The article is not wrong. But the reality is, we’ve tried to help places like a Sudan a lot over the decades. I’d say we helped TOO MUCH.
We sent food aid which made them dependent on us. It didn’t incentivise them to fix their issues, it just made them reliant on outside help. Meanwhile, the population skyrocketed. There’s more mouths to feed, more famine, more conflict.
At some point, a country needs to fix whatever’s broken. And it won’t be pretty; it never is. But I don’t think interfering in an internal conflict like this will do any good to anyone. Can we as the west even reasonably figure out who the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ are in this conflict? Is there even a good or bad side to begin with?
Well, I do imagine there’s some caveats as to the efficacy of welfare programs, but we’ll stick to this topic :D
There’s been hundreds of food programs over the decades, but there really isn’t a good way to do it. If you just sent aid to a government or group, it tends to either destabilise the local economy or empowers people you don’t want to empower, like armed groups who can just take that aid for themselves.
But if you send individual aid, there’s issues too. For example, let’s say you set up a ‘work for food’ program. Sounds great, right? But what that ends up doing is that the WFF option is more attractive than tending your own farm or doing work with future benefits. Basically, WFF pays now - a farm doesn’t.
The best way to help is to give people tools and knowledge. Teach a man to fish and all that. But when faced with kids starving now, that’s obviously a hard sell.
I work for a newspaper and actually spoke to a gentleman a couple days ago whose student group helped set up a school in Ghana 30 years ago. Kids who grew up in the literal gutter got free schooling there. And it works! The reason we spoke was because the school is now setting up a music program and they’re collecting used musical instruments. He told me that during his last visit, he met a girl who went to that school and was now graduating from university. Isn’t that amazing?
Problem is, that takes 20 years to do. And that’s a mighty difficult thing to accomplish in places that are actively in conflict like Sudan.
Food aid was never meant to develop amy country. It’s meant to reduce starvation in the near term. But that school in Ghana couldn’t be successful if their students were starving. Im just guessing but that school probably received a lot of food aid so that their students could learn without hunger.
I mostly agree. I think people got put off when it turns out most donations to African countries in turmoil are embezzled.
However, there is a selective activism and double standard when Palestine gets more attention than Sudan, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict had been going on for as long as the conflict in Sudan and its neighbouring countries.
TBF, seeing as Israel is basically an appendix of the US, it could in theory be controlled via the US. As others here pointed out, no such mechanism in Sudan.
“Have you considered not hand-delivering your family overseas to fight for oil?”
“I would but liberals would invade my home with electric cars and their transgenderism.”
The fighting drew in foreign weapons and money. Outside powers jockeyed to back a victor, secure a foothold in Sudan, and profit from its natural wealth. The country matters globally not just because of its size but because it sits on the Red Sea, a major trade route, and holds immense reserves of gold, oil, and agricultural land.
The article is not wrong. But the reality is, we’ve tried to help places like a Sudan a lot over the decades. I’d say we helped TOO MUCH.
We sent food aid which made them dependent on us. It didn’t incentivise them to fix their issues, it just made them reliant on outside help. Meanwhile, the population skyrocketed. There’s more mouths to feed, more famine, more conflict.
At some point, a country needs to fix whatever’s broken. And it won’t be pretty; it never is. But I don’t think interfering in an internal conflict like this will do any good to anyone. Can we as the west even reasonably figure out who the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ are in this conflict? Is there even a good or bad side to begin with?
Just fyi, this is the same argument that conservatives use when trying to gut welfare programs
Well, I do imagine there’s some caveats as to the efficacy of welfare programs, but we’ll stick to this topic :D
There’s been hundreds of food programs over the decades, but there really isn’t a good way to do it. If you just sent aid to a government or group, it tends to either destabilise the local economy or empowers people you don’t want to empower, like armed groups who can just take that aid for themselves.
But if you send individual aid, there’s issues too. For example, let’s say you set up a ‘work for food’ program. Sounds great, right? But what that ends up doing is that the WFF option is more attractive than tending your own farm or doing work with future benefits. Basically, WFF pays now - a farm doesn’t.
The best way to help is to give people tools and knowledge. Teach a man to fish and all that. But when faced with kids starving now, that’s obviously a hard sell.
I work for a newspaper and actually spoke to a gentleman a couple days ago whose student group helped set up a school in Ghana 30 years ago. Kids who grew up in the literal gutter got free schooling there. And it works! The reason we spoke was because the school is now setting up a music program and they’re collecting used musical instruments. He told me that during his last visit, he met a girl who went to that school and was now graduating from university. Isn’t that amazing?
Problem is, that takes 20 years to do. And that’s a mighty difficult thing to accomplish in places that are actively in conflict like Sudan.
Food aid was never meant to develop amy country. It’s meant to reduce starvation in the near term. But that school in Ghana couldn’t be successful if their students were starving. Im just guessing but that school probably received a lot of food aid so that their students could learn without hunger.
I mostly agree. I think people got put off when it turns out most donations to African countries in turmoil are embezzled.
However, there is a selective activism and double standard when Palestine gets more attention than Sudan, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict had been going on for as long as the conflict in Sudan and its neighbouring countries.
TBF, seeing as Israel is basically an appendix of the US, it could in theory be controlled via the US. As others here pointed out, no such mechanism in Sudan.
You have it backwards, US is a mecha that Israel pilots.
Well, you see, you can’t talk to Israel. But you can talk to the US, who could stop funding Israel at any time.
And even then, you can’t talk to half the US.
“Have you considered not hand-delivering your family overseas to fight for oil?”
“I would but liberals would invade my home with electric cars and their transgenderism.”
Youre definition of help needs work