Ghanaian businesswoman and entrepreneur Roberta Annan earlier this week launched a €100 million fund to channel investment into small and medium African creative and fashion enterprises. The Impact Fund for African Creatives (https://bit.ly/3BpJS1h) (IFFAC), will award grants of up to €50,000 to selected projects to accelerate development of the continent’s creative sector. The fund was […]
At Paris Fashion Week, Ghanaian entrepreneur Roberta Annan launches €100 m Impact Fund to invest in Africa’s creative industries — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
economy
The Future Looks Bright for African Countries
Longer Term Solutions
- End Population Control Campaigns
- End DDT Bans
- Implement Hygiene Education Programs
- Aggressively Treat All Worm Infestations
- End Insistence on Subsistence Farming
- End the European Union Ban on Importing GMO Crops
- End Insistence on Solar and Wind Power Only
- Provide Electricity and Clean Water Systems for City Slums and Rural Villages
- Encourage Foreign and Domestic Investment
- End Population Control Campaigns. We need to work to stop these campaigns by groups such as UNFPA, USAID, WHO, World Bank, International Planned Parenthood, Population Council, and Club of Rome. A few ways to do this are to
- Expose the lies about overpopulation, their sources, and their aim. The overpopulation myth is all about socialist control, racism, elitism, and misguided environmentalism. Poverty, not overpopulation is harmful to the environment. Raising people out of extreme poverty will benefit the environment.
- Defund all programs that promote involuntary or forced sterilizations, birth control, or abortion. Promote voluntary, informed choices only. President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which withholds funds from foreign aid programs that promote or perform abortions. He also defunded UNFPA through the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which prohibits funding for any organization supporting coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. Unfortunately, some other population control advocacy groups have stepped in to fill the gap. The US must pressure the UN and member countries to end this practice worldwide. The US must also defund Planned Parenthood.
- End overstocking population control drugs, devices and sterilization supplies in hospitals and clinics. Use the funds from this and other population control activities to stock medical facilities with medicines and supplies for endemic diseases such as malaria, TB and parasites. Medical facilities need supplies for treating injuries, surgical supplies and vaccination sera to save children’s lives.
- Provide sanitation, clean water and soap for handwashing for all clinics and hospitals.
- Train local people as medical assistants in the tradition of the field medic as a first line of defense.
- End Western values-based sex education in schools that encourages abortion, multiple partners, and thus sexually transmitted diseases. These practices are contrary to local cultural and religious beliefs and practices. We must respect their cultural and religious beliefs, which value children and family above all else. Imposing Western values on them destroys families and results in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Encourage monogamy and fidelity in marriage to one sexual partner as one of the best ways to reduce sexually transmitted diseases.
- End DDT bans. Begin widespread spraying in homes and medicate victims to cut the cycle of malaria and other insect-borne diseases. The Environmental Protection Agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and other agencies that regulate possible toxins must change their regulations to allow DDT to be used for control of mosquitos and other insects. India is a good example of how effective this approach can be. In several government facilities, India manufactures DDT and other insecticides that can be purchased by people in African and other developing countries. India sprays DDT on interior walls of homes twice a year in malaria prone areas. This practice is a good first step in ending the malaria cycle and has greatly reduced the deaths from malaria in India. Africa could reduce theirs accordingly with DDT on interior walls as well as bed nets. Bed nets alone are not a good substitute for DDT spraying.
Global Malaria Deaths[1] India is included in the South-East Asia group.
- Implement Hygiene Education Programs. Focus on educating all people, especially rural poor, about microbes and hygiene. Teach skills needed to provide clean water such as: How to filter and purify water; How to make soap and set up handwashing stations; How to dig wells and latrines; Safe use of composted wastes for fields; How to keep waste and other contaminants out of streams.
- Aggressively Treat All Worm Infestations. Alongside treating for worms it’s important to provide shoes for all children to prevent re-infestation.
- End Insistence on Subsistence Farming as a more sustainable method. Encourage modern agricultural methods and improved varieties that are better suited to their environment, with higher nutrition and higher yields. This also ends or reduces slash-and-burn deforestation.
- End the European Union Ban on Importing GMO Crops. This and other protectionist philosophies, stagnate development in European countries and cause African countries to reject improved crops. Educate the people and the leaders of developing countries about modern agricultural methods and the benefits of GMO and other high yield varieties. Educate European leaders and farmers about the potential market for their goods in developing countries. This can be accomplished through advertising campaigns to the general public, not just entrenched government leaders.
- End Insistence on Solar and Wind Power Only. Encourage large and small electricity projects by all means possible, including fossil fuel, hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear. Fund large and small hydroelectric and fossil fuel power plants and transmission lines into rural areas through loans. Until larger projects and grid systems can be implemented, promote local mini and micro hydroelectric, geothermal and fossil fuel systems. These small systems can be incorporated into a wider grid when that becomes available.
- Provide Electricity and Clean Water Systems for All City Slums. Improve housing, sanitation, and clean up standing water and wastes that breed insects and disease. Spray insecticides regularly to reduce insects that carry diseases. Cleaning up the slums can go a long way toward encouraging investments.
- Encourage Foreign and Domestic Investment. It is important to encourage investment in all sectors including agricultural, natural resource extraction, manufacturing, service sector and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). It is time to re-examine the company town concept. Historically used for extraction industries in isolated areas, company towns can be useful for other businesses such as manufacturing, service and STEM in order to attract, train, and house employees and their families.
Encourage building of company towns with homes, hospitals, schools, and markets for employees in remote areas that provide electricity, clean water, latrines or sanitation systems. These company town projects should include progressively extending roads beyond the town over time to help others not directly employed but that could market agricultural products to town inhabitants. Such extensions over time can provide the basis of a larger transportation system that can encourage further foreign investment in newly opened business centers. Inhabitants of shanty towns (city slums) can be employed and live in new company towns near cities.
The future of Africa looks bright and development is booming in the cities and in more developed agricultural areas. The average GDP growth rate for sub-Saharan African countries is 6.2 percent. Cote d’Ivoiri, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have GDP growth rates over 7 percent. This is great, but somewhat misleading since a percent of a smaller economy is a smaller amount of growth in real numbers. However, if these growth rates continue as they have been, it will result in real economic progress.
Although historically agriculture and extraction of natural resources have been the mainstays of African prosperity and development, half of all foreign investment in recent years has been outside natural resources. Of the countries that have this profile, a group of countries called the African Lions, which include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia, have led the way. Rwanda has had a growth rate of 9 percent since 2001 because of its favorable business creation policies. In Rwanda child mortality has been reduced, nearly all children have access to education and 98 percent have access to healthcare. Ethiopia has a growth rate of 10 percent but 20 percent of the population are still in extreme poverty with nutritional issues. Botswana has become a leader in online banking due to its low corruption levels and secure business environment.
Corruption is still an issue in many of the developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. Corruption, along with domestic unrest, is one of the major barriers to attracting foreign investment. This corruption is encouraged, supported, and prolonged by foreign aid given to the governments, not directly to the people or to infrastructure contractors. Many government leaders have fat bank accounts by skimming most of the aid that is intended to help the poor and build infrastructure. Even when aid is given in the form of goods, not money, a similar picture emerges. The people may get very little of it as the goods filling warehouses are either sold on the black market to the highest bidder or are left to rot for political reasons.
Any foreign aid needs to be tied to full accountability and transparency by governments about how the money is used and its impact on the people. Free ride foreign aid to governments must be ended to make leaders more accountable to the people, not just their foreign donors. This can lead to free and fair elections.
[1] WHO, 2016
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My award winning book, Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries is now available in print and eBook through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million.
Award-Winning Finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards
After reading the book, please remember to review it on Amazon; share it with a friend and do your part to end bad practices. Visit my blog for more information and to sign up for email updates at https://savingafricafromliesthatkill.com/ and like my Facebook page.
Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel by clicking here
The migration game – propping up corrupt leaders
Migration, Remittances & Foreign Aid Keep Corrupt Leaders in Power
Many people are encouraged and sometimes paid and helped to leave their countries by their governments. Removal of unemployed potential trouble makers is beneficial to the government in power. It is a kind of safety valve, ensuring continuation of corrupt government power that might otherwise be challenged.
Developing countries profit from emigration in two ways. First, unemployed citizens that leave the country lift the burden of providing for them and eliminates a source of civil unrest or political challenges. Secondly, the economies of poor countries benefit from remittances, i.e. money sent back to families in their home countries. Some countries depend on these remittances to prop up their economies. For example, in 2016 Mexico officially received $26.1 billion in remittances sent back to families by Mexican immigrants, mostly from the United States. That’s roughly 2.5 percent of Mexico’s GDP, which is a significant contribution to the country’s economy. Because this is an estimate with no way of knowing the exact amount, it may be much higher.
Remittances account for a significant part of the GDP of some developing countries in Africa. See values from World Bank/IMF, in the table below. As expected, the neediest countries receive the most remittances as a % of GDP. Although Nigeria is on the low side as a % of GDP, it is the most populous with comparably higher GDP, so that the actual amount is quite high.
| Country | Remittances as % of GDP |
| Liberia | > 20% |
| Cameroon | > 15% |
| Gambia | > 15% |
| Lesotho | > 10% |
| Senegal | > 10% |
| Cape Verde | > 10% |
| Togo | > 3% |
| Mali | > 3% |
| Ghana | > 3% |
| Nigeria | > 3% |
Source: “Where to Invest 2018,” Rand Merchant Bank, from World Bank/ IMF data
The Foreign Aid Trap
Government to government foreign aid with little or no accountability is also a part of this picture. Very little of the foreign aid actually gets to the people who need it, much less to infrastructure building that can encourage investment and raise standards of living and health. Leaders get rich while their people remain in poverty, sickness, ignorance and isolation. Corrupt dictators and their regimes benefit from keeping their countries poor. As long as the people are needy, the aid keeps coming. Corrupt governments are only accountable to their international donors, not to the people. Raising the economy and standard of living has the opposite effect. Any foreign aid should be temporary or emergency relief with strict accountability for its use. Without unaccountable foreign aid, governments would be dependent on their tax base and accountable to their people. They would be forced to encourage investment, develop infrastructure and contribute to economic development. In this case, raising standards of living and the economy boost the government’s income.
Additionally, poor countries have been prevented from developing by UN, advocacy groups and their own corrupt leaders. What these countries need are Infrastructure, (roads, reliable electricity, etc.), Investment (foreign and domestic), Employment, Education and Disease Control.
Natural and Artificial Migration
What is the reason for much of the new waves of migration flooding Europe and the United States? Are conditions getting that much worse in their home countries than previously, or is there another answer? According to open borders believers, it is because overpopulation is getting so bad. I have heard the refrain, “they are escaping from overpopulated countries because they have no place else to go.” That is pure rubbish aka propaganda. This myth is pushed by the United Nations and advocacy groups promoting a worldwide campaign for population control and open borders. The world is far from overpopulated by any definition, whether it is food scarcity or room for the people. Hunger usually has more to do with politics than anything else.
It is important to point out that there are two types of immigration, Illegal or unauthorized, and legal or sanctioned by receiving countries. Sending countries have historically been allowed by receiving countries to send people at a reasonable rate that allows for absorption with minimal cultural disruption. Strict guidelines have always required good health, no criminal record and evidence of self-support or a sponsor.
While a trickle of unauthorized migration with no supporting documentation has always happened, the current flood of unauthorized immigrants is a fairly new phenomenon. In many cases it is more like an invasion, complete with militant behavior, than simple migration. The flood is composed mostly of young, able bodied men, with only a few women and children. Poverty, overpopulation and violence, in the form of wars and civil unrest, are three of the “reasons,” aka excuses, given for the flood. However, these causes cannot explain the huge increase in numbers because there has been little or no change in the amount of distress in the world. What could have caused this sudden onslaught?
While some migrants are fleeing from violence in war torn areas, most are not, and they certainly are not displaced by the supposed struggling hordes of overpopulation. The image projected by pictures of overcrowded city slums is of wallowing masses of destitute people. That is certainly not the case for most of the world. Most of the people in poor countries are concentrated in cities for job opportunities, not because there is nowhere else to go. The remainder of each country is, if anything, under populated. So, if not overpopulation, why do they leave their homes and endure a difficult and dangerous journey to a strange land?
This is being encouraged by advocacy groups for various reasons, including those who want to bring down Western civilization such as Islamists, Communists and their sympathizers. The new flood of migrants originated largely as a way to disrupt Western civilization and impose socialism, Communism or Islamic Sharia Law and is supported by money and propaganda from advocacy groups. People are paid, promised jobs, given new clothing, supported on their journey with food, water and shelter, and often are given ship or rail passage. Where does all this money come from? It comes from wealthy donors and other backers that seek to change the world to fit their ideologies.
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How can you help? Read my new book, Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries that is now available in print and eBook through Amazon, and available on line in paperback through Barnes & Noble, Books a Million.
Learn the truth and how you can help change this horrible situation of longstanding crimes against poor countries by international organizations and advocacy groups.
Read the introduction and first chapter free through Bookfunnel at www.bit.ly/
After reading the book, please remember to review it on Amazon; share it with a friend and do your part to end bad practices.
Global Crop projections break records again
Wheat [image credit: Phys.org]
Habitual climate miserablists should take a look around at the real world now and again. This year’s poor UK wheat harvest, reported by the BBC with a ‘climate change’ tag, looks like the exception not the rule.
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The International Grains Council (IGC) is reporting that global corn, wheat, and rice production is on pace to set new records this year, destroying an incessant parade of media claims that global warming is devastating crop production.
Here at Climate Realism, we have documented and debunked many of the ridiculous media claims that climate change is decimating crop production, some in the last month.
Global crop production, as well as crop production in most of the world’s nations, sets new records virtually every year as our planet modestly warms.
Now, the IGC reports – unsurprisingly – that the same is happening in 2020.
The online agriculture news service, World-Grain.com published a story, “IGC projects record output for corn, wheat and soybeans,” highlighting the findings of the International Grains Council (IGC), that it expects the harvest of key cereal crops, corn, rice, soybeans, and wheat, which are the core staple crops for many peoples around the world, to set records in 2020.
Full article here.
Saving Africa From Lies That Kill – this book is a Must Read
I just checked the best seller ranking of my book, Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries on Amazon.com. For a non-fiction, non-biographical and non-pop culture book it is coming up in the rankings very nicely. Thank you. This is encouraging because the message of raising African and other poor countries out of poverty and into the 21st century is so important.
See rankings and other information from Amazon at the end of this post. Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel by clicking here
Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries is an award-winning finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards. The book is available in print and eBook (USD $2.99) through Amazon and other online outlets. For easy access, just click on the link to the Amazon listing here.
After reading the book, please remember to review it on Amazon; reviews are very important to reach more readers. Share the book with a friend and do your part to end bad practices.
Visit my blog at https://savingafricafromliesthatkill.com/ for more information and to sign up for email updates. You can also like my Facebook page to receive future posts through Facebook.
From the back cover:
In Saving Africa From Lies That Kill, Kay Kiser exposes the long-standing crimes committed against developing nations by the United Nations, World Bank, USAID and Planned Parenthood.
Under their guise of “aid,” these organizations mire the underprivileged in isolation, poverty, sickness, and ignorance. In her book, Kiser argues:
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- Poverty, not overpopulation, causes environmental damage. Higher standards of living and lower infant mortality can improve the environment and stabilize the population.
- Developing nations need access to reliable electricity in order to end energy poverty. This will, in turn, provide clean water, develop transportation, and power hospitals, homes and industrial investment.
- The Green Revolution and modern agriculture can feed everyone and end deforestation.
Fortunately, you can do something about the problem—and Kiser shows you how!
DEDICATION
To the poor and the oppressed striving to live free.
All profits from the sale of this book will be applied to
organizations that are working to alleviate the suffering of
the rural poor in developing countries, and to bringing them
into the twenty-first century.
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Also in print rankings:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,449,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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#4316 in Church & State Religious Studies
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#2401 in Environmental Policy
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#4033 in History of Religion & Politics
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Ethiopia races against time to control locusts as the planting season starts — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
The Government of [Ethiopia](http://www.fao.org/emergencies/countries/detail/en/c/151593/) is racing against time to control [Desert Locusts](http://www.fao.org/emergencies/crisis/desertlocust/en/) as the February – May Belg season starts. With support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Ministry of Agriculture is scaling up aerial and ground operations in… Read more on https://africa-newsroom.com/press/ethiopia-races-against-time-to-control-locusts-as-the-planting-season-starts?lang=en
African Economic Outlook 2020: Africa’s economy forecast to grow despite external shocks — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
For the first time in a decade, investment expenditure rather than consumption accounts for more than half of GDP growth; report calls for urgent investment in education and infrastructure for good returns in long-term GDP; “Youth unemployment must be given top priority. With 12 million graduates entering the labor market each year and only 3 […]
Equatorial Guinea officially launches Year of Investment 2020 Campaign — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
Equatorial Guinea has kicked off a year-long investment campaign aimed at driving capital investment into the country’s bankable projects; Major U.S. firms have pledged to increase their investment in Equatorial Guinea in 2020, along with Nigerian banking and financial institutions; Notable investment-ready projects include the construction of two modular oil refineries, an ammonia plant, a […]
Investments, not handouts are needed in African countries
New Hope for Africa through Investment and Freedom from UN interference
There are two worlds in countries of sub-Saharan Africa and many other underdeveloped countries, the urban world of development, investment and progress, and the rural world that is isolated, poor and struggling to survive. Between these two are the more developed agricultural areas near cities and the slums surrounding cities where rural people who come to cities for more opportunity, end up living in deplorable conditions without proper infrastructure. The areas with modern agriculture have many of the amenities of the city such as access to electricity, clean water, sanitation and roads, but the slums have more in common with the rural poor, without access to clean water, sanitation and sometimes electricity.
In most developing countries the leaders tend to concentrate infrastructure development in urban areas while largely ignoring the needs of the isolated rural poor. Because the businesses of the cities attract investment, and bring in both market value and taxes, they are given priority. This is natural since the cities are the hope of future economic development, and attracting investment from other countries is one of the main means of improving the lives of all of their countrymen in the long run. However, part of the funds available from this economic development should go into extending electrical distribution and transportation over time to the rural communities. In the short term it makes sense to support the cities, but in the long term extending support to the rural poor can further raise the overall economy and attract more investment. Rural electrification, transportation and opportunities through markets and business investments will raise many of those in extreme poverty to a higher economic level.
Investment, not aid, is the answer to raising developing countries out of poverty. See next section for information about the investment climate in Africa. Aid should only be a temporary measure for support in emergencies and for infrastructure building in the form of loans that can be repaid when conditions have improved. Aid should never be used for permanent or long term support of generationally poor populations. What you subsidize, you get more of. The rural poor don’t need hand-outs; they need jobs, electricity and roads so they can climb out of poverty.
The worst type of aid is government to government foreign aid, which should be ended as soon as practical. Typically less than 2% of this type of aid goes to improving the lives of ordinary people. Most of it goes to corrupt leaders and their administrations. Ending the practice of government to government foreign aid will reduce or end much of the government corruption and make leaders more responsible to their constituents. If they are dependent on the tax base and not foreign donors they will have incentive to build the infrastructure in order to attract business investors and grow the economy, and thus the tax base. Building the transportation and energy sectors into more rural areas would then make practical sense in order to attract investors and open markets to rural agricultural production.
China is investing heavily in African energy projects such as hydroelectric and fossil fuel power plants. While I would like to assume that China has only benign motives, that has not been their history. The Western world would be wise to invest in similar projects and not just throw money at corrupt governments in an attempt to stave off Chinese communist incursions and power.
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The book: Saving Africa from Lies that Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries was published in September, 2018. Print and ebook are available online.
My first book, Perverted Truth Exposed: How Progressive Philosophy has Corrupted Science was published in 2016. It is available in print and ebook, on line only, through Amazon, Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble. See the companion blog at www.realscienceblog.com for related posts and pages.
African Development Bank approves €8 million technical assistance grant to support preparation of Ruzizi IV Hydro Power Project in the Great Lakes region — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
The Board of Directors of African Development Bank Group (https://www.AfDB.org) has approved an €8 million grant drawn from the European Union’s Africa Investment Platform (EU-AIP) to support the preparation of the Ruzizi IV Hydropower Project. The plant will be situated on the Ruzizi River between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and will supply […]