The Meskell Square blog links to a great story from another Ethiopan blog. This is the sort of story that ought to get far more coverage because for so many reasons. It taught me more about Ethiopia and Ethiopians than I knew before and certainyl tells me far more about life there than 100 articles in Time or some Sunday Newspaper. Go read it.
One reason why I'm highlighting it is that it illustrates perfectly the problems of Aid donation. Even when everything seems to be perfect - small program, microcredit, well managed etc. the problem of governmental corruption goes and smacks you. In this case we seem to have a fairly good final outcome but this sort of story can be repeated all over the Africa and, indeed, the majority of the develpoing world.
If even such a small scheme can get hit with corruption as it becomes successful ask yourself what happens to all the big schemes? Truly the definition of aid as a way to transfer money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor ones has never seemed more apt.
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