SHOULD THE WEST STOP GIVING AID TO AFRICA?
FIROZE: Since its inception, the logic of international aid from the West has been to integrate African economies into a global capitalist system, which relies on Africa’s resources for its own growth. The way aid is given has never fundamentally challenged a relationship that has evolved over centuries to the detriment of the majority of Africans. Exploitation of Africa’s people and its resources has been going on for at least the past 500 years and, as Guyanese academic Walter Rodney pointed out in 1973, Africa helped to develop the West in the same proportion as the West helped to underdevelop [sic] Africa. That story remains as true today as in Rodney’s time.
According to a 2014 report, Africa receives about $133.7 billion each year from official aid, grants, loans to the private sector, remittances, etc. But at the same time, some $191.9 billion.
