Why Africa is a waste of our money

Why giving money to Africa makes it poor. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. This is definitely an Asmin Gold video. Let's watch it. In the last 50 years, over $1.2 trillion of aid money has been poured into Africa. more than the entire GDP of countries like Spain, Australia or South Korea. When all of this be what a waste of [ __ ] what a waste of money guys. Oh my god what a waste begun just 11% of Africa lived in poverty. But by the 1990s after floods of money and global campaigns that number had actually increased to 66%. And so the more money we give them the poorer they get. Today it stands at 38%. Over three times higher than when the aid program started. In fact, so you spent 3,000, sorry, a trillion dollars to make them three times poorer. Back in the 1950s, the average Western European was just five times richer than the average African. Now the gap has more than doubled to 13 times. There's no way it's that low. There's no way it's only 13x. today over half of all African like I'm sorry but like are you really trying to tell me that like this guy like any of these people in this photo have a net worth that's like I I don't know what average European is like let's say it's $50,000 right their net worth like are you really trying to tell me that like their net worth like $2,000 there's no way still live on less than $550 a day and nearly 600 million people don't have access to electricity that's not to say this is an entirely recent phenomenon. Africa has always been poorer than the rest of the world, at least for the past 300 years. But for decad, probably more like 3,000 aside from Egypt. The West's answer to this has been simple. The reason they're poor is because they don't have enough money. And to fix that, we simply just need to give them more. So that's exactly what's happened. Since the 1960s, the amount of aid going into Africa, so if if so, let me get this straight. Why is it that aid money like we weren't giving a bunch of aid to China but China became rich? Why did that happen? Has increased by nearly 120 times. It's easy to see why this is such a popular strategy. It's simple. When we think of aid, we imagine schools being built, roads being paved, children being vaccinated. By and large, this is the strategy that transformed Europe and America into the powerhouses they are today. But in Africa, it doesn't seem to work. Jesus Christ. The obvious answer that many people turn to is colonialism. Europe wrecked the continent. Thank God for colonialism. If it wasn't for colonialism, they wouldn't even have these barrels. Leaving economic systems, it'd be even worse. Add that the rise of dictators and corruption was inevitable. And while there's no denying there were no dictators without colonialism, that fleets of luxury cars and presidential jets, while around 30% of the continent lives without clean water, certainly doesn't help. There's more to the story. And a growing body of research is showing that the money being given to Africa isn't just being wasted. It's actually making the continent poorer. But the truth is that decades of Western involvement might be the one thing holding Africa back. This is how aid laid the foundation for the biggest humanitarian failure of the modern era. What? Cuz it's funding all the warlords. They steal all the money. Foreign aid was seen as a kind of magic bullet. A surefire way to lift the continent of Africa out of extreme poverty. And to be fair, by the 1960s, there was a good reason to think this. The one major instant where it' been tried, it worked remarkably well. After World War II, Europe was left decimated. And all of this, I wonder why came with a massive geopolitical risk. Across Western Europe, communist parties were quickly gaining popularity. And there was a real risk that without a strong economy, Western Europe could turn to communism or worse, be invaded by the Soviet Union. For the US, this would have been a disaster. So in 1947, the government announced one of the most ambitious economic programs in human history, the Marshall Plan. Between 1948 and 1952, the US pumped over 13 billion into Europe 160 billion in today's money. The idea was that by providing Europe with large amounts of cash, America could kickstart investment in the economy. And surprisingly, it worked. In the decade after the Marshall Plan, it sure did. It worked really well with Europe. It worked really well with Japan, too. GDP per capita across the region grew by almost 5%. For the western world, this was a massive success. But for America, it also represented a turning point. It realized that through aid, it could make countries rich and in doing so create both new trading partners and long-term allies in the fight against communism. So after the success of the Marshall, the US looked at another continent, Africa. At the time, the continent was still reeling from centuries of colonialism. In 1960, the average income in subsahara and Africa was less than $150 a year and literacy rates were under 30% with life expectancy hovering around 45 years. It's pretty high. Most of the continent lacked paved roads, electricity grids or functioning governments. But it also had something America wanted, natural resources. The continent held mass. We got to get the special rocks. Massive reserves of oil, copper, diamonds, and rare minerals. And with a rapidly growing population, it was seen as a future economic giant. If America could repeat the success of the Marshall Plan, it could unlock a new economic frontier and build a key ally in the process. So the money started flowing in the 1960s. Subsahara and Africa. What we should have done is we should have built like massive imperial citadels like in Warhammer 40k in different places in Africa where we have all the special rocks and then we could have had like a military over there that would facilitate the special rock collection. That's what we should have done. That would have worked a lot better. I guarantee it would have worked way better. Was receiving five. We would have had way more special rocks too. million US in aid every year. But by the 1990s, that number had increased 40 to almost 20 billion. Africa quickly became the most aid dependent region on Earth. And by the '90s, aid money made up% of government budgets in countries like Uganda, Marley, and Bikina Faso. But despite this massive injection of cash, things were actually getting worse. In fact, from 1970 to 2000, the average income in Africa declined despite receiving almost $600 billion. $200. Oh my god. Over this time period. But rather than changing approach, the West doubled down. Mhm. In 2005, the UN launched the Millennium Development. This is more about what I was saying about how it's not about doing good, it's about appearing good. None of these people that are like these weird bleeding hearts on social media really give a [ __ ] about Africans. They don't care about Africans. That's why they're using phones made with cobalt. Like they don't care about that at all. What they really care about is being able to use their suffering as political access, sorry, social accessories so they can be seen as a more virtuous or good person. That's it. It's not suicidal empathy. It's pathological empathy. It's narcissistic empathy. And the G8 promised to double aid to Africa with the end of aiming poverty by 2030. Why? This wasn't just a government strategy anymore. It had become a public movement. Campaigns like Comic Relief in the UK. Live aid and band-aids feed the world turned Africa into a moral. I mean that was a generational concert. I mean like people still talk about that concert. Ordinary citizens were donating millions. Schools held fundraisers and celebrities sang charity singles. All under the belief that sending money would fix the problem. That all created a powerful narrative that poverty in Africa wasn't about politics, corruption, or bad governance. It was simply about a lack of money. And if we just gave enough of it, we could solve that problem by it's just like it's such a birdrain idea, bro. Like I I don't understand like how anybody could believe this. 2010, aid flows to Africa had reached over $50 billion a year, the highest level in history. Yet nearly two decades later, those efforts have fallen dramatically short. 400 million Africans still live on less than $2 a day, the highest number in history. And the continent's share of global trade remains below 3%. And many countries now are poorer than when they were in the 1980s. All of that raises the So everything's just got worse. Obvious question, why did aid manage to kickstart the European economy but totally fail to do the same in Africa? Nobody has any idea why. Like always, a range of ideas have been proposed from the continent's geography to its colonial history. But in the last few years, one school of thought has gained particular attention amongst development experts. Their idea is simple. It can all be explained by something economists refer to as institutions. These are the frameworks that govern societies. things like the rule of law, property rights, and democracy. And they might be the single most important factor when it comes to explaining why aid that's not the most important factor. Be making things in Africa worse. When the Marshall Plan began in Western Europe, Europe had the infrastructure of functioning states. Ministries, legal systems, and public institutions, though damaged, had existed for decades. These institutions provided the framework needed to rebuild. They could collect taxes, distribute resources, and enforce laws. All essential functions for a stable and functioning society. But in much of Africa, the picture was very classic. Classic. A bunch of 12year-olds sitting in a pickup truck Toyota with AK-47s shooting them off wildly. What is this? Joseph Cony's child army tryyous. Be different. Holy. Most African states had only recently gained independence and governments were either newly formed or inherited from colonial administrations. But in both cases, the institutions were generally designed for one purpose to extract wealth. Unlike most Western democracies, states function almost entirely to serve the interests of the ruling elite. Yep, that's right. That's what they do over there. Indexes tracking the quality of government institutions have consistently found African countries near the There's no way it's that high. 2.6. Are you kidding me? Bottom of the list. In 2025, African nations made nearly half of the bottom 30 countries on the polity democracy ranking. It's not hard to imagine why pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into these states goes wrong. Money that was meant to fund roads, schools, hospitals, electrification often goes straight to the hands of the ruling elites. Presidents who fly private jets to international conferences or government ministers spotted wearing $60,000 Rolex watches during See this is Can you imagine how much aura it would have if we had like these gigantic [ __ ] Imperial Fortresses in like these different places? Can you imagine that? But it would be [ __ ] insane. Anti-poverty meetings. Estimates the continent loses around 30 billion every year due to corruption and 30% of all the aid money it receives over the So 30 billion. So 30% of their So wait a minute. So they're receiving hundred billion. There's no way that $70 billion isn't doing more. Okay. There's no like, are you telling me that $70 billion can't get them to figure out a [ __ ] road? They can't figure out uh running water. What are we talking about? There's no way it's only 30%. 50 years, this could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars being stolen. But the problem is, you Americans look like you're so sad that you missed out on the good old European colonialism times. Yeah. Um, like I mean I remember whenever I was reading about like I mean these dudes honestly you think about it how big of an [ __ ] like they literally sent the biggest [ __ ] of the entire country off to the other side of the world with infinite money and they said we will pay you a billion dollars. Please leave. Hopefully you come back with some nice gold in like 20 years and if not well that's just what happens. Like and really like I I Yeah, of how could you not miss that? Be nuts. We're colonizing space. Yeah. Just that this money is effectively being wasted. It also actively supports the very institutions that make development so hard. Oh wow. In a normal democracy, governments are funded through taxes and that creates a two-way relationship between the state and the people. When the people pay taxes, they expect services in return. And if the ruling class fails to provide this, then they run the risk. I'm going to give like maybe a hot take. Democracy is not as good as people think it is. Democracy only works inside of high trust western society because of everything. Like imagine democracy. Imagine society is a pyramid. Democracy is the tip. So unless you have everything else underneath that pyramid, you might be better off with a king. Yeah, the United States isn't a democracy. I'm gonna ban you. I'm actually I'm not because I I already forgot your name, but nobody like you. We all know what we're talking about. You're you're trying Well, actually, well, you need I learned in history class. Shut up, you [ __ ] [ __ ] of people demanding a new government. But in aid dependent countries, this accountability mechanism is broken. Because governments receive their funding from foreign donors, it doesn't really matter what the people of the country think. And so corruption is able to persist with very little domestic resistance. A golden chair sums up the country, bro. He He's actually going and sitting in a golden chair while everybody else is [ __ ] living in a mud hut. Wow. resistance. This pretty much sums up the continent's political process for the past 50 years. Take Malawi for example. At various points in the 2000s and early 2010s, foreign aid made up more than 40% of the national budget. But huge amounts of money was being stolen by government officials, paying for things like luxury cars, private homes, or even international shopping trips. By the way, none of this even comes remotely close to the amount of money that they were receiving. Like that's not that like corruption in my opinion is not a big reason because like if you add together like so if you're receiving like let's say like $3 billion for example, right? $3 billion. So a jet uh buying a private jet is like um like $17 million something like that could be like $40 million somewhere around there. Uh, you know, you have a house. Okay, this is probably like $3 to $5 million. Uh, you've got uh let's see, oh, you know, a Lexus is like $100,000. Like, it's it's like a fractional tiny amount of the money whenever you really look at it. It's nothing. It's like probably less than 5%. You've got to look at it. You can't just blame this on the elites. Yeah, you can't spend $40 billion. You might expect a scandal to spark mass outrage. And after all, the government was siphoning off millions that were meant to serve the public, but that simply never happened. Did they just activate purple drink? All the government was siphoning off millions that were meant to serve the public. But that simply never happened because there was basically no political as the government's funding came from foreign sources. The people most affected by the mismanagement of public funds, the Malawian citizens, very little power to demand systemic change. This isn't unique to Malawi. The same dynamic has been occurring across the continent for decades. I'm going to give maybe a hot take. People might not like this opinion. I think it is a western pathological narcissistic fantasy to imagine that everywhere else in the world wants to live the same way that we live. You might look at all these Africans living in mud huts that don't have electricity and you might say, "Wait a minute. I know how to solve all your problems. I'm going to introduce all this technology and all this new stuff to you." But has it ever occurred to you that maybe they're not really comfortable with that. Maybe that's not how to improve their lives. Maybe not everybody has to like the the idea that like I I I view Western civilization as the greatest civilization of all time and I would never want to live anywhere else. That being said, I don't think that every other country in the world should follow our um they should follow our rules. Like the people that are living there have their own way of life. They do things their way. Our way is not their way. And I would say their way is really stupid and really bad, but it's their way. And this idea, this narcissistic fantasy that we're going to somehow show them the uh, you know, the wonders of having to drive to AutoZone at, you know, win on Wednesday to buy, you know, an air filter and this is going to somehow improve their lives. I I don't agree with that. I don't necessarily think so. Like being addicted. Oh, yeah. Well, no, no, no. We can get the Africans addicted to buying the new iPhones, too. Who gives a [ __ ] Maybe they don't want that. Maybe that's not what's in their best interest, you know? Like, I mean, why don't you just let them [ __ ] be? Yeah, they're going to have problems, but they're also going to not have problems. That's the way I see it. They desire. Yeah, sometimes they desire the maybe they're better that way. Not everybody. It's again it's it's such a western centric type of thinking that you assume that every group of people, every cultural and ethnic group of people desires what you have. Not necessarily. And all their problems can stay over there. Yes. Mo money, mo problems. Sure seems like that's the case. I partially agree, but wouldn't the majority of them trade their places for a western livelihood? If you ask a person, would you rather have a salad or a cake? Most people would say they would rather have a cake. But if you give people cake all the time, they become fat hogs that are diabetic that die. So sometimes you should look at what is best for people without necessarily asking them. Sometimes you sometimes you just have to make a decision. You have to you have to think about what the right decision is and what the right wrong decision is. And also like we have Africa like there's plenty of people like remember that guy earlier or like that friend I was talking about like in high school like um there are plenty of people from Africa that have immigrated to the UK and to America that are great Americans and great citizens and there's no problem. I I think it should be kept in mind that this is true. Uh now I mean migrants obviously give them a bad name but whenever you're talking about the legal immigrants that followed the process these are real legitimate standup Americans, right? They are. and you know they they're positive to the culture and I think that's it's good and so that's not a bad thing at all but at the same time that's not everybody that's not all of them and it in part explains why such high levels of corruption of course some level of corruption exists in basically every country especially during their early development stages but even under these circumstances usually still achieve economic development small businesses farmers and entrepreneurs can drive progress from the ground up. Creating jobs and expanding access to goods and services without relying heavily on the state. That's the problem. This is another one of the main problems with aid. It makes groundup work much, much harder cuz aid makes this route of development far less likely. That's because more often than not, the things being provided by aid organizations are in direct competition with local businesses. Yeah. Take the textiles industry. By the early 2000s, nearly 80% of the clothing sold in some African nations. Yeah. Like you look at these people, they're just walking around wearing like Goodwill clothes. So there's no local businesses there at all. Came from abroad. At first, that might seem like a win-win. Clothes were cheap and aid organizations feel good about reducing waste in Western countries, but the effect on local African industry was devastating. In Ghana alone, over 80% of domestic textile factories shut down between 1990 and 2010, which meant thousands of disappearing with them, machinery, and networks needed to sustain a homegrown industry. In fact, in the last two decades, Africa's industrial sector has shrunk from 15% of the continent's economy to now just 10%. This isn't a coincidence. Academic research has found that on average, foreign aid hurts industrialization in Africa. Even the world give a man a fish odd bank, one of the biggest aid organizations in the world, found that periods of increased aid tend to weaken local manufacturing. But it's not just domestic industries that suffer. The entire structure of the economy can be distorted in ways that make economic growth far less likely. To understand why, it helps to look at how countries actually grow rich. In the last few decades, almost every country that has achieved rapid development has done so through an export-led model. Nations like South Korea, Taiwan, and China have all seen huge amounts of economic growth in the past few decades. And they did this offering lowcost goods that appealed to Western consumers and then selling them on the international. So the way every country makes money and gets rich is by us giving them money. It's just they give us stuff for the money. Yeah, that's about right. I tell you that. It's just the way it is. Markets. Over time, this allowed them to industrialize domestic industries and eventually move up the value chain. You're welcome. Where are an essential part of the process that people tend to forget, maintaining a weak currency. Doing this makes the country's exports cheaper on the global market and boosting demand from foreign buyers. This increased demand then helps local industries grow, creating jobs and bringing in valuable foreign income, further fueling development. But aid money creates the opposite effect. When money flows into the country, it needs to be converted into the local currency so that governments and aid organizations can actually spend it. But doing this up the price of the currency on foreign exchange markets in response to the higher demand. Having a more valuable currency may not sound like a bad thing, but it actually causes a serious problem. A more expensive currency means that for foreigners trying to buy a country's produce, everything suddenly becomes more expensive. So people simply stop buying the produce. For developing economies, this is a total disaster. It means the export-led model that worked so successfully in East Asia becomes impossible to replicate. In Africa today, exports account for about 20% of the average GDP, less than half of most successful. So how do they make money? What the hell do they do? East Asian economies like Hong Kong, South Korea or Taiwan. I instead of developing competitive industries and shipping products around the world, aid dependent countries end up relying on foreign assistance to survive while their domestic economies remain uncompetitive and underdeveloped. Of course, that's not to say there's no good that aid can do. In theory, it has the potential to fill crucial gaps in development. Things like building roads, schools, and power grids, all facilitating domestic economic expansion. I'm totally against this. You can't figure out how to build a [ __ ] road. You probably can't maintain it either. So, we're going to go over there and build a road so we can feel good about ourselves and they're going to [ __ ] it up in 10 years. It's a waste of time really. I mean, like I mean, let's be honest. But that brings us to the final and potentially most serious issue with foreign aid. It almost never effectively delivers. A 2012 report by the Center for Global Development found that up to 70% of aid projects either failed to meet their targets or had no measurable impact. In some sectors, the waste was staggering. An audit of health aid in Uganda found that nearly 1/3 of donated medical supplies never reached their intended recipients. It just never even gets there. Lost to mismanagement or simple logistical failure. In Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, billions in a Keep in mind, we still have Roman roads from 2,000 years ago. If they wanted to build roads, they could build roads. They could like theoretically they could just get the rocks together and then put the rocks together and then make a road with the rocks. The Incas as well. Yeah, you're right. We always forget about South America, but they had some really advanced civilizations. You're right about that. Could they though? I mean somebody theoretically a person could do that in yet less than 10% of it reached local institutions most through foreign contractors NOS's or overhead costs and more than a decade later many communities still lack basic sanitation or permanent housing. Look at this. It's like LA. Like if you told me this is LA like in the Palisades, I'd be like, "Yeah." Uh-huh. To understand why, it's helpful to look at the systems that function effectively. Take a business operating in a competitive market. If it provides a bad product, consumers will simply switch to its competitors and the firm's revenues drop. And if it doesn't make changes, it may even end up going bankrupt. True. The point is that people who are providing the product are accountable to the people who end up actually using it. Yes. But foreign aid doesn't work that way. If a project fails, the recipients can withhold their taxes or vote for someone else because funding comes from foreign governments or donors. There's no mechanism for rewarding success or punishing failure. The result is an enormous lack of incentives to actually do things well. And the story of foreign aid in Africa is not simply one of failure, but of misplaced assumptions. What began as an effort to lift nations out of poverty has created systems of dependence, weakened institutions. It's because nobody cares about helping them. Nobody actually cares about helping them. They just care about being seen as they're helping them. That's the reason why Machu Picchu is from a forgotten civilization. Still has one of the most advanced watering systems in history. Yeah. I mean, like look at the Roman aqueducts. I mean, at a certain point whenever you're getting whenever you're getting lapped by civilizations that were, you know, like 3,000 2,000 years old, you can't keep blaming colonialism. You can't keep blaming uh Europe or, you know, like slavery or something like that. Like, it's really not that reason. Stifled local industries. That doesn't mean that aid has no role to play. In moments of crisis like famine, conflict, or natural disasters can provide vital short-term relief, but as a long-term development strategy, the evidence is hard to ignore. Aid has not delivered the transformation it's promised. If the goal is to support sustainable growth, then the focus needs to shift toward building strong institutions, supporting local business, and creating systems. I think we got to leave them the [ __ ] alone. Let them do what the hell they're going to do. They want to go cut each other up. Go ahead. They want to go and get their [ __ ] together. Great. But damn, I don't want to deal with it. And I certainly don't want to pay for it. Holy, we want to get the special rocks. Okay, let's go get the rocks and we leavements are accountable to their people, not to foreign donors. That's all there is to Until that happens, the cycle of dependency is just going to continue. Mhm. No, I I think it's Yeah. Cycle of dependency is a very good way to say it. Yeah. And this is also I think this happens with welfare in in uh in countries that that we have, right? And uh yeah, let's see here. The guy's jaded. You want to know what happens? Those bags of rice, the government let their people starve and then they steal the rice, reband it, and sell it to people who couldn't pay at the beginning. Yeah. It's just listen, it I mean, there's a reason why like African warlord is like a meme, right? I mean, like it's been it's because they've been doing this for a long time. There's a copot video of the horsemounted uh officer chasing a fatty. You're going to have to show me that. I haven't seen that at all. Corruption is bad when I am not involved. Dude, everybody knows. An economy professor in Sweden once told me that third world aid is when poor people in rich part of the world give money to rich people in the poor part of the world. Damn, that's bad. Nigerian here. I promise you that money isn't reaching to people that actually need it. Dead ass. I got a UN fundraiser ad for Sudan watching this. Sign my local park. Please do not feed the birds. It creates a dependent and unsustainable population and will cause great suffering in the future. Yeah, because there's going to be too many birds. There's too Now there's too many [ __ ] birds. Oh my god. You see a 30-minute Fable gameplay showcase? I didn't see that. I need to look at that. And uh the reason they're poor is because they don't have enough money. That definitely is it, guys. Basically, Africa needs entrepreneurs, not charity workers. Well, they need to have a focus in education. They need to have a focus in actually building things. And you can't teach people that. Like there isn't some like you're not going to go through this isn't going to be like stand and deliver where you just [ __ ] man mode and you teach a bunch of [ __ ] people uh calculus, right? They're not going to get it. You have to let them figure this out themselves. You cannot give this to them. And they need aderall. Yeah. Yeah. They need I think that's what Africans really need are more pharmaceutical drugs. Oh yeah, definitely. And uh Oh my god, Rwanda's doing better than other countries. So Mr. Beast was right. I mean, in my opinion, I mean, like I I would like I I don't give a [ __ ] I I I like I do give a It's not that I don't give a [ __ ] about Africa. I I mean, obviously like I can commiserate with what's happened, but like I don't want to spend my [ __ ] money on this, right? dude who directly benefited from Atheist colonialism. I don't really see the issue here. Again, anybody who is blaming this on colonialism is the biggest [ __ ] idiot, bro. Like, they're so dumb. I don't even know what to say. Fable showcase is so cool. Watch it. I know. I I'll have to look at some of that in a bit. I will. And uh they don't have civilization ball knowledge. I guess they don't, right? Do we know uh we built a country in Africa for uh blacks go back? Well, I I don't know about that. I have no idea. But I mean like just to in general, don't give the