Most countries in Africa are much less developed than rich countries like Britain, USA and others in Europe. It is not easy and quick to explain why this is - there are many reasons. It's partly to do with the way they have been set up and ruled, partly to do with the amount of money the governments of the countries spend their mopney (or don't actually have any money to spend) and it's also to do with physical conditions of farming and industry in Africa.

Here are a couple of other factors which are related to how poor countries develop and grow.

Aid

Aid means ‘help’ so when we talk about giving aid to Africa, it means how we give them things and money to help them to develop and grow as a country.

There are three main types of aid:

Charity Aid – This is aid that people, families and schools give to African countries to help them. For example a school might have a non-uniform day and send all the money collected to a charity like Christian Aid so that they can help people to improve their lives in a far away country.

National Aid – Most countries give money to poorer countries to help them grow and improve. This is done using money that has been collected in taxes from the people. This kind of aid provides big amounts of money. For example, Britain might give millions of pounds to a country (or a number of countries) especially to help them to make their schools or hospitals better.

International Aid – This money comes from BIG international organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They give billions of pounds to help countries grow and develop and these projects usually last for a long time and involve organising large organisations within poor countries like hospitals, schools and the government it self.

The United Nations

Another type of aid is the type we hear about most and that it Emergency Aid (Humanitarian Aid) which is asked for quickly to help solve emergencies that happen around the world like floods, droughts, earthquakes and tsunamis. Emergency aid keeps people alive in times of disaster. If an earthquake happens in a country, millions of people might lose their home and belongings and they need QUICK help to stay warm, safe and dry and to have enough food and medicine to keep them alive. Emergency aid is usually an emergency collection which gets money to the desperate people who need it when they need it very quickly. This could be a collection in the street, a TV advert appeal or an event in school to raise money. The problem with emergency aid is that it only sorts out the problem there and then – it doesn’t help things get better in the future.

Problems with aid:

What’s wanted? - It is very easy for rich people in rich countries to think they know best about aid. It’s really important to ask poor people what they want and how they want to grow and improve. Many people, even those who live here, think there are problems with the way we live in our rich country so why should we be the people who decide what is best for poor countries? We should we suggest that we know what is best for the poor people in the world? It is important to ask poor countries, “How would you like to improve?” “What can we do to help?” rather than just doing what we think is best.

Sustainability - It is important that the things we give to poor countries actually help them and will continue to help. For example, if we give an African school our computers which we no longer need (because we’ve bought better ones) they will be excited about how this will improve their lives. But if they break down after 2 weeks, (because they are getting old) there are no experts nearby to mend them so the people are disappointed and the ‘gift’ is thrown away. Some charities ask supporters to buy a goat for a poor family or village in Africa so that they can get milk and one day meat (or money for selling it). This is fine as long as the people know how to look after goats and there are vets and experts to help them if the goat becomes ill, or pregnant. If the goat dies, then again the promise and gift is spoilt.

Corruption - Sometimes aid can be misused by the leaders in the poor country. This is called corruption and means that the people who need the aid and help never actually see it – it is ‘stolen’ by the leaders.

Trade

Trade means buying and selling things between two people or groups. Millions of years ago people used to hunt to survive. They would eat what they caught. Soon people realised they could ‘swap’ things they had caught with other people and their choice of food therefore grew. This pattern continued and today we can buy an enormous range of foods and other goods. You find someone who has something you want then you swap it for your money – that’s trade.

‘Free Trade’ means that anyone or any country can trade with any other but unfortunately, this is not able to happen in the world market of today. Different countries want to protect their own farmers and manufacturers so that they do not go out of business. They do not want too many goods and food coming into the country because this would mean the farmers and producers in their country would not be able to sell their own goods. So, countries make up trade rules to protect their own people. ‘Tariffs’ are taxes (or costs) which are taken for certain things being brought into a country to be sold. The idea of tariffs is to protect a countries good and to make it too expensive for goods from other countries to come into the country. This makes it very difficult for farmers in poor countries to sell their goods to rich countries. They suffer and sometimes starve just so that farmers in the rich countries can stay rich and comfortable.

‘Subsidies’ are payments that are made to farmers and producers in rich countries by their governments to help them to survive and stay rich. For example, every cow in Britain is paid $1 per day by the European government so that the farmer who owns them (who gets the money of course) does not go out of business.

So not only is it often very hard for poor farmers in poor countries to sell their goods to rich countries because of tariffs but the farmers producing the same goods in the rich countries get paid extra money by their government. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer!

Fairtrade

Another problem with trade is fairness. If you buy a box of tea bags in Britain for, let’s say £1, usually only about 5p (5%) of the money goes to the people in India who do the backbreaking work of picking the tea leaves in the field. A few more pence goes to transporting the leaves and sending them to Britain but most of the money goes to workers in Britain and the shop who sells the tea bags. Surely most of the money for a box of tea should go to the people who grow and pick the tea in the country it came from? Fair trade aims to make sure that more of the price that we pay in British shops goes back to the country and people who own, grew and prepared the tea – it’s only fair! You can check that the food and goods that you use has been traded fairly by looking for the ‘Fairtrade Mark’ on the packet.

People

Another big problem for trade is the movement of people. Very simply a nurse in an African country might earn £300 a year while a nurse in Britain might earn £20,000. If you were African and trained as a nurse (it costs the African government a lot of money to train nurses), would you rather stay in Africa and earn £300 or would you want to move to Britain and earn £20,000? It’s usually quite a clear decision but what happens to the hospitals in Africa? The same is true with doctors, teachers, engineers, solicitors and other business people and experts.