5 ways the West gets African development all wrong
Religion & Liberty Online

5 ways the West gets African development all wrong

“In the last few weeks, Africa witnessed two major events that could influence the continent’s economic landscape in the coming decades,” says Ibrahim B. Anoba in this week’s Acton Commentary.

First was the visit by British Prime Minister Theresa May and her pledge of $5.1 billion in investments continent-wide, as the UK prepares for life after Brexit. Next followed the gesture of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who offered $60 billion in loans and aid to African leaders at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing. These two offers ironically sum up the status of the continent: Africa is the new economic frontier that needs a tremendous amount of help – and the proper way to help is seldom understood by the West. Unfortunately, what development efforts should promise, and how they should be implemented, are questions both African leaders and their partners have gotten wrong for years. But here are a few things the world must understand about helping Africa.

The full text of the essay can be found here.

Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).