows adaptation to social evolution a conjoined process. So the harshest question of all must be asked, should regions be required to solve some of the problems they create themselves in order to allow effective social evolution.

Taking a more detached perspective, how would say aliens view aiding humanity as it resolves the problems that humanity itself creates. Would they isolate them and allow them to resolve those issue and only prevent it from spreading. So what is the correct answer, do nothing or just provide the knowledge and let them do it and isolate them until they do (succeed or fail) or attempt to do it for them and force solutions on them (treat whole societies like children).

Attempting to force solutions upon societies that have not adapted to them often creates nothing but conflict. Are we helping or just foolishly fuelling conflict and war. Is foreign aid just something to ease the conscious of the public as we steal the resources off the people we are pretending to aid? Isolationism, who do we isolate ourselves or those regions that fail to develop? Should we force development? Should we allow, wild zones where people can remain 'wild' but are isolated from civilised zones? How much does help end up crippling development rather than supporting it.

As countries, do we only help because those regions have something we want (suspiciously, it is starting to look very much like that and no amount of PR=B$ will keep it hidden) ?

Re:Attention all socialists!

[sribe]

I will debate any statist on any argument whatsoever...

And yet, you posted anonymously, thus destroying your own credibility.

A legal system

[Teun]

Yes Africa is rife with corruption.

Some see it as a natural thing, that's really sad because now they won't oppose it.
Others see it as the result of colonialism but we're 20-50 years on and things only got worse...

Talking about Ebola, two months ago I arrived in Angola and they had temperature screening for those getting off the plane.
Rather sad was this was only done for foreigners, those with an Angolan passport are apparently immune :(.
Africa is rife with corruption and corruption breeds what we'd otherwise see as stupidity but for individuals it's really just a way of survival.

The only effective way to fight corruption is to have a solid legal system and from European experience we learn that needs to be in place for several generations before it becomes effective.
Since the British occupation of South Africa it had a reasonable judiciary but now Zuma's ANC has taken over it is left to die, laws are watered down and officials installed based on their race and political affiliation.

It is a sad conclusion but even in the best scenario Africa will be corrupt for at least the next century.

Re:Wrong metaphor

[ColdWetDog]

There is corruption of one sort or another everywhere. Most 'functional' countries manage to keep it down to a level where the rest of society functions to some level. In the US, people are routinely tossed into courts over bribery and corruption issues. The Navy is running a big anticorruption scandal at the moment. Of course, some (or perhaps most) of the perpetrators get away - but enough get caught to keep the system functioning.

In a number of African and Middle Eastern countries and likely including Russia at this point, the rule of law is so feeble an distant that overt corruption, nepotism and just outright theft are the rules of the game.

Don't knock the judicial system too hard. It serves as a strong barrier to this sort of thing.

What Africa Really Needs To Fight Ebola?

[lippydude]

What Africa really needs to fight Ebola is to stop traditional burial practices, such as allowing traditional healers to wash the dead body and then travel back to their home village and spread the contagion. Where there is one case, quarantine the village and cremate the deceased. To quote: "Ebola victims are most infectious right after death—which means that West African burial practices, where families touch the bodies, are spreading the disease like wildfire." In Guinea, 60% of all cases had been linked to traditional burial practices."

Re:We have bigger problems

[tgeller]

"that's too bad but we have our own corrupt politicians here"

True, but your scale is off by 100x.

How much extra did you have to pay the last time you renewed your driver's license? The last time you took a bus? How much kickback do you pay your boss every week to keep your job? When a loved one is in the hospital, how much does the nurse demand directly from you to make sure they get fed?

Be real here.

Re:Pay attention, everyone!

[ebusinessmedia1]

Absolutely agree! There is *no* excuse for the poor medical infrastructure conditions in Africa - none. Boatloads of money have been sent to Africa: too much of it has lined the pockets of corrupt politicians, businessmen, and others It's disgraceful, and *we* are part of the problem because we don't insist on results and accountability.