- Continent’s economies need require investments in science and Tech
BY: Taiwo Adetiloye
An aid’s effectiveness is dicey as the implementation is usually not well-tailored or highlighted.
No wonder aid donors nowadays put certain clause and conditions that may not be favourable or alter the norms, cultures and existing traditions of the receiving nations.
For example, some aid donor would ‘tell’ receiving host that “to give you aid, you must legislate or legalized laws that promote or support same-sex marriage, etc”.
For nations already engrossed with other forms of social inequalities such as acute discrimination, which as a result of religious conflicts, ethnicity and tribalism. Legislating same-sex laws may not be on their agenda for the next century to come.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of aid delivery and utilization may end up not going down for the real purpose for which it was meant for. For instance, one may only hope that countries receiving the aid will meticulously utilize it for the sole purpose it was initially meant for. In some cases, due to corruption, the aids are either stolen, misused or abused.
In other cases, international foundations and NGOs, sometimes are guilty of misappropriation. Some NGOs and international foundations receive money from external donors but may choose not to use it for the initial cause or goals aspired by the foundation.
Foreign aids are short term solutions for upcoming third world countries. The long term solutions for solving the over-dependence on donor countries is to ensure that aid is narrowed down to the necessary sector of the economy. Mainly, the health and education sector.
The same solution proffered by aid donors can be achieved by reversing the equation or adding to the existing platform by ensuring aid donors make more direct investment in renewable energies, recycling, education, research and training younger generations to become scientists in third world countries.
This will drastically mitigate over-dependence on aid donors, create a better ecosystem, improve growth and development across the globe etc.
Take, for example, the America government bailout Western Europe countries after the second world war. The bailout plan was known as “The Marshall Plan”.
Also known as the European Recovery Program, The Marshall Plan was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II.
It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. The brainchild of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, for whom it was named, it was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war and to remove trade barriers between European neighbours – as well as foster commerce between those countries and the United States.” (Retrieved online, History.com, May 3, 2020).
We can imagine the possibilities of training more Africans on how to create vaccines suited for tropical diseases by themselves. Furthermore, we can imagine the possibilities of training Africans in IT-related courses so they can have more opportunities for better lives.
In essence, education can solve half of human known problems. An educated male will most likely not have many wives, practise family planning or bear children without training them through school and let them remain un-vaccinated.
Thus, education is known to break the cycle of poverty in any society. Besides, a society where more girl-child is trained performed better compared to the latter where restrictions on educating a girl-child is seen as a cultural delimiter or out of the norm.
Source: Google/AFRIC
Education remains the bridge to close the gap between poverty and opportunities. Without education, foreign donors with influential presence in Africa will keep administering vaccines and more Africans will keep making babies after surviving diseases such as meningitis, polio., etc from vaccination cures.
Also, the issue of trust in administering vaccine made from oversea labs and distributed to poor nations will be mitigated, if more citizens from underprivileged nations are trained and equipped to take part in the scientific process of developing those vaccines.
Note, this article is not meant to undermine the assistance rendered by aid donors, NGOs and foundations etc. but to be an eye-opener on ways to effectively administer aids.
Lastly, there is a need to ensure that aid goes to the right department with the right resources and personnel are deployed to manage and effectively utilize the aid.
*Taiwo T. Adetiloye can be reached via @TAdetiloye (twitter)
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