Read elsewhere that the American habit of dumping excess T-shirts etc in Africa ('Astros win the World Series' types) has destroyed various local textiles industries.The catalyzing moment for me is not that Kenya has no dentists in that village, but the obvious fact that Kenya has been training dentists since 1974, almost 40 years, perhaps thousands of them. And yet there are none in sight -- none for those many upcountry with toothaches, witnessed by John Coors. If Kenyan dentists are not willing to travel a few hundred miles into the highlands or the bush to see to the needs of their fellow citizens, why should American dentists travel 10,000 miles to do so? That question also contains the answer: because American telescopic philanthropists provide health care for Kenya and many other African countries, there is little incentive for local doctors to engage in philanthropy.
Your Donated Clothes May Be Killing Africa’s Fashion Industry
In Ghana, these secondhand retail points are known as “bend down boutiques” in reference to the fact that buyers have to stoop to browse the bins of clothes for sale, spread out on the ground. Ghanaians call the clothes in the bins “obroni we wu” or “white man’s deads” and in Togo, they are also nicknamed “dead yovo” or “dead white person” for their assumed former white owners. But in Kenya and Tanzania, they are known for their sheer volume — “mitumba” or “bales” — a good indication of their impact.
Can't deny that a flood of donated clothes is going to be hard on local textile workers, but it's good for the white-man's-dead merchants. And as much as I would rather imagine the locals wearing beautiful kangas, if they prefer to wear inexpensive Nike T-shirts I am not going to be the one to stop them.
Yeah, I think it's the same article, maybe, that puts forth the idea that the west's primary motivation in donating stuff to Africa is to remove surplus that we don't need -- both in foodstuffs and clothes. -James ThurberThe animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.