Free Press & Aid in Africa
by Billy Joe Mills • Mar 4th, 2009 at 12:26 pm • 1 comment
Andrew Mwenda is incredible. Sometime in the middle of his talk you will hear Bono speak out. It makes me not like Bono. The TEDBlog covers the feud between Bono and Mwenda.
One of the best economists out there, William Easterly, has a short blog post on Mwenda. Mwenda established a newspaper in Uganda, The Independent, after being frustrated by government censorship of the newspaper that previously employed him.
Comment by HTA on 4 March 2009 at 3:08 pm:
Billy Joe (if that is your real name),
He made some good points, but maybe I’m missing something here. He comes in and derides sending children to school and says you need entrepreneurs. Then he says that educational institutions need to be in place to foster entrepreneurship.
Then he says that African governments answer to outside donors, not to the population. The answer to the outside donors seems to be that the governments will waste money on patronage. It assumes that outside donors and creditors like the IMF and World Bank don’t attach conditions to aid. Last time I checked, the IMF and World Bank did offer strings. Also, the last time I checked, outside aid agencies often worked outside the government.
I agree you need institutions and a certain level of stability to get private investment. Ultimately, private investment is the only way to get Africa going. I’m not sure how you get from A to B.
P.S. Are you from the South? Do you have a relative named Billy-Bob?