Do African’s want Western style development?

Do African’s want Western style development?

During the past 5 weeks, I have had numerous conversations with mostly Europeans and North Americans about the problems in Africa. Most of the views were that African governments were corrupt and only spent money on weapons and fancy cars; and the people of Africa have a different work ethic and aren’t interested in development, but only to get rich. Fairly pessimistic. At the same time, I had been reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, an optimistic take on development and the future of humanity. He argues that Africans do want to pull themselves out of poverty. Depending on who you ask, they’ll give you different priorities.

“They are uneducated and don’t know what development means, so they need education”
“How can the survive without food or water?”
“Treat their health, and then they’ll be in a better state to work themselves out of poverty”

It’s many things, and it’s complicated. We oversimplify it when we speak of Africa, a continent of over 50 countries, and numerous ethnicities. Most may not know that there is no Ugandan person. There are Acholi, Baganda, Teso, Banyankore, Bateso and a lot more tribes, and clans, families. People from the Uganda are vastly different from people from South Africa, and Ghana. Some countries are democratic, some are considered failed states. The contexts are numerous.

Some people I was just talking to were telling me about how the people from the DRC were happy with their lot, didn’t want Western style development. They didn’t want to work themselves out of their situation because they're OK with it!

I don't know enough. We all need to seek to understand the situation of the people who we claim to be doing things on the behalf of, before we actually do 'good'. Similarly with patients, we need to seek to understand their backgrounds before we jump in with a diagnosis, let along prescribing drugs, ordering investigations etc. The same applies for those countries and populations which we deem to be worthy of our attention.

I'm only talking about Western style development. We only ever think of European and North American development, but let's not forget the emerging economies like India and China, who have already waded into the mess with their own style of development. Someone once told me "China is the only country building roads in the Democratic Republic of Congo". Chinese businesses are opening up everywhere. Perhaps this is an option preferred by many, the option to build businesses and make money, which is what a hell of a lot of people want around the world, thereby putting their own destinies in their own hands (with the help of their wallets).

And what of homegrown development? What role is there to play for the future strong economies of Africa in helping their neighbours?