Or in the case of aid to Africa, REALLY LOSE SOME.
On the surface, it looks pretty good -- aid is doubled from $25 billion to $50 billion. But to quote Cher from Clueless, "It's a Monet. From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess."
Yeah it's doubled, but it's not until 2010. Think about it -- the way inflation works, that doubling won't mean the same thing five years from now.
I suppose it could be worse. I mean, the debt to 18 of the poorest countries could still exist. But the aid isn't enough. I don't think that it $50 billion is even .7 of America's gross domestic product. And over five years, that $50 billion won't get the same amount of medicine, jobs, water, etc. that it would now.
Keep in mind too, these are just promises. They've pledged to do this. Now it comes back to the home countries and the respective legislatures will battle over it, whittle away at the money for other things (whether it's a worthier project or not, I'm not even going to debate that).
For more information about the ongoing battle, I'd say visit Global Issues, a well-written and wonderfully critical site about all things G8.
I'm not surprised either really. For all the firestorm of media, celeb attention and other screaming, I'm not surprised that the G8 did what they did. Now that it's over, I can't help but wonder if we'll forget about everything again until 20 years later for Live 8: COME ON YOU FUCKERS! FORK OVER THE CASH! concert.
1 comment:
Let's not forget that this aid (most of which will likely fill the coffers of dictators, unless we do something about the corrupt leadership) is but a drop in the bucket of the accumulated debt WE had a hand in creating for Africa in the first place. So yeah, big surprise there.
We had years to help, and did nothing.
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