The dominant image of Africa in the Western imagination is of a continent wracked by poverty, war and disease, ruled by dictators and in need of salvation. Politicians and celebrities constantly urge that we: ‘Make Poverty History’, ‘Save Darfur’, foster democracy in Zimbabwe, end the spectre of child soldiers, buy fair-trade chocolate and bananas, forsake blood diamonds, and wear a fashionable wristband to show how much we care. Ironically, though, while Africa has suffered decades of poverty, conflict, malaria, AIDS and foreign intervention, which have had a devastating impact on its development, arguably the prospects for Africa are brighter now than ever before. With no crises on the scale of the Ethiopian famine (that gave rise to Live Aid in the 1980s), African economic growth is on the rise and forecast to exceed that of other developing regions such as Latin America and the Middle East.
Despite this, self-appointed Western champions of Africa, from Bono to the G8, continue to talk as if only their good works can save the African people. In 2001, Tony Blair labelled Africa ‘a scar on the conscience of the world’. Madonna and ‘Brangelina’ treat Africa itself like an orphan that needs adopting. In his ‘world saviour’ tour of Africa, Blair claimed that ‘Africa has been a prime example of a foreign policy that has been avowedly interventionist’ which has ‘undoubtedly made it better’. Blair’s advisor Matthew Taylor agrees: ‘internationally the disaster of Iraq has to be set against the UK’s leadership role on Africa’. Needless to say, Africa rather than the Middle East is the focus for Gordon Brown’s foreign adventures. Is all this more about Western consciences and political reputations than Africa itself?
Will today’s moral crusades do good for the continent, or just make Africans more dependent on the largesse of foreign states and NGOs with their own agendas for Africa? Is this Western narcissism, a simplistic fantasy view of a pathetic Africa or can it be the start of a serious consideration of Africa’s real needs? What role is there for Africans themselves in the development of their continent?
 | Tony Vaux author, The Selfish Altruist: Relief Work in Famine and War; editor, Development and Humanitarianism: Practical Issues |
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 | Kirk Leech interim director, European Animal Research Campaign Centre; government affairs, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry |
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 | Conor Foley humanitarian aid worker based in Brazil; author, The Thin Blue Line: how humanitarianism went to war |
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 | Onyekachi Wambu information officer, African Foundation for Development; former editor, The Voice; producer and director, Hopes on the Horizon: The Rise of the New Africa |
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 | Ceri Dingle director, WORLDwrite & WORLDbytes |
| Claire Fox director, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive | |
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 | recommended by spiked |
