Africa has lush rain forests, gold and diamond mines, and has as many raw resources as any other continent. Not only that, but in 2011, total development aid from rich countries stood at nearly $150 billion dollars. Each year billions upon billions of our tax dollars are sent to Africa.

Has it helped? Has Africa changed? When there is a drought in Western countries, no one dies. When California or Texas has a drought, does anyone die? When there is a drought in Africa, millions die.

Africa still has slaves, genocide, cannibalism, and many Africans live in filth and disease. Is there any doubt that when people live in their own sewage, that disease is a real problem? Or when Africans use the same water for drinking as they do their own waste?

It has the highest rates of violence, murder, rape, and disease in the world – with no end in sight. Has or can money solve this problem? In just 100 days in 1994, some 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda in a mass campaign of genocide.

No other country in the world has had the problems of Africa. How long will people blame Africa’s problems on racism rather than their own responsibility?

Even their own hospitals look like concentration camps surrounded in barbed and razor wire to keep violent criminals out. This is not something that many in the west can fathom.

When will we realize that throwing money at countries steeped in violence, immorality, chaos, and disease will not fix the problem? Only Africans making a change will fix the problem, and change has to come from within.

Perhaps one of the only reason that most people do not care about Africa is that they are too incompetent to build a missile that would fire outside of Africa. Ebola and Obama’s refusal to stop flights from hotspot Ebola infected countries in Africa, on the other hand, have changed the scope of the problem.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) – A new private sector initiative announced Wednesday will provide at least $450 million in commercial financing to the three West African countries hardest hit by Ebola to promote trade, investment and employment.

The International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank Group, announced that the package will include $250 million in rapid response projects and at least $200 million in investment projects to support the economic recovery of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea after the Ebola outbreak is controlled.

The announcement coincides with the U.N. Development Program’s release of a study on the socio-economic impact of the outbreak, which found that the governments of the three countries need $328 million to be able to function at pre-crisis levels. The study said the shortfalls are caused by increased spending to tackle Ebola and the slowdown of economic activity in fields such as tourism, mining and trade.

“Ebola is a humanitarian crisis first and foremost, but it’s also an economic disaster for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement. “That’s why in addition to our emergency aid, we will do all we can to help support the private sector in these countries to build back their business.”

IFC, the largest global development institution that focuses exclusively on the private sector, said its initiative includes a $75 million Ebola Emergency Liquidity Facility to fund critical imports for the Ebola-affected countries, including energy, food and agricultural commodities and manufactured goods.

IFC said its board approved the rapid response program last week. It will initially be available to six IFC client banks and could be expanded to additional banks.

Jin Yong Cai, IFC executive vice president and CEO, said the corporation “will find and create opportunities to encourage private investors to play a large role in the recovery of markets directly and indirectly affected by the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa.”

The UNDP study found that because of Ebola, government expenses have risen about 30 percent in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and fiscal deficits in the three countries are rising. In addition, Liberia has sacrificed $20 million worth of infrastructure improvements and Sierra Leone has sacrificed $16 million worth since the beginning of the crisis, it said.

In Liberia, half the mining and agricultural concessions have reduced their activities, UNDP said. In northeast Guinea, exports of fruit and vegetables to neighboring countries have dropped 90 percent, and in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, nearly all bars, restaurants and nightclubs have closed. That has forced the country’s largest brewery to scale down operations, culminating in a loss of 24,000 jobs in the supply chain.

The financial constraints have forced the three countries to resort to domestic and international borrowing, and they have already taken financial packages from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, UNDP said.

UNDP’s Africa regional director, Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, said the crisis has taken a toll on budgets and reduced the ability of the three governments to invest in critical areas such as health and education.

“We need to make sure that the Ebola outbreak does not lead to socio-economic collapse,” Dieye said in a statement. “These countries were heavily reliant on aid but beginning to see healthy rates of economic growth and opportunities for business, economic diversification and domestic resource mobilization. We need to avoid a situation where these countries increase their dependence on external sources of financing.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/5/ebola-countries-to-get-450-million-in-financing