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

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.