tyler1128 t1_je9l5lb wrote on March 30, 2023 at 12:34 PM

Reply to comment by Gnonthgol in Eli5 Why is there still a famine in Africa despite the fact that they have been receiving foreign aid for decades? by Illustrious-Pen9569

Also African infrastructure outside of cities is very bad, making general distribution quite hard, while in many places with conflict, trying to do so might be dangerous.

Gnonthgol t1_je9mgyo wrote on March 30, 2023 at 12:45 PM

This actually varies a lot depending on the area you are talking about. Some countries have great infrastructure even outside of cities. Others however are lacking a lot of infrastructure. A lot of this can be traced back to how colonizing nations were running their colonies, and then how the US/USSR were using infrastructure aid to help their warlords conduct their operations in the different African countries and then now how China, Russia and the EU is investing in infrastructure that favors their interests. All this foreign efforts are quite disruptive for the local infrasturcture construction. But again it varies a lot between the different countries and you can not say much general about the entire continent as a whole.

tyler1128 t1_je9tv6s wrote on March 30, 2023 at 1:44 PM

Yeah, it does and there are a lot of reasons. There's also the fact a lot of Africa is mostly small communities in sparsely populated but vast regions. Just "giving everyone all the food and water they need" from foreign aid really isn't a feasible strategy at least currently. Ideally, we'd help communities themselves get more self-sufficient than just send things constantly.

rimshot101 t1_jea4lwy wrote on March 30, 2023 at 3:03 PM

For a landmass of it's size, Africa has unusually linear coastlines with very few (compared to other continents) suitable seaports.

[deleted] t1_jeb0ru3 wrote on March 30, 2023 at 6:32 PM

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tyler1128 t1_jeb189r wrote on March 30, 2023 at 6:35 PM

Yeah, that's where I was trying to go with it. Better than just giving "Africa" as a gigantic place aid, especially the various corrupt leaders who'll probably take much of it for them and their friends, help smaller communities get what they need to provide better for themselves. That's my belief anyway. I don't live in Africa but I do support a refugee group there, directly.