Developmental Aid Workers Are Killing Africa

Hey so over at Spiegel Online someone thinks that developmental aid workers are really why Africa has starving people, and his argument for why that is makes a lot of sense. Here's a snippet:

The aid workers are drawn to the arid lands, where the poor live and the help is urgently needed. Under normal circumstances, such areas don't contain many starving people because they are thinly populated. In the Sahara, for example, hunger emergencies are comparatively insignificant. But in northern Kenya, and particularly in the region's bordering desert land, such as the Sahel, they happen all the time.

And that's why the aid workers dig wells there to provide the inhabitants with clean drinking water. Soon enough, there's a downright crush around the well. Then, more and more cattle drivers and more and more nomadic shepherds bring their wards to the well. And these herds -- and especially the goats -- eat everything up. And, there, where you used to have someone coming by only rarely, a dusty little village shoots up, and then a little city. And, now, more and more aid workers are necessary to feed all the people who settle around the well and the feeding stations. Pretty soon, nothing can happen without aid. The area becomes hopelessly over-populated, and there is no way out of the dilemma in sight.

He goes on to mention that corrupt politicians, rather than building infrastructure for transportation of food and services rely on foreign aid to feed their people and blow the money either on themselves or on big flashy capitols and things that the state overall really doesn't need. Why do yourself what you can get for free eh? Read the whole article, it's relatively short and the guy seems to have looked at the situation pretty thoroughly.

Developmental Aid Workers Are Killing Africa