Ebola: The Upshot of Liberia's Western Aid Curse
When an Ebola-afflicted man collapsed in Nigeria's Lagos airport, Nigerian authorities didn't call the Western aid
hotline demanding mulah and manpower. They hunkered down and took aggressive steps to prevent the contagion from spreading.
By contrast, Liberia started holding press conferences and calling Western aid organizations when it belatedly detected the disease. The outcome? Ebola is raging through this sad, sad country, attacking over 300 people last week alone.
What's the difference between Liberia and Nigeria? Liberia is among the most indebted nations in Africa, I note in my column at The Week, and Nigeria is the least. It's capital Monrovia is crawling with NGOs and the U.N. is already spending $500 million to maintain a peacekeeping force. In other words, as one African writer pointed out: "The virus has managed to escape from a country that has one of the largest concentration of 'helpers' in the world."
With Western aid like this, do developing countries really need drones and bombs?
Go here to read the whole thing.