Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - World Affairs / Debate - Bush plans to double African aid
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Arwon
Posts: 339/506 |
There actually was debt relief stuff outlined in the G8 statement. The real kicker though is the trade barriers thing, and neither America nor Europe is quite ready to end all the trade barriers and subsidies that're so hurting places like Africa. Still, it is movement in the right direction even if these G8 things have a tendency to not live up to the initial excitement. |
alte Hexe
Posts: 4411/5458 |
Because it amounts to pennies when spread across the entire continent.
America, Canada, and the other G8 members as well as other nations (excluding Sweden) are all guilty of failing to live up to their "Millenium Promise". Forgive African debt first. Then we can work on getting foreign aid to 0.7% of our GDP. |
Legion
Posts: 4526/5657 |
Only in America planet Earth can doubling aid to a country that needs it be frowned upon. 
You guys are so negative. And if you were from Africa, and depended on this, I would call you greedy as well. |
Slay
Posts: 204/339 |
According to the 2000 census, there are 281,421,906 people living in the United States. Let's round that off to 281 million. I would suppose that at least 80% of those people can afford to donate ten dollars to African aid charities and funds. That's 224.8 million sending in ten US dollars. Move the decimal point and that's two billion, 248 million dollars. People in Canada, Austrailia, Great Britian, France and numerous other nations also have conditions that would allow their citizens to donate just ten dollars, with no real impact on the economy. Certain individuals, such as celebrities and corporate heads, could afford to donate tens of thousands each, which would be pocket change to them, increasing the total money pooled even more so.
What if we all gave our ten dollars? The problem is, people don't want to do it. That, and there is no central source or campaign going to start this sort of movement, and handling that sort of money can become dangerous. It's still an amazing thing to think about. The sheer power we, in the affluent, industrialized nations harbor. The massive, yet unrealized power... |
Mel
Posts: 832/991 |
How could they, indeed? People are lazy fucks and you know it. They're not going to donate because they figure somebody else will chip in for them or that their two bucks won't matter. |
windwaker
Posts: 1689/1797 |
10 billion worldwide?! That's like every person giving less than two dollars! How could they expect that giant some from everyone? |
alte Hexe
Posts: 4370/5458 |
I think Africa is a little worst off than USA. 
Really it would be cheaper and better if Canada, America, Russia, Japan, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy + Australia would forgive Africa's debt.
Plus, all nations should try to meet the .7% of GDP for foreign aid.
I heard Steven Lewis, UN envoy to Africa and the UNAIDS chairman, once say that if the worlds nations would've met the Millenium Reports findings back in the early 90s like what was asked the US wouldn't have a child poverty rate of 24%. AIDS wouldn't be rampant in Africa. We wouldn't have a huge humanitarian problem in Darfur right now. We would've been able to avoid tens of thousands of Afghani deaths in the refugee camps along the Pakistani border. We would've been able to stop Rwanda. The child death rate would've been cut by 75%. Yet, the world couldn't unite to help others. All at the cost of 10 billion dollars world-wide.
Sad. |
Dei*
Posts: 241/412 |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4638323.stm
Well to me, I guess this is good, but at the same time look at the U.S., the place is falling apart and we're going to double the aid to another country(continent). |
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