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Bill Gates' Donation of Thousands of Chickens Rejected by Bolivia (theverge.com)
HughPickens.com shares an article from The Verge: Bill Gates' philanthropic efforts are usually greeted with near-universal praise, but a recent attempt by the US billionaire to donate 100,000 chickens ruffled some feathers. The leftist government of Bolivia...has refused the donation, describing Gates' gift as "offensive." "He does not know Bolivia's reality to think we are living 500 years ago, in the middle of the jungle not knowing how to produce," said Cesar Cocarico [Bolivia's minister of land and rural development]... "Respectfully, he should stop talking about Bolivia, and once he knows more, apologize to us."
Gates' "Coop Dreams" initiative partnered with Heifer International, a group which fights poverty by delivering livestock and agricultural training, to deliver 100,000 chickens around the world, mostly to sub-Saharan Africa, as a way to improve the lives of people making $2 a day. In a blog post Gates noted that chickens are cheap and easy to take care, while selling flocks of chickens can be a profitable business, and raising chickens offers other benefits to children and families. "Our foundation is betting on chickens..." Gates writes, adding "if I were in their shoes, that's what I would do -- I would raise chickens."
Gates' "Coop Dreams" initiative partnered with Heifer International, a group which fights poverty by delivering livestock and agricultural training, to deliver 100,000 chickens around the world, mostly to sub-Saharan Africa, as a way to improve the lives of people making $2 a day. In a blog post Gates noted that chickens are cheap and easy to take care, while selling flocks of chickens can be a profitable business, and raising chickens offers other benefits to children and families. "Our foundation is betting on chickens..." Gates writes, adding "if I were in their shoes, that's what I would do -- I would raise chickens."
Keeping our citizens at the brink of starvation is how we maintain power. Increasing access to food weakens our political position.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
You're mistaken. The lack of funny and lack of sense does not arise from you being new.
It's a lot less baffling if you understand that the prideful people in power who are refusing the gifts are not the same folks that are going hungry.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Again: Bolivia is far from a promised land, but things there are MUCH better than most other places in the world. Their death by malnutrition rates are well below most of Africa, for example: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/.
My point is, in a country which already produces 300,000 chickens per day, offering 100,000 to fight hunger is a bit insulting.
Oh, because apparently people were confused.
I know this took place in Bolivia, but I'm using Venezuela as an example of where officials are willing to cut their own country's throat to save some face.
I don't read AC A human right
The stuff most aid organizations provide (food, clean water, medicine) aren't really what poor countries need. It's literally putting the cart before the horse, and can even be counter-productive by making life harder or impossible for domestic producers of those things, and allowing these countries' population to grow beyond their ability to self-sustain themselves.
These countries need to develop their own economy first.That's why UN assistance for developing nations focuses on building infrastructure, increasing the number of citizens participating in the economy (education and gender equality), figuring out ways to exploit natural resources, facilitating trade and economic development, and helping set up government programs to help support all these things. Once you get the economic ball rolling, they can grow their own food, clean their own water, build their own hospitals. These things are the result of development. Giving people the end product instead of the means to produce the end product is exactly what the aphorism "give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for life" tells us not to do.