Today's post is by Andrew Mugoya, Founder and Technical Director of Asilia and Founder of Afriapps.
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Recently I launched an ebook titled African Apps in a Global Marketplace which is about the African app industry. From that, I got the following (summarised) response from Joel Selanikio, co-founder of DataDyne and an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University:
"I thought your book was 99% spot on, with my only quibble being in your analysis of aid. Although I doubt you know of any real sustainable tech innovation that was created by aid (I certainly can't think of any)"
It got me thinking..
We Africans have a many complaints about aid from the West. Rightly so. It has destroyed industries, kept dictators in power, fostered a begging culture among some communities and worse, created a entire industry that dependent on there being poor, hungry and needy Africans to be used to bait donors.
But, the problem of aid is two-fold. It is not a solo act, it is a duet between the West and Africa. African culture has contributed its share to this problem.
Continue reading “The Inevitability of International Aid: Part I – The African Side of the Coin”