John Christensen ■ Honest Accounts? The true story of Africa’s billion dollar losses
For decades Western countries have peddled a fairy tale about Africa’s plight. The tale spins a homely story of how the West provides development aid to assist African nations overcome their own shortcomings.
The tale is, of course, a vicious and mendacious nonsense.
As this new report from Health Poverty Action (which lists TJN as a co-author) details, Western countries have used aid to Africa as a smokescreen to hide the sustained looting of the Continent, which loses nearly US$60 billion a year through tax evasion, climate change mitigation, and the flight of profits of transnational companies.
Those who still believe in fairy tales should watch the following (and also read our earlier study of Africa’s Bane, and for a fuller analysis read Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce’s excellent book Africa’s Odious Debts).
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Think this a brilliant video but don’t understand the discrepancy between facts stated in the video and the report Honest Accounts? The video states that each year Africa receives $30 billion in aid while $192 is taken out of Africa. Yet the report show $134 dollars into Africa and $192 out. Is this because the amounts in the video don’t account for money received from the African diaspora, nor monies paid for commodities exported from Africa. The way this is presented is not clear and confuses the issue.
I’d be grateful to receive an answer from you.
Thank you.
Rowena Godfrey
Thanks – think you’ll have to contact Health Poverty Action on this. Apols for very brief reply