Regional Studies: Africa 
Recommended
Is Foreign Aid Un-Just?
Billions of dollars of aid have flowed heavily to African nations for decades; nonetheless, most aid-receiving nations have remained poor and needy, and many celebrities have taken up the cause for “justice” to be done. Cato’s Marian Tupy, scholar of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, comments that the persistence of poverty in Africa is, in fact, due to foreign aid and not in spite of it. Contrary to many Asian and eastern Uropean countries that have liberalized their economies, African nations, propped up by aid, have turned socialist and remained poor. In fact, aid has supported up to 40% of Africa’s militaries, which have held their own countrymen from demanding democratic and economic reforms. “The truth is that only Africans can improve their lot,” notes Tupy, adding that “The "just" thing to do is… not to give Africa more harmful aid.”
Poverty and Economy in Mugabe's Zimbabwe
A new, deeper poverty has gripped Zimbabwe and the formal economy has utterly been destroyed under the rein of Robert Mugabe. Rejoice Ngwenya, head of the Zimbabwean Coalition for Market and Liberal Solutions, discusses the realities of life in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
Milton Friedman Prize Selection Committee Member Arrested
The Ugandan government has arrested Andrew Mwenda, a member of the 2008 International Selection Committee for the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with his fellow journalists Odobo Bichachi and John Njoroge. Andrew Mwenda is a brave journalist who tells it like he sees it. He is well known for standing up for the rights of others; his involvement in the Milton Friedman Prize is only one element of his long commitment to human rights.
The Long Fall of Robert G. Mugabe
By Marian L. Tupy: "Mugabe is in this position primarily because he has turned Zimbabwe into one of the world's poorest countries--the result of his worsening political repression, frontal attack on the independence of the judiciary, confiscation of property, and evisceration of the once-thriving private sector. With health, education, and incomes in freefall, Zimbabweans are ready for change."
Peace Won't Come to Zimbabwe
By Marian L. Tupy and David Coltart: "The case against Mr. Mugabe and the ZANU-PF for crimes against humanity would be compelling. They have turned one of Africa's most prosperous and relatively free nations into an Orwellian nightmare. Since 1994, the average life expectancy in Zimbabwe has fallen to 34 from 57 for women and to 37 from 54 for men. Some 3,500 Zimbabweans die every week from the combined effects of HIV/AIDS, poverty and malnutrition."
Health, Africa’s struggle
By Thompson Ayodele: "Foreign aid in the form of hard currency is flowing in unprecedented quantities into the ministries of health of many African countries.
"But despite this generosity things are not improving: medical staff are demoralised, access to essential medicines remains low and corruption remains a serious problem."
Paths to Property
By Karol Boudreaux and Paul Aligica: "The study finds that the “easy option” of agencies entering less-developed countries and using blueprints to try to recreate institutions in Africa that work effectively in the West often fails miserably. Indeed, the failures of such approaches can give the whole privatisation and property rights process, vital for sustainable economic growth, a bad name."
Mugabe's Apologists
By Marian Tupy: "Robert Mugabe's participation in the European Union-Africa summit in Lisbon over the weekend was a triumph of Zimbabwean diplomacy. Both African and EU leaders must share the blame for this farce. Zimbabwe's foreign ministry managed to portray the octogenarian dictator, who has presided over widespread violations of human rights and an astonishing economic collapse, as the victim of a Western conspiracy."
Economics in Many Lessons: A Better Brew for Rwanda
By Donald J. & Karol C. Boudreaux: "In some parts of the long-suffering continent, good things are happening and too few people, in Africa and elsewhere, know about them."
Let Them Eat Laptops
By Daniel R. Ballon: "The '$100 laptop,' which actually costs $188, can only be purchased at a minimum quantity of 250,000. OLPC targets countries like Nigeria, where one out of three children suffer from malnutrition. There a $50 million minimum investment could instead be used to feed more than a million children for an entire year."
What Do We Really Know About the Spread of AIDS?
By Emily Oster. Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, looks at the stats on AIDS in Africa -- and comes up with a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is wrong. We look for root causes such as poverty and poor health care -- but we also need to factor in, say, the price of coffee, and the routes of long-haul truckers. In short, there is a lot we don't know; and our assumptions about what we do know may keep us from finding the best way to stop the disease.
Let's Take a New Look at African Aid
By Andrew Mwenda: "In this provocative talk, journalist Andrew Mwenda asks us to reframe the "African question" -- to look beyond the media's stories of poverty, civil war and helplessness and see the opportunities for creating wealth and happiness throughout the continent. Most important, he says, the solution to Africa's problems is not more aid."