There are at least a million people in the West who live off the aid industry. They have a vested interest in perpetuating it. But it will disintegrate over time and die slowly.
The ‘aid industry’ fooled many into believing it was a necessary tool for development. But following the Busan forum on aid effectiveness, its time to rethink a world without it, writes Yash Tandon.
For Africa, writes Yash Tandon, liberation from imperialism overrides all other issues. So, to view negotiations about climate change as an isolated issue, as the left activists tend to do, is dangerously myopic.
Africa remains at the mercy of a self-interested international ruling class interested purely in maximising profit at all costs and consolidating its position, writes Yash Tandon. As the continent faces up to the enormous challenge of climate change and the creation of a sustainable ‘green economy’, it must look inwards and draw upon its own expertise and resources and resist the temptation to rely on compromised external ‘experts’, Tandon stresses.
Yash Tandon draws on the recent massacres in Norway to examine the polarising of identities, which he describes as 'the most dangerous cancer of our times'. 'Why and how do all these multiple identities get reduced to two nominal but highly dangerous polarised identities - "them" and "us"; the "insiders" and the "outsiders"; the "included and the excluded"? In whose interest are these binary identities created, and by who?'
Yash Tandon takes a deeper look at the mass killings in Norway on 22 July. The event, he writes, 'gives us a moment to comprehend the deeper meaning of human existence'.
Matthew Newsome speaks to policy maker, professor, author and activist,Yash Tandon, about kleptocratic capitalism, African sovereignty and the challenges to creating a fair and sustainable society.