Comment on Has anyone else noticed the strong pro CCP and anti-west vibes here?
tunetardis@piefed.ca 3 days agoI’m interested in your take on the USAid funding cuts. It only made the news briefly where I am amid a long list of disruptions that have wreaked havoc closer to home, but I can’t help thinking this has to be one of the worst things that happened on a global scale?
Imperious_melange@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s bad and also good. A lot of funding wasn’t reaching the people in need and finding its way into peoples pockets. Some funding was enabling poverty aka it was treating symptoms and not causes. Some funding was actually helping people and now they are suffering without it, namely helping to provide medicine and treatment. You see this in lots of places with charities where only a small fraction of the money collected actually goes to whatever the charity is for.
If anyone wants to help Africa they should invest in business and production. There is more than enough potential here and the fastest way to improve the lives of people isn’t just handing them money, it’s employing them and paying them well. If USaid ever cared there would still be businesses operating without any financial input after they left. All that money and there’s nothing to show for it and that is by design.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
I don’t think only investing into business and production is what would help. If those businesses get taken over by venture capitalists or go into stocks, then the motive shifts towards profit, rather than people.
It’d help more if those businesses were worker co-operatives, and their people worked together to establish community exchanges, and the workers use the profits of cooperatives to:
Especially farms, mines, woodlands, – anything involving natural resources and land – would be crucial.
Sure, in this age of digitalisation, a lot happens online, too. But even then, at its root, for data centres you need land, water, and resources. For computers, you need minerals, from mines. For cables, you need boats of hardy materials. And for those labourers, you need farms and woodlands to supply them and their clothing.
tunetardis@piefed.ca 3 days ago
Thanks for that. It set me straight on a few things.
What do you think about microloans then (kiva, etc.)? Is that a better approach? I know it’s more grassroots than a gov program, and I don’t know how much of an effect they have in the grand scheme of things.