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Local Africans predict no impact because corruption will continue Live 8 |
`At the end of the day, will the people really benefit?'
Concerts don't address root problem, ALEJANDRO BUSTOS
STAFF REPORTER, July. 3, 2005. Toronto Star pg.3
As concertgoers partied in 10 cities around the world, members of southern
Ontario's African community wondered if Live 8 will make a difference. While
calling yesterday's gathering an important, if not bold, idea, they said the
one-day musical festival could not address Africa's root problems.
These include previous Western exploitation, the corruption of some African leaders, an unequal global trading system and the continent's complexity in terms of size and languages. Including the islands off Africa and non-sovereign protectorates, Africa is a massive region of 59 countries, 805 million people and more than 2,000 languages.
"Don't get me wrong, it's a good concept," said Macaulay Eteli, an Oshawa-based painter from Nigeria.
"But at the end of the day, will the (African) people really benefit?"
Given the immense size of the continent, it makes no sense to talk about "saving Africa" as if it were a single place, said Eteli, whose day job is as a nuclear energy worker at the Pickering nuclear power plant.
A better approach, he said, is to focus on one part of Africa and deal with that region's problems, rather than trying to find a single solution for the entire continent.
The Live 8 organizers deserve praise for pressuring Western governments to cancel the debt of African countries, said Munyonzwe Hamalengwa, a Toronto-based lawyer from Zambia who arrived in Canada in 1977.
However, cancelling debt won't solve poverty, he added.
"What Live 8 is doing is making the Western world feel good," said Hamalengwa. "But it will have no impact on the ground because corruption will continue."
The African continent is rife with tales of politicians pillaging the public purse.
`What Live 8 is doing is making the Western world feel good'
Munyonzwe Hamalengwa Toronto lawyer
An anti-corruption committee in Nigeria found that more than $483 billion was squandered or stolen between independence in 1960 and the return of civilian rule in 1999.
In Angola, which sits atop oceans of oil but has millions of impoverished citizens, the New York-based Human Rights Watch estimated last year that between 1997 and 2002 close to $5 billion in state oil income went unaccounted for.
Trade inequality is also a problem.
The cocoa trade, a critical part of the Ghanaian economy, is an example of how African countries have little control over their economies
"In Ghana, the cocoa market is dictated by the buyer," said Kobèna Acquaah-Harrison, a Toronto musician and media producer born in Ghana.
While the Live 8 concerts have done an excellent job of raising public awareness about Africa, without substantive changes to the world trading system, they won't eliminate poverty, he said.
So what can Canadians do to help?
One answer is to send money directly to grassroots groups.
"I believe that if people were able to change their focus to those groups working on the ground in Africa ... it would be more beneficial than giving to a big organization," said Obert Madondo, a native of Zimbabwe and board member of CAP AIDS, a Toronto-based nongovernmental group that works in four African countries.
By working with grassroots groups, CAP AIDS — short for Canada Africa Partnership — is helping people in Uganda form small businesses; assisting an AIDS-prevention group in Tanzania; supporting a youth group in Malawi and working with an organization in Ethiopia that works in AIDS education.
There are no quick fixes to eliminating poverty in Africa, said Tsegaye Tilahun, the owner of the Bole Café, an Ethiopian eatery in Toronto. "It's an ongoing process," said Tilahun, who emigrated from Ethiopia in 1982.
"It's not only about giving money. It's also about making sure that Western governments become aware of what they're doing to Africa, and also making African leaders more accountable."
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