Depends Monte; the UN may administer some sanctions but it is really up to the countries foreign administrators to enforce it.

Visit the fucked up countries of the world, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti etc and see the effects of international aid.

I am a humanitarian at heart but the proverb "give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime" did not come from nowhere. The logic behind it and the evidence of programs used shows that you just cannot give, you have to teach.

Here is a rather interesting take and experience some westerners had in the DRC: http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/50799-Democratic-Republic-of-Congo-Lubumbashi-to-Kinshasa

You cannot read through that and think that just giving money, food, tools to these countries is the answer.

white man's burden really...

the ones that screw up the united nations is in part the western nations, and in part SOMETIMES the dictators

2 examples from sudan

money went to building 200 schools, looks good on paper, but many of the children that should have gone, could not because they had to work to support the families, also there where a serious lack of teachers, and no infrastucture to actually make a school system work, they lacked people with skills in administration, so they hired a western company to do that, ofcourse they had to have western employess that took high fees, and the company came from the country of the donator.

they bought a top notch computersystem, and a crime lab, with educated workers for the police force of south sudan, a police force where 80% of the policemen are illiterate.

they gave 95 billion in aid to the state budget of the newly formed south sudanese government, and demanded that they would supply 5% of the budget themselves, or the budget would get frozen. the south sudanese government had about 500 million in revenues and had no say in the matter, they could not just mulitply their revenues by 10 overnight. so the budget was frozen, and UN administrators from the nations that gave the money took over the administration of the 95 million, choosing to use them on projcets that do look good on paper, but does nothing for the south sudanese. in general they used the money to build infrastructure that the south sudanese did not have people that was able to either maintain or build themselves. or use with full effect. so they have to import proffesional help from the western nations. the companies that came from the west overcharged 5-10 times the real prize. and even worse, they used the aid to outcompete the local buisnesses.

my friend said in his oppinion that the south sudanese would really have been better off with only 10% of the aid they got.

this is also similar to the US procjets in iraq and afghanistan. in nation building, what looks good on paper politically is often more destructive than constructive for the locals.



now, this is not to hate on AID, there are MANY really good aid projects. most of them are the education projects, and the children cities.

the building of wells are usually not as good as proposed, because the water table is going down in many places because of it.

I am personally giving through red cross to a school project in botswana.

this is all in the spirit teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life.

again, great insights kreuz.

reminds me of jon krakauer busting the "three cups of tea" writer for pretty bad fraud. krakauer went to afghanistan/pakistan and realized that most of the schools that were championed in the books were actually ghetto buildings that were never used, mostly because there were no qualified/paid teachers. in the end, pretty sick how much money got donated to the CAI to create this education system and how massively it failed, as well as how rich the "three cups of tea" author got through the experience.

as usual, research the company before you donate to them. dont just donate to a feel-good-story.

sam how the fuck did you run across that link? that is a sick sick read. great writing from a belgian whose 3rd language is english. and it makes my walls of texts look like childish one-liners. magnificent.

I don't remember Joe, but I do remember wasting a half day at work reading the thread when I came across it.

I think it gives a better idea about the state of Africa then you could find in any news story or article. There is a cultural sickness in the 3rd world that is perpetuated by the wealthy countries of the nations both intentionally and unintentionally.

ya that thread is really neat sam. thanks for the link!

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yeah, great link Sam