AFRO-NETS> Global AIDS Week: A Continent of Champions (3)

[Peter Burgess <Profitinafrica@aol.com>]

Global AIDS Week: A Continent of Champions (3)
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Dear Dr. John Ssemakula
 
I am so glad you wrote to AFRO-NETS about the Continent of Cham-
pions......
 
ATCnet is an African network of professionals (except for me) 
with a commitment to African development success. Don't wait on 
the World Bank and the IMF and USAID and the UN to do much for 
Africa's people, and don't expect foreign direct investment 
(FDI) from the world's big corporations to help much either.
 
But instead look to what Africans are doing that is good and 
valuable, and build on that. Look to what communities need, and 
help Africans to deliver what is needed profitably. Look to the 
assets and resources that exist in Africa, and organize around 
these so that Africa's quality of life improves.
 
And recognise the amazing contribution of ordinary Africans to 
the care and support of those affected by AIDS in the pandemic. 
I have said many times that ordinary people in Africa working on 
AIDS because they are affected by AIDS may be around 10 million 
people..... and NOT paid by any official or recognised funding 
sources (government, GFATM, USAID, UNICEF, International NGOs. 
etc). If this community of people were paid at even local wage 
rates, it would be a $10 billion bill, and if these were US ex-
patriates doing the work it would be a maybe $500 billion.
 
But of course African labor (and all the unpaid valuable work 
around the home and family) is valueless in the economic and fi-
nancial arithmetic that we were all taught at school and univer-
sity.
 
The good news is that the old economic arithmetic is in the 
process of change. Economics where what Halliburton does is eco-
nomic value, and what 10 million caring Africans do is valueless 
is patently absurd, and one day the academic world will get 
round to understanding the need for serious rethink.
 
I am in the process of trying to get a database going that will 
make it possible to help fund good people doing good things in 
the very informal sector. The project is not going as fast as I 
would like, but it is progressing.
 
Again thank you for your posting, and raising this very impor-
tant question.
 
 
Peter Burgess 
ATCnet in New York 
Tel: +1-212-772-6918
Fax: +1-707-371-7805
mailto:peterb@iitc.safe-mail.net

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