Naka on Wood — There’s a mosquito net maker in Africa. He...

There’s a mosquito net maker in Africa. He manufactures around 500 nets a week. He employs ten people, who (as with many African countries) each have to support upwards of fifteen relatives. However hard they work, they can’t make enough nets to combat the malaria-carrying mosquito.
Enter vociferous Hollywood movie star who rallies the masses, and goads Western governments to collect and send 100,000 mosquito nets to the afflicted region, at a cost of a million dollars. The nets arrive, the nets are distributed, and a ‘good’ deed is done.
With the market flooded with foreign nets, however, our mosquito net maker is promptly out of business. His ten workers can no longer support their 150 dependents (who are now forced to depend on handouts), and one mustn’t forget that in a maximum of five years the majority of the imported nets will be torn, damaged and of no further use.
This is the micro-macro paradox. A short-term efficacious intervention may have few discernible, sustainable long-term benefits. Worse still, it can unintentionally undermine whatever fragile chance for sustainable development may already be in play.

- Dambisa Moyo from “Dead Aid”

This book had shifted my outlook and changed my life. It’s a must read for anyone who is interested in Africa.

(via blackisbeautiful)

I need to read this.

The author was also one of Time’s magazine top 100 most influential people of 2009