Muslims in a Global Context: Sub-Saharan Africa
26 April 2015
The Ethicality and Viability of Providing International Aid and Economic Interest to Africa
When taking a close examination and analysis of Africa’s history as a whole, it is difficult to not
take notice of the the actions and impact of western countries. Utilizing the hand of imperialism,
European countries essentially pillaged Africa for natural resources and cheap labor. Africa’s history with
european imperialism demonstrates the extreme extent to which greed provokes inhumanity. For example,
Leopold II of Belgium orchestrated a genocide in the Congo, the impacts of which are still unhealed to
this day. Although many argue that foreign countries have no business nor responsibility in providing
international aid, most of the reasons why Africa is a struggling continent stem from treatment of it by the
rest of the world, notably from the consequences of western imperialism. With this in mind, I argue that it
is indeed our responsibility to help Africa. However, a more important argument is the extent to which the
rest of the world should help Africa. It has been demonstrated through countless historical examples that
it is not effective to baby a country, so there is indeed a precise balance of foreign aid and domestic
independence that can produce improvements. I will argue that foreign countries should provide immense
aid with things that are necessities and norms in western societies; reliable health care, a healthy
population, and growing economy. These three components, once achieved, are the recipe for progress in
a struggling country. The following discussion will aim to prove the viability of this theory.
Although it is a norm in western countries, up to date, affordable and reliable healthcare is a rarity
in many African nations. For example, many of the notable health problems in Africa stem from sexual
health and fast spreading yet easy to treat diseases, like Malaria. In Zambia, “household bargaining and
excess fertility”, “no margin, no mission”, and the “zambian malaria initiative” were development efforts
that have proven to be successful (Hickling). These initiatives provided contraceptives and education so
that people know what practices are healthy, and provided healthcare services and medication to treat
malaria, which can be epidemic when the resources to combat it are not available. Now, Zambia has seen
improvements within its own health care system and has a healthier population that can be a part of the
working class to fuel the Zambian economy. To put to scale the imbalance in health care availability,
guest speaker Abimbola Fapohunda explained that when physicians choose to move from poor countries
to richer ones, they tend to do so in large numbers. As a result of this mass migration, it causes worldwide
health workforce imbalance that is harmful to health systems of source countries. In his presentation,
Fapohunda shared with us the WHO Density of Healthcare Workers for priority countries chart. Out of
those forty nine countries, only four of them were above the critical threshold of twenty three healthcare
workers per ten thousand people, and none of those four were from africa. Instead, the majority of the
forty five countries that were below the threshold were African countries, and on top of that the last
thirteen countries on the list were African countries as well (Fapohunda). Fapohunda explained that to
combat mass migration, many places are offering incentives for health care workers to stay in poor
countries, such as reduced tuition for students and increased vacation time for physicians. It is evident
that healthcare is an immensely important component when it comes to the well being and potential for
success in a nation, so providing aid that tailors to health care needs would be extremely beneficial. The
