I get the impression that an unstated definition of “aid to Africa” that implicitly excludes the kinds of things that actually work makes this into something of a tautology. For example, the campaign to eradicate Guinea worm, which mostly affects people in Africa, appears to have been quite successful. And if the correlation between rates of parasitic infestation and IQ actually turns out to be a causal relationship, this would be an even bigger deal. To me, this campaign would intuitively qualify as “aid to Africa.”
[This post has been edited for spelling and grammar]
I’ll go one better and point to two campaigns that have been practically 100% successful: the eradication of smallpox and the eradication of rinderpest.
I get the impression that an unstated definition of “aid to Africa” that implicitly excludes the kinds of things that actually work makes this into something of a tautology. For example, the campaign to eradicate Guinea worm, which mostly affects people in Africa, appears to have been quite successful. And if the correlation between rates of parasitic infestation and IQ actually turns out to be a causal relationship, this would be an even bigger deal. To me, this campaign would intuitively qualify as “aid to Africa.”
[This post has been edited for spelling and grammar]
I’ll go one better and point to two campaigns that have been practically 100% successful: the eradication of smallpox and the eradication of rinderpest.
Of course, the simple fact that these worked doesn’t mean their costs outweighed their benefits. But the US seems to have saved its contribution to smallpox eradication multiple times over. And I’m unaware of any complete cost-benefit analyses for rinderpest eradication, but this paper on rinderpest control programmes in 10 African countries from 1989 to 1997 suggests that even then they were having a net economic benefit.