It isn’t always that aid is seen as helpful by everyone. James Shikwat, a 35 year old Kenyan economics expert, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. He is a proponent of globalization, and claims that Western development policies in Africa create corrupt rules and overstatements of the AIDS problem.

There are many reasons that Mr. Shikwati believes the aid to Africa might not be as helpful as it might seem. He believes that the intentions of the G8 summit at Gleneagles - which is usually cast as a way to get more aid and developmental ideas to Africa - is actually harming the continent, and have been doing so for the past 40 years. He believes that the proof lies in the fact that the poorest countries in Africa have been the ones who are getting the most aid, and yet these are the countries that remain the poorest. He believes that there are huge bureaucracies that are financed with the aid money, and this leads to just more corruption among the various aid agencies as well as other problems.

Part of Mr. Shikwati’s idea is that with all of the aid, the countries in Africa have no real reason to learn how to sustain themselves. He believes that all of the aid is only teaching Africans to be beggars and to not be independent. He also feels that the various forms of development that the aid from other countries sends in doesn’t strengthen much - in fact, it weakens the local markets and also makes it very hard for entrepreneurs in Africa to actually begin to help themselves and their country.

Another point that Mr. Shikwati makes is that he does not believe countries would starve without the AID that is given from programs like the World Food Program. He feels that if the aid was no longer coming into African nations, these nations would be forced to figure out new ways to feed their own. These ways will include things like making deals with other nations, and learning more technologies that will allow them to learn how to better take care of their own.

Getting rid of these programs is going t cause lots of various problems with the countries, and the idea of doing so is something that is going to come to a lot of heated debated and arguments. This is something that is going to have to be researched, discussed, and decided upon.