Someone once defined foreign aid as the poor people of a rich country sending money to the rich people of a poor country. Even when money is channeled to non-governmental organizations, they are usually big operations that, like governments, represent the interests of the powerful. Funds go into creating jobs for a small, skilled elite and into massive projects that mostly bypass the poor. Often these projects are actually detrimental to poor people, as when governments confiscate peasant farm land for development initiatives with no compensation or benefit to the farmers. Women, who are the poorest of the poor, are hurt most.
African women are the backbone of most of the region's economies.
Women are not only the main caretakers of children, the sick and the elderly, but are also primarily responsible for feeding their families. But the importance of women's work, whether it's raising children or plowing fields, is ignored. In keeping with the US designation of Africa's place in the global economy, development strategies have privileged export-bound cash crops controlled by men over food crops grown by women. The threat of famine rises as poor countries become unable to feed themselves and dependent on volatile market forces to import food from the North. But development is not a function of Gross Domestic Product or export ratios.