Africa does not need aid, but the opportunity for fair trade

Africa has been in the international news mostly for the wrong reasons and notably in the recent past for famine, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, civil wars, and increasing poverty. It is common knowledge that the continent is rich in natural resources, but its people continue to languish in absolute poverty. Some factors that could explain this are corruption, unequal distribution of wealth, poor planning, lack of respect for the rule of law, manipulation by developed countries, civil wars, illiteracy, and the current HIV/AIDS pandemic. All these factors have worked in synergy to reverse the little gain the continent had made in the early 1970s.

Most African countries have welcomed recent debate (such as that at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July of this year) on increased aid and debt relief to impoverished nations by the world's leading industrialised countries. It is important to note, however, that such pledges have been made before, and yet poverty levels have increased. Rich nations, and G8 nations in …