GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-real-gdp-per-capi...
Literacy rate: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-ra...
Life expectancy: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=1950...
Hunger and undernourishment: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-undernouris...
(I removed the HDI as there was only data from 2000 on.)
So, how is GDP per capita, an important metric, “a bit of a exception” among two other random stats (one of which even accelerated)?
Meanwhile, annual GDP growth rate does seem a lot more steady since 2004: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locat...
Supporting the argument, since progress keeps following the trend.
> life expectancy growth accelerated from ~2000 and is slowing down a bit again
Slight waviness superimposed on the overall trend.
> how is GDP per capita, an important metric, “a bit of a exception”
GDP per capita had a trend reversal in 2000, unlike the other metrics.
> annual GDP growth rate does seem a lot more steady since 2004
Most likely a change in methodology that gives less noisy estimates.
Two other less important and less immediate metrics. The “exception” easily outweigh them both.
That one takes off in 1993, about a decade before GDP exploded. Maybe the secret to Ethiopia's growth is just that the population became educated enough to do something useful with the money invested by foreign entities?
The food sent over via charity often had a religious conversion implied.
China's belt and road initiative has specific goals in Africa that require something closer to real economic development. With a tether of course, but real development.
At the same time the Chinese almost religiously mentioned that they saw Africa as an equal partner. It seemed like a very conscious and deliberate strategy.
So my anecdotal summary would be...the Chinese got involved early, went in guns blazing (money wise) and didn't behave like total pricks out for a quick buck but rather like friends and real business partners.
Not just Africa. For US/Western Europe even their close Eastern European neighbors are seen as a lesser continent to be exploited.
An Austrian colleague kept boasting how his dad made a fortune buying illegally chopped wood from Ukraine.
That pretty much sums up how most of the western countries are wealthy today, by exploiting less fortunate countries.
Like you said, it's a modern form of colonialism except it's done with money instead of bullets.
While I fundamentally disagree with China's political model, we may have better luck in third world development deemphasizing democracy and focusing instead on rule of law, stability and cultural cohesion.
If the West ever entered Africa the way China has the politicians leading it would destroyed at home. It’s more domestic politics and history than geopolitics.
It’s worse in brutality for a specific case.
The argument that you are trying to have doesn’t exist here.
Any economic program set forth by the West and any decisive intervention to stabilize a country is promptly accused of being neocolonialism.
I recall a few years ago there was a military coup in Guinea Bissau and the West stepped in to stabilize the country by getting the Community of Portuguese-speaking countries (Portuguese acronym CPLP) involved and send ground troops. Even so, it was decided that the ground troops needed to be from Angola and leave Portugal to handle logistics because having Portuguese troops on the ground would help the narrative that the former colonizer was controlling the fallen democratic government as a sockpuppet.
That's why most of today's "Chinese Influence" are bound with conditions like business deals. It's a better way to help others in addition to capitalist selfish greediness described in many media. It's mutual beneficial. The approach was from hard lessons that donation can not stimulate sustainable growth.
1. by owning the (often insane) debt from the programs
2. by getting a lot of Chinese jobs in the country
3. by gaining influence over the country (at the expense of Western influence, if you see this as a competition.
Another problem here, although it’s not a benefit to China, is that the quality of infrastructure built by China is often terrible, making the cost and debt even more problematic.
Now, having said all that, the US isn’t necessarily doing much better. And the poor quality Chinese roads (just as an example) are still infinitely better than the competing local-built roads.
And as for starting a war, China doesn't need to threaten to start a war with a country in order to have the threat of such playing into Ethiopia's leadership decisions. You don't want to piss off China any more than you want to piss off the USA.
Sri Lanka had to hand over a port for example.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-07/sri-lankans-protest-c...
On the other hand, developing countries often have bloated bureaucracies and corrupt governments that are heavily involved in the private sector and corporate activity.
The difficulties I mentioned in my original post are those in which the Government is heavily involved. Corporate investment in properly functioning nations are free from (public) political hindrances.
I get it, but this "help" has a tremendous cost, a cost many future generations of Ethiopians will pay dearly.
While the "West" has been a mixed bag between good and bad, there's always been some kind of moral "checks and balances" and pressure from their voters. You get none of that with China.
As a voter in the west I don't recall ever hearing candidates talk about Africa (although I haven't necessarily been looking out for it and may be a bit too young depending on when it happened).
Exceptions of course are the oil states, due to strategic need.
China on the other hand does not care who you are or what you do so long as you can pay.
In this way they are really similar to private equity markets, but unlike private markets, they do have a navy and can use it to ensure that far away governments pay back their money.
I'd argue that it's more important to understand the context from the African perspective, and not just from the Western or Chinese perspective. Ethiopia, for example, has transitioned from a monarchy to a communist dictatorship/Soviet satellite to a non-communist dictatorship to a semi-democracy in just the last 40 years. They've fought a major war with a neighbor, had several famines, and are in the middle of a massive population boom.
So, "did _we_ not want results" isn't a great the best way to view the situation on the ground. China came in at a time where they had money to burn and found a semi-stable group of countries to trade with. That stability was created via the work of Western efforts and massive amounts of hard work by the Africans themselves.
Also, FWIW, the dead comment was likely just a troll: most (all?) donations to the major relief groups get a thank you letter.
Finally: it's worth noting that it's not like Western influence isn't apparent, either. The US Embassy in Addis is hard to miss and steps from the Prime Minister's palace.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locat...
Be careful what you wish for: economic growth in Africa is going to come directly at the expense of the local and international environment, in the form of land clearance and coal and oil emissions.
Africa desperately needs to stabilise its population, so that it can focus on infrastructure and capital deepening. The West can help by redirecting all food aid instead towards education, contraception and abortion for women.
Would you please not create accounts to break the site rules with?
I would expect economic development to gradually cause a decline in birth rates? Is there a GDP marker where delta GDP > delta population?
As far as overpopulation, the entire continent of Africa has roughly the same population (1.3b) as India with ~9x the land area so the absolute population density is not dire.
2. If you look at carbon emissions per capita, African countries are relatively carbon neutral. Ethiopia relies mostly on renewable energy and they are also building the largest hydroelectric power plant on the continent. I would expect younger economies to “leap frog” to cleaner and greener tech, having polluted less in total (than countries before them) by the time they attain middle income status.
When a parasite finds a good host, the logic can get really warped.
It makes you wonder how China's involvement has lead to do much growth in such short time, while the West had been focused on providing to poor, starving African children for decades. I wonder how much the attitude reflected in the comment about the donating grandma is common and how it contributed to the connotative lack of results from Western aid efforts. Did we deep down not want results, but instead mainly make ourselves feel good while keeping Africa in a position where they can provide that feeling to us? What concretely is China doing that we failed to do? How will this pan out on the long term for Africa? So many interesting topics in here!