Why the Critics Are Wrong about African Aid
|
|
Even for a small town, a mere 19 residents is meager. But, when representatives of the German aid group, German Agro Aid (Welthungerhilfe) arrived in the town of Nyabiondo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that’s exactly what they found. All the other residents had been scared off — fleeing into the forests years ago to avoid the roving bands of rebels fighting in the nation’s ongoing civil war. Over time, the jungle grew over what were once national roads, leaving them virtually unrecognizable. But then the Germans came and hacked an aisle through the thick forest to make the forgotten roadway visible again. They also built two schools and a health care center. Within three months the tiny town was booming. An additional 11,000 families had come and once again the place resembled a city, rather than a ghost town. “And that was without an organized program to get people back,” said Georg Doerken, of German Agro Aid. The group gave all returning residents seeds to plant and tools so that they could plow and sow their land themselves. The success of the program convinced German Agro Aid’s Congo program manager that this is the sort of model that works for Africa. |