“Ethical people in wealthy developed countries should support the aspirations of poor families, communities and countries all over the world. They should help them address Real World health and environmental problems, while resisting calls to focus on speculative problems or implement policies that will actually worsen current conditions, disease problems and death tolls.”

[This completes the series of Part I and Part II.]

The political and intellectual elites emphasize climate change over the basics of life. These concerns were dramatically illustrated in Chad, Central Africa, where in 2009 the government banned the manufacture, importation, and use of charcoal – the sole source of fuel for 99 percent of Chadians. “Cooking is a fundamental necessity for every household,” its Environment Minister pronounced. But “with climate change every citizen must protect his environment.”

The edict sent women and children scavenging for dead branches, cow dung, grass, and anything else that burns.

[Part I yesterday and Part III tomorrow complete this series.]

Foreign aid comes with countless strings attached. It also “transfers money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries,” economist Peter Bauer frequently quipped. It is “life support for corrupt dictators,” says James Shikwati, director of Kenya’s Inter-Region Economic Network.

Seemingly perpetual aid keeps people from starving, but often stifles the development of legal, economic, and technological systems that launch nations on the road to self-sufficiency, growth, and prosperity. It has made people worse off, and increased poverty and misery, instead of reducing it. Foreign aid, says Moyo, is “the single worst decision of modern developmental politics.” [1]

Poor countries need access to investment capital to build large-scale modern power plants of every description.