How to reduce poverty?

As soon as my kids start whining about the next cool toy they have to have, I immediately talk about the hunger of African children. It goes something like: "Do you think African children have a video game at the age of seven?“ Or: “Do you think African children have dessert without eating supper first?"

I have used the mythical "African children" as a personification of poverty so many times that one day I decided to bring one of these children into our home. My goal was to erase their stuff-centered perception of the world and show them that not all the children live like they do in the Glebe.

About one week later, a thick envelope arrived in my mailbox with two photos of small Brety. For only one dollar a day, we could support Brety and her poverty-stricken community through Plan Canada. The pretty three-year-old, with braided hair, lives in Kenya by the Victoria Lake. It is the very same community where the late father of U.S. president Barack Obama used to live. Brety belongs to a Luo tribe and lives in a house made of mud and sticks and a metal roof. They don’t have toilet and they carry water a distance of 2 or 4 kilometres, depending on the season.

According to the development organisation's letter about Brety, there is no well in her village. Many people live with AIDS and HIV. There is a shortage of nurses, doctors and teachers, as well as a lack of supplies for its medical centre and local school.

October 17 is the United Nations day of poverty reduction. But what is the best way of achieving this objective? Through personal donations like this, which sets up cute little African girls as the economic development engines for their villages? Or is it better to give government funds directly to African countries’ state budgets, so they can decide how do they spend the money?

In her book "Dead Aid”, Dambisa Moyo, a Western-educated economist from Zambia opposes donating money directly to African countries. She argues that this practice should be gradually stopped over the next five years, because, as she points out, those state budget-directed dollars lead to corruption, a culture of dependency and self-pity. Moyo says Africa should follow the example of China and India. These two nations have achieved almost 10 per cent economic growth annually by encouraging investments and creating a favourable business environment.

Moyo goes on to suggest that "Africa should service China in its need for natural resources!, adding that "Africans should grow vegetables for China, which has little arable land!"
Distrustful journalists ask the African scholar if this could result in Africa going through another and more painful expolitation. I imagine Chinese businessmen exchanging African riches for colourful glass beads, and I too am uncomfortable with this idea.

"Chinese are horrible exploiters! Never trust Chinese business people!“ exclaimed my Alliance Française French teacher from Congo whenever we talked about African development. A Finnish documentary about NOKIA suppliers’ factory in China called ‘Decent Factory’, illustrates the type of economic development that occurs a'la China, with its catastrophic environmental consequences, exploitation of working girls and abuse of human rights.

I wonder: What would bring more suffering to the little girls like Brety in Africa? An economic development plan run by Chinese businessmen or the current situation where poverty increases despite billion-dollar-development-aid?

Or maybe it would be better if Africans lived in an innocent poverty after all? In that type of, um… decent, museum-like idyllic pastoral lifestyle? Maybe they should enjoy their poverty as Dutch artist Renzo Martens cynically suggests in his documentary?

Throughout the film, he travels to African villages with a portable neon sign that reads "ENJOY please POVERTY", meaning that worse things could happen than poverty. Well, I hope there is a third solution to African poverty, aside from these two extremely poor choices. What about removing trade barriers for African goods and increasing the amount of fair trade we consume?