beijingwalker
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Yes, thank China for food aid, but learn from her
Published on 11/09/2011
By Peterson Magara
The worlds most populous nation and second largest economy rushed to the Horn of Africas drought-hit nations aid months ago in a quiet but massive humanitarian relief initiative that has gone largely unreported.
Already, China has donated food aid worth Sh1.9 billion following Kenyas appeal for support towards mitigating the debilitating effects of the worst drought in two decades.
The Government of China increased its relief food donations to Kenya by Sh1.3 billion.
At the same time, China has given Ethiopia 353.2 million Yuan ($55.28 million), one of the largest single gifts to a foreign country in Chinese history, to help Ethiopia and other African drought-stricken regions to solve the current famine crisis.
Premier Wen Jiabao made the pledge while meeting visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
"China will stay with Ethiopia to cope with the current crisis, beef up co-operation and strive for common development," Wen said.
China had already announced plans to provide 90 million yuan ($14 million) worth of emergency food assistance to countries in the Horn of Africa in late July.
China is paying close attention to the eastern Africa famine crisis, described by the United Nations as the worst to hit Africa since a 1991-1992 famine in Somalia. The UN says 12 million people are in danger of starvation in the region.
China, which has over the past decade and-a-half proven itself to be Africas most symbiotic development partner of the 21st Century, was responding to both regional and UN distress calls for emergency food aid.
African pundits have noted that Chinese emergency relief differs from Western interventions as markedly as its development partnership differs from the Wests model. The generous and timely Chinese humanitarian aid is not accompanied by negative multimedia reportage-cum-commentary or intrusive video coverage of the disaster that border on preying on the stricken.
Africa has much to learn from China, until a generation ago virtually a Third World country. The Chinese have recorded the worlds most stupendous example of rising from poverty to prosperity, overtaking the Japanese a few years ago as the worlds second biggest economic power.
The secret of Chinas success is that it has harnessed the information communications technologies (ICTs) revolution of the past two decades and the Knowledge Economy that it has given rise to like no other nation.
The Chinese have doggedly concentrated on putting the infrastructure of the Knowledge Economy in place, even as the Wests government and media sectors have constantly sniped at them and harped on the fact that Beijing restricts or discourages access to certain Internet sites and domains.
It has not been lost on thinking Africans that the sites the West defends to the hilt and describes all opposition to as "authoritarian" include explicit pornography (including child **** and bestiality, or sex with animals), satanism, gambling, money laundering, drug dealing and addiction.
No country, and indeed no continent, can lift itself out of poverty in a generation by having its younger people being diverted by access to such degenerate fare on the World Wide Web.
The rise of China and the decline of the West are actually almost entirely attributable to the ways that ICTs are used in both regions and the ways the Knowledge Economy is being used and abused.
Unfettered access to instant gratification, sybaritic, narcissistic, bent, basically criminal and thoroughly decadent Internet sites in the West has not resulted in any value-adding expansion of the democratic space, far from it. It has, instead, resulted in a constriction of the economic space that has thrown the Wests economies into a tailspin of debt-driven crises.
The Chinese concentration on deploying the Internet for development-oriented ends and means is a lesson Africa too needs to learn in a single great-leap-forward generation.
Banish poverty
Africa is even better-endowed with resources than China and it too has at least a billion souls. ICTs are historys greatest gatherer and store of knowledge, knowhow, expertise, specialisation and entrepreneurship.
The Internet, far from being about anyones belly button, vice or addiction, is historys greatest engine of prosperity.
As we in the Horn of Africa thank our Chinese brothers and sisters for their prompt, selfless and non-demonstrative food aid in our hour of drought-stricken need, let us also learn from them.
That way, we, too, can banish poverty and famine in one human generation.
Published on 11/09/2011
By Peterson Magara
The worlds most populous nation and second largest economy rushed to the Horn of Africas drought-hit nations aid months ago in a quiet but massive humanitarian relief initiative that has gone largely unreported.
Already, China has donated food aid worth Sh1.9 billion following Kenyas appeal for support towards mitigating the debilitating effects of the worst drought in two decades.
The Government of China increased its relief food donations to Kenya by Sh1.3 billion.
At the same time, China has given Ethiopia 353.2 million Yuan ($55.28 million), one of the largest single gifts to a foreign country in Chinese history, to help Ethiopia and other African drought-stricken regions to solve the current famine crisis.
Premier Wen Jiabao made the pledge while meeting visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
"China will stay with Ethiopia to cope with the current crisis, beef up co-operation and strive for common development," Wen said.
China had already announced plans to provide 90 million yuan ($14 million) worth of emergency food assistance to countries in the Horn of Africa in late July.
China is paying close attention to the eastern Africa famine crisis, described by the United Nations as the worst to hit Africa since a 1991-1992 famine in Somalia. The UN says 12 million people are in danger of starvation in the region.
China, which has over the past decade and-a-half proven itself to be Africas most symbiotic development partner of the 21st Century, was responding to both regional and UN distress calls for emergency food aid.
African pundits have noted that Chinese emergency relief differs from Western interventions as markedly as its development partnership differs from the Wests model. The generous and timely Chinese humanitarian aid is not accompanied by negative multimedia reportage-cum-commentary or intrusive video coverage of the disaster that border on preying on the stricken.
Africa has much to learn from China, until a generation ago virtually a Third World country. The Chinese have recorded the worlds most stupendous example of rising from poverty to prosperity, overtaking the Japanese a few years ago as the worlds second biggest economic power.
The secret of Chinas success is that it has harnessed the information communications technologies (ICTs) revolution of the past two decades and the Knowledge Economy that it has given rise to like no other nation.
The Chinese have doggedly concentrated on putting the infrastructure of the Knowledge Economy in place, even as the Wests government and media sectors have constantly sniped at them and harped on the fact that Beijing restricts or discourages access to certain Internet sites and domains.
It has not been lost on thinking Africans that the sites the West defends to the hilt and describes all opposition to as "authoritarian" include explicit pornography (including child **** and bestiality, or sex with animals), satanism, gambling, money laundering, drug dealing and addiction.
No country, and indeed no continent, can lift itself out of poverty in a generation by having its younger people being diverted by access to such degenerate fare on the World Wide Web.
The rise of China and the decline of the West are actually almost entirely attributable to the ways that ICTs are used in both regions and the ways the Knowledge Economy is being used and abused.
Unfettered access to instant gratification, sybaritic, narcissistic, bent, basically criminal and thoroughly decadent Internet sites in the West has not resulted in any value-adding expansion of the democratic space, far from it. It has, instead, resulted in a constriction of the economic space that has thrown the Wests economies into a tailspin of debt-driven crises.
The Chinese concentration on deploying the Internet for development-oriented ends and means is a lesson Africa too needs to learn in a single great-leap-forward generation.
Banish poverty
Africa is even better-endowed with resources than China and it too has at least a billion souls. ICTs are historys greatest gatherer and store of knowledge, knowhow, expertise, specialisation and entrepreneurship.
The Internet, far from being about anyones belly button, vice or addiction, is historys greatest engine of prosperity.
As we in the Horn of Africa thank our Chinese brothers and sisters for their prompt, selfless and non-demonstrative food aid in our hour of drought-stricken need, let us also learn from them.
That way, we, too, can banish poverty and famine in one human generation.
