International Policy — Ethnic Supplies

India has more poor people than sub- saharan Africa

July 20, 2010 By idahorner View Comments

This heading has preoccupied Current Affairs and News programmes at the BBC over the last two weeks and in case you missed it all here are some facts as I understood them for you.

India receives in excess of £300M in AID from the British tax payer- this despite the fact that India has its own Foreign AID programme as well as a Space programme
the reason why it gets the AID mentioned above, several districts in India are much poorer than DR Congo and other sub- Saharan Africa
the poor districts in India rank so low on the human development indices
43% of Indian children are Malnourished and the charity Save the Children is faces a mammoth task of feeding them

But why is this? Why is India this poor and yet elsewhere it is deemed as an emergerging economy on par with China. The Indian diaspora wherever in the world they be appear to be doing very well and much better than their African counterparts

Is it a case of bad policies which mean that wealth is not spread all over India?

The moral question that the panel on the BBC’s Moral Maze had to answer was whether India should continue to receive the UK tax payer’s money if it is indeed doing that well?

I have never been to India and as such I am not familiar with how society is organized there or how it functions so I am not I am able to speak with any authority on these issues.

If you have knowledge of Indian affairs I would be grateful for some enlightenment here as I am on the side of the coin that says India is not a poor country

Filed Under: International Policy Tagged With: AID, BBc, BRITISH, FOREIGN AID, INDIA, MORAL MAZE, POLTICS, Poverty, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Why Africa must rebrand itself

June 21, 2010 By idahorner View Comments

It has been a little quiet here and for that I apologise.

By way of catching up I have decided to revisit the issue of Africa rebranding itself.

I spent the best part of last week up in Birmingham at the BBC Gardeners World Live, show casing the fine work of the various women that I work with in Africa. It is an interesting but incredibly exhausting exhibition. The show provides an opportunity to get feed back on the quality of the women’s work and whether or not there is a market for their accessories.On the whole the accessories were loved for being colorful, well finished and practical, and this was a great relief.

handmade African basket from Madagascar

So why must Africa Rebrand itself? Whilst at this event I also learned how little folk out there really know about Africa and what it is they know tended to be negative.

African Cotton Tote

Man and wife approached my stand and immediately told me that they sponsored a child in Africa. The man told his wife that they should buy one of the cotton bags made by the women in Tanzania. She told him that they didn’t need it. He whispered to her “we’ve got to help those people woman”. I was tempted to ask them not to do us any favours but realised Ethnic Supplies is not really about me so I bit my tongue.

Then came a woman whose question nearly blew me off my feet! She too was interested in the same bag and having paid for it she asked me if there were schools in Ghana and if so do English people provide them?

Now I am very chatty and I must confess to being dumb founded.

Whilst thinking about those comments I noticed that I was very cold and I asked people on nearby stands if they too were feeling cold and they were, the Air conditioning was on very high. I complained to the organisers about this and they sent a rep to my stand, who promptly asked me if I had just arrived to the UK! I did wonder whether he assumed that there is no Air conditioning in Africa?

I did wonder whether this was a new form of discrimination or an unfortunate comment form an idiot. Well as luck would have it the chap came back and I told him how disappointed I was with his remarl. he apologised and said he had merely been making small talk!

Now folk I would really like to think that I can take a joke like the next person and that I am not an overly sensitive grumpy old woman, but I struggled to see how any of these comments could be taken lightly.

The comment about school in Ghana left me in no doubt that Africa must do more to report the good news from Africa instead of leaving it to the popular media. Why? Good news from Africa does not sell papers no make television headlines which is where some of these folk get their information about Africa= no incentive for the popular media house to report it!

Having written the first draft of this blog an email has since dropped into my in box from a German guy who had previously approached me about providing work experience for his talented African friend. My last response to him was that I was not in a position to do so for various reasons.

In his latest email he says his friend really needs my help as he is so intelligent that it is as if he was not born in Africa! I don’t know about your folk but I can only read that one way. People in Africa are stupid and those that are not must be helped to leave as soon as possible. Did I let him get away with that comment? Absolutely not!

Have you got a view on any of the issues raised here? Well lets here them

Filed Under: International Policy Tagged With: Africa, African baskets, African women, BBC Gardeners World Live, Ghana, NEC, Summer Accessories, Tote Bags

Economic Migration

April 14, 2010 By idahorner View Comments

In the last post I looked at the issue of unfair trade agreements an their role in economic migration. In this thread I would like to look at the value of economic migrants.

I has been a few days since my last post and in those days I watched an interesting documentary called The End of the Line. The documentary looked at two issues that I have written about here and the other is one of immigration. The fisher man from Senegal has been priced out of the market by European fishing companies who have been sold rights to fish here by the government, This has meant that his daily catch is only worth $6 and he spends $4 on that on fuel. he says he wants to provide for his family but cannot see how and the only option left to him is to make the dangerous journey to Europe. There is nothing left here for him.

Interestingly too, one of the professional interviewed said that this is a growing trend in this part of Senegal but sadly whilst “they want our fish, we are not welcome in Europe” Unfair Trade terms?

Economic Migrants or the Diaspora are very useful to the economic development of their country of origin because of the money they send home. Ireland is one such country that depended heavily on these remittances until recently. African countries rely heavily on these remittances too and in 2008 these amounted to $780 million dollars in Uganda alone. Those are staggering amounts of money to a country whose GDP was up until recently made up of 70% of AID money.

There is a benefit too for the donor agencies, with the economic migrants remitting money to their countries of origin, in theory it should mean that AID to a given country may eventually reduce and thus ease the burden on it’s tax payers. This is how it work in theory and the money remitted by the economic migrants is often much more than the AID a given country might receive. The reality however is that these remittances are not structured in such way as to aid development. instead the money is sent to family members for personal consumption

We have also heard cries of “they come here and take our jobs” my question why are these jobs available for the new comers to take?

The BBC carried out an experiment to dispel this myth once and for all, find out what happened when immigrants were withdrawn from their jobs in Wisbech Cambridgeshire here

Although the economic migrants will and may do jobs that the locals do not want to do there is no doubt that the increase in an area’s population will have an impact upon other resources such as health school, housing.

There is an indirect cost to the homelands of the economic migrants too known as the brain drain countries lose their skilled personnel to other countries and the imapct of such brain drain will vary from country to ocuntry with the least developed countries suffering the most.

The question is how do you balance all this out?

Have got a view on any of issues raised here, if so it will be great to hear from you

Filed Under: Ethics, International Policy Tagged With: BBC Radio 4, Immigration, ireland, migration, The end of the line