Which is more functional and creative: a community that leverages its own potential and builds its own clinic, or a community that relies on outsiders to provide that clinic?
Which is more functional: An investment that leverages its own potential and uses its own resources, or an investment that leverages the resources of outsiders?
A good investment is a good investment, regardless of where the resources are coming from. Bickering about which investments are better than others is fine and should be done, but I am not willing to write off all investments in others simply because they are unable to come up with the resources on their own.
Communities where the latter is an option are not prime targets for the project I was referring to. If you’re in a poor community, scattered over a large swath of rural Africa, and the first thing you need to do to get a clinic is to build a few thousand klicks of road to someplace where you can get vaccines, what potential do you think that you can leverage to get that done?
Looks like you’re just going to have to build that road then.
You are focusing on the immediate needs of people now, whereas I am focusing on the dysfunctionality that’s going to continue into the future.
Freebies from the Western world aren’t going to improve the lot of Africa. The only way their lot can be sustainably improved is by them reorganizing the way their communities work. No outsider can do that, and if they don’t, no amount of external aid will help.
How about a community that, thanks to charity-delivered polio vaccines 20 years ago, has the potential to build its own infrastructure (and the motivation, since, at the time under discussion, charity efforts have been redirected towards communities with higher incidence of polio)?
Which is more functional and creative: a community that leverages its own potential and builds its own clinic, or a community that relies on outsiders to provide that clinic?
Which is more functional: An investment that leverages its own potential and uses its own resources, or an investment that leverages the resources of outsiders?
A good investment is a good investment, regardless of where the resources are coming from. Bickering about which investments are better than others is fine and should be done, but I am not willing to write off all investments in others simply because they are unable to come up with the resources on their own.
Communities where the latter is an option are not prime targets for the project I was referring to. If you’re in a poor community, scattered over a large swath of rural Africa, and the first thing you need to do to get a clinic is to build a few thousand klicks of road to someplace where you can get vaccines, what potential do you think that you can leverage to get that done?
Also, have you actually been to Africa? I recommend visiting for a prolonged period several times. You might see it in a different perspective then.
Looks like you’re just going to have to build that road then.
You are focusing on the immediate needs of people now, whereas I am focusing on the dysfunctionality that’s going to continue into the future.
Freebies from the Western world aren’t going to improve the lot of Africa. The only way their lot can be sustainably improved is by them reorganizing the way their communities work. No outsider can do that, and if they don’t, no amount of external aid will help.
How about a community that, thanks to charity-delivered polio vaccines 20 years ago, has the potential to build its own infrastructure (and the motivation, since, at the time under discussion, charity efforts have been redirected towards communities with higher incidence of polio)?