Francis Fukuyama reviews The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai and Dead Aid by Dambiso Moyo.

But the truth is that these books have more in common than their authors may admit. Both women see sub-Saharan Africa’s fundamental problem not as one of resources, human or natural, or as a matter of geography, but, rather, as one of bad government. Far too many regimes in Africa have become patronage machines in which political power is sought by “big men” for the sole purpose of acquiring resources—resources that are funneled either back to the networks of supporters who helped a particular leader come to power or else into the proverbial Swiss bank account. There is no concept of public good; politics has devolved instead into a zero-sum struggle to appropriate the state and whatever assets it can control.

This entry was posted on May 5th, 2009 at 12:08 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Economy, Uncategorized, Women's issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.