We should give money to Africa

There is a substantial problem with the approach you are taking. You have listed many problems that Africa as a continent is having, and I will not disagree that these are issues which are severely affecting Africa. However, there are several problems with your approach. First is that, many of the problems you have listed in your first argument apply to the United States as well. At least 12%, and perhaps as much 17%, of the United States, lives in poverty. Among developed countries, the United States does not even rank in the top 15 on the Human Poverty Index, the United Nations' list of which nations rank best in terms of preventing long-term poverty and its effects. I will grant you that poverty in Africa is much worse than poverty in the United States. However, this is not a justification for ignoring our own citizens. Any government's first responsibility is to protect the welfare of its own citizens; and if you agree, as you clearly do, that it is a justifiable action of a government to use money to solve issues such as poverty, then the United States should undoubtedly use its money first to solve poverty in the United States, before we focus on other areas of the world. I am not advocating necessarily advocating that we ignore Africa, but that we should address our own internal issues before we think we can have the ability to help others' internal issues. Second, related to this first argument, is the fact that it is not the United States' job to do any of this. You have listed many reasons which might make one feel that action is justified, but you never gave any reasons why the United States specifically should address these problems. We are not the world's savior, and it is not our responsibility to deal with problems in other nations. If we would like to, and we feel that it is something that is in everyone's best interests, then we can perhaps go about helping to solve these issues. However, we have no "ethical" or "moral" responsibility to help Africans. If we did, then we would be obligated to help every single country in the world. This mindset's existence is why thousands of American lives are endangered in Iraq every day, and why your point of view suggests that we take action in other poverty-stricken, third world parts of the globe. You are essentially saying that we need to act in countries like North Korea - talk about 'political conflict.' This is because you cannot be so rash as to say that the issues of one country or region are any "worse" than any others'; is it fair to say that Africans are suffering more than North Koreans, and so we should ignore North Koreans to help other people? The logical contradiction is clear, and so it is better to avoid claims that we have some moral obligation to help Africa. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, throwing money at the problem will certainly not help the problem, and would have an equal chance of making it worse. One of the main reasons that Africa has so many of the problems it does is that most African countries have governments that are either corrupt, and do not care about their citizens, or are incapable of dealing with the problems you've suggested. If we give $50 billion to every African government and say, "Here, take care of AIDS," how effective could that possibly be? None of these African nations have the infrastructure to deal with the problems you are indicating; these are problems that even a nation with an infrastructure such as ours would have a difficult time dealing with. Throwing money at the problem is akin to saying that doing that is solving our moral responsibility, if any. There's no way that giving Africa money can possibly allow us to say we've done anything to actually solve the problem; it just makes the United States look better. The better course of action would be for us, or even better for international organizations like the United Nations and/or the African Union, to physically go into Africa and help build the infrastructure necessarily to deal with problems like AIDS and poverty. I will reiterate that if the African continent even had the potential to deal with the problems you listed, they would almost certainly be much less than they are. It is an indication of the failing of African governments that these problems are so widespread, and so giving money to Africa will probably not do a whole lot.