You Really Can Help Raise Economies and Improve Lives in Developing Countries
The list of things that need to be done to raise Africa and other developing countries out of extreme poverty and usher them into the twenty-first century is both comprehensive and achievable. Many of them involve ending interference by international organizations that often have hidden agendas unrelated to the welfare of the poor or raising the economy. Funding is a key component to the implementation of these Western interference programs, so they are vulnerable to change. Campaigns to expose and defund them can have a significant impact on their donor base.
Dependency on foreign aid supports and encourages corruption and lack of accountability of government officials; it mires developing countries in debt from foreign aid in the form of low interest loans, causes inflation, discourages infrastructure improvements and economic development, and is devastating to the poor who rarely benefit from it. Instead, those in extreme poverty need education, employment, investment and infrastructure.
Included in these goals is a need for good health and relief from isolation through vehicle passable roads. As shown in previous posts, for example: Get Out of the Way! Let Africa catch up to developed countries, Immediate Solutions for Africa’s problems, Long Term Solutions to Raise Developing Countries out of Extreme Poverty, there are reasonable steps to solving these problems, both in the short term through local infrastructure investments, and longer term though financing of larger infrastructure projects such as transportation projects, hydroelectric power dams and electrical transmission systems.
Business and industrial investment and trade are the ultimate means to raise their economies out of extreme poverty. There are inviting investment opportunities, both foreign and domestic, as discussed previously, for example see earlier posts: Investment Opportunities in Africa, New US Build Act encourages investment in Africa. The workforce is there; they just need more job opportunities, education and improved health. Free trade markets work every time; socialistic systems of dependency and top down control fail the people every time they are tried. It is illogical to believe that the successful market system that has raised the rest of the world out of poverty would not work here, too.
Education, employment, investment, and infrastructure are the keys to saving Africa and other developing countries.
As a whole, it seems like an insurmountable task, but taken item by item and step by step these problems are infinitely solvable. We have the advantage of not only having resources to help, but vast numbers of people who are disgusted with the state of affairs, want to raise the impoverished, and are willing to help, financially or through good old-fashioned, roll-up-your-sleeves hard work.
What you can do, individually or in groups
In summary, we need to stop international organizations from continuing the propaganda and activities that have kept developing countries from advancing and that have prevented them from catching up with the rest of the world; and we need to raise the destitute out of extreme poverty through free trade by building infrastructure and improving employment opportunities. The myths of overpopulation and inferiority of poor peoples are blamed for environmental harm and failure to advance. The truth is that poverty, often caused by deliberate deprivation and isolation, not overpopulation, causes environmental harm. Raising poor peoples out of extreme poverty, improving their health and implementing modern agricultural practices will stabilize the population and end deforestation.
Get involved in any way you can, as often as you can.
I do not have all of the answers, but here are a few suggestions that can guide you to take action. Some of you, no doubt, will have other, perhaps better, ideas. The key is to get involved and stay involved. These suggestions fall roughly into three main categories:
- Information Sharing and Recruiting;
- Charitable Activities; and
- Business Opportunities
Information Sharing and Recruiting
Share information about short term infrastructure building charities and investment agencies through Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. Make a YouTube video, blog, or website encouraging investment and exposing the crimes of international organizations such as the United Nations, World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Greenpeace, Worldwide Fund for Nature, formerly World Wildlife Federation (WWF), Population Council and Club of Rome. Please, copy my ideas and add your own.
Inform as many people as possible about the true agenda and practices behind the following euphemistic phrases and biased propaganda. Sunlight is a powerful disinfectant.
- Family Planning and Reproductive Health mean forced or coerced, (through bribes or withholding of benefits), sterilization, abortion, IUD insertion, injected drugs, while failing to stock clinics with much needed medicines and supplies.
- Sustainable Agriculture means denial of modern agricultural practices that would end slash and burn deforestation, and denial of high yield and/or GMO improved crops for drought, pest and disease resistance, higher yields and better nutrition.
- Climate friendly power means solar and wind energy only and denial of fossil fuel and hydroelectric power, which are necessary first step toward ending Energy Poverty.
- Cultural preservation means denial of hygiene education, clean water, DDT for treating walls against malaria, access to medical facilities, roads and electricity. See the post DDT Needed Now in Underdeveloped Countries for safety facts about DDT, which, though much maligned, is really safer than alternatives and could save millions.
Contact agencies and government officials that are able to change things and spread the word about the need for ending practices such as population control programs, denial of DDT, denial of GMO and high yield crops, and modern agriculture; denial of clean water, sanitation and hygiene education; and denial of electricity by all means except solar and wind.
Call or write your congressman, the president, cabinet secretaries, state department heads, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) chairman and department heads, directors of EPA, FDA, USDA and other US government agencies, UN ambassador, African and developing countries’ ambassadors and delegates to UN and USA, heads of governments or agencies that deal with the problems, such as WHO, World Bank, other agencies. Include local and state governments and business organizations that can partner with organizations in developing countries or encourage investment.
Join or donate to groups opposed to these misguided actions or that support major improvements. For example Population Research Institute is fighting the overpopulation myth and human rights abuses in population control programs in thirty countries. PRI was founded by Stephen Mosher who wrote Population Control, Real Costs, Illusory Benefits.
Send my book or excerpts from it to important people that can get things done and influence others. See below for information and to read the first chapter free. (Kindle version is only $2.99 through Amazon.) Permission is given here to reproduce sections of my book freely to spread its message of hope and recovery.
Follow my blog, Saving Africa from Lies that Kill at www.savingafricafromliesthatkill.com. Reblog posts or use the links to repost on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites. Contact me about posting your own related information as a guest author. Share the information about the blog with as many people as you can so they, too, can spread the word and help alleviate unnecessary suffering.
Charitable Activities
Donate to charities that build immediate infrastructure: wells, toilets, sand dams, sand filters, roads, improved housing, schools, and medical facilities by working directly with the people, not the governments, which may keep most of the donations. My favorites are World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse. Most of these organizations give you a chance to designate donations for specific needs, and you can donate an affordable share to a larger investment such as a hand drilled or deep water well. For example, last year I donated money to install a hand drilled well. Other years I have donated to a share of larger projects and/or medicines and emergency nutritional support. CBN, Christian Broadcasting Network is another reliable organization that works internationally to help people in developing countries through their partners. Many other agencies offer child sponsorship and help to the poor, but be sure they are working directly with the people, not through governments, which may skim off much of the donations.
Medicine and health care supplies are badly needed. For many of these organizations, generous donors will match your donation. If you work for a corporation, many of them will match your donations, so you need to ask them if they support the charity to which you want to donate. Because many companies donate most of the materials and supplies, your donations may only have to cover the cost of shipping, so that your gift multiplies by typically five to eight times. Most of these charities have a catalog that allows you to see the options and their cost. Sponsoring a child or family can also be used to build schools and other infrastructure for an entire village.
Check out charities to make sure most of the money donated goes to aid the people, not the administration of the charity or receiving countries’ governments. Agencies that oversee charitable organizations include:
- Charity Watch at https://www.charitywatch.org/home,
- Charity Navigator at https://www.charitynavigator.org/ and
- Guide Star at https://www.guidestar.org/
Support Christian missionaries in developing countries through your church, or other organization such as Baptist International Missions, Inc. (BIMI.org). You can find others on the internet by searching for missionary organizations. My church supports almost a hundred missionaries. Ask if yours supports missionaries and encourage them to do so. While their primary focus is on sharing the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ, missionaries are also involved in the communities they service in various ways including teaching, health care, and infrastructure improvements. One of the people we support specializes in drilling clean water wells.
Go on summer mission trips with your church or other organization offering medical and educational assistance. Samaritan’s purse also offers opportunities to get involved in developing countries.
Volunteer to go and use your own talents and skills to help:
- Build infrastructure such as wells, sand dams, schools, clinics, improved housing, agricultural projects, roads, and more.
- Teach basic education, hygiene, agriculture, building trades, small business administration, and other needed skills.
Offer scholarships for outstanding students in these countries. Foundations can start scholarship funds for training future leaders in government, industry, academia, healthcare and business. In exchange for support, participants can agree to return to their own countries to help build the future. Church and civic groups can sponsor scholarships, grants, or loans for education. Ask about existing scholarship programs and donate to worthy ones that help people from developing countries.
Visit African and developing countries. Tourism is a significant source of income for many African and other developing countries.
Business Opportunities
Buy products from Africa and other developing countries. Use the internet to search for products you want. Africa Freak at http://africafreak.com/where-to-buy-the-best-african-online-products/ is a clearinghouse for websites that sell African goods, listed and linked by categories such as textiles, clothing, arts and crafts, cosmetics, jewelry, groceries, home and décor, ceramics, safari and sports equipment, photographs, books, etc. This is not a recommendation of any site or product line. These are just examples from sites I found on the internet. Do your own searches and check out their legitimacy before purchasing or investing.
Sell products from Africa and other developing countries in your own online or brick-and-mortar stores using online wholesale suppliers like Africa Imports at https://africaimports.com/. This is not a recommendation of any site or product line. These are just examples from sites I found on the internet. Do your own searches.
Support businesses that locate or are willing to locate facilities in African or other developing countries. If you are employed by a large corporation, or have stock in one, find out if they have or are willing to locate facilities or partner with businesses in Africa. Inquire about pension plans and retirement IRA plans to determine and request investments to include stocks and bonds in African or other developing countries.
Invest in African stocks or in companies that invest in Africa and other developing countries or in mining, manufacturing companies, and other industries with facilities in developing countries. Two useful guides to investment in African countries are as follows.
Rand Merchant Bank is an investment bank headquartered in South Africa. RMB brochure, “Where to Invest in Africa” can be downloaded without charge at https://www.rmb.co.za/where-to-invest-in-africa-2018-edition/ by those seriously interested in learning about investing in Africa.
African Development Bank Group is another source of economic and investment information, among other sources. “African Economic Outlook 2018” is available for free at https://www.afdb.org/en/knowledge/publications/african-economic-outlook/.
Top Five of the Twenty-nine Stock Exchanges in Africa
| Exchange | Market Capitalizations | Number of Listings |
| 1. Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) | $987 billion | 388 |
| 2. Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) | $44 billion | 176 |
| 3. Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) | $46 billion | 222 |
| 4. Casablanca Stock Exchange (Casa SE) | $48 billion | 75 |
| 5. Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) | $76 billion | 36 |
Source: © Copyright 2018| Nairametrics
Start a new business: If you have funds to invest in new ventures or own a business, whether in manufacturing, communications, services, merchandising, mining, etc., consider opening a branch in an African or other developing country and hiring and training local people from their abundant workforce.
Build a company town to support their or your new manufacturing, mining or extractive business, their/your local employees and their families. You may want to locate a company town near city slums where there is a ready workforce in need of employment. Company towns can provide safe homes, electricity, clean water and sanitation, education and medical facilities for employees and their families, ensuring a healthy and loyal workforce.
Opportunities abound in African and other developing countries and are just waiting for someone with the insight and courage to implement them. Africans don’t need handouts to stay poor; they need jobs and someone to give them an opportunity. Let me say one thing about wages in these countries. In most cases, expecting to pay employees on the inflated Western scale is unreasonable. It is important to investigate the standards of living and average wages for similar work in the area, and to determine competitive fair wages based on that. The picture of “sweatshops,” although some really do exist, is a scare tactic used by those who wish to keep these countries poor and “in their place.” Employees in these areas can and should be treated humanely and fairly and be paid a competitive wage that will help their families and the overall economy.
The bottom line is to get and stay involved, however you can, in activities that will ultimately raise the economies of developing countries, lift the rural population out of extreme poverty, end practices by outside organization that are contrary to the needs of the people and usher them into the twenty-first century. Africa and the developing world have a promising and bright future, but it will take all of us to foster the changes that are needed. It is possible, and you can make a difference. Many people will say, “Let George do it.”
Today, You Are George. What can you do? What will you do?
“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, ‘Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled’; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, ‘Thou hast faith, and I have works’: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” – James 2:15-20, KJV Bible
“Also, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then said I, ‘Here am I; send me.’” —Isaiah 6:8, KJV Bible
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