Form Over Substance......

Despite all the good intentions, I doubt if all the recent hoopla over poverty eradication in Africa will make one iota of difference. Its one thing to want to eradicate poverty but another thing to have an actual workable plan to achieve the goal. I just do not see it happening within the current structures that we have in place now. To me, the whole Live 8 and G8 increasing aid to Africa is just an exercise in form over substance and as I wrote about before, is just a self gratifying make me feel good approach. John O'Sullivan writes...

Indeed, the more one examines the MPH [Make Poverty History] manifesto, the more sinister it seems. It is a manifesto for government controls and against markets -- ignoring the fact that government in poor countries is very often inefficient, corrupt and clannish. It wants more aid instead of more trade -- ignoring the fact that aid goes to governments, not the poor, and strengthens their power even in the rare cases where they use it honestly, whereas trade benefits the enterprising and hardworking. It wants to stop privatization programs -- ignoring the fact that government monopolies in the Third World are overstaffed with relatives of influential people, treated as private bank accounts by ministers, and thus forced to charge high monopoly prices to the non-influential (i.e., the poor).

Doomed from the start.