Africa needs to end the culture of begging

Editor,I enjoyed reading Sam Kebongo’s article in The New Times, March, 16, titled “Aid dependency; cutting our legs with your good intentions…”. Indeed, aid does encourage dependency or even a culture of begging. I sometime get the feeling that some people in the region are living in a surreal world where everything from cows to computers, roofs, books, hearing aids etc “rain down from the sky”.By definition, most aid projects/ NGOs are temporary measures designed to assist in a time of emergency or a one-off intervention to provide a specific service. However, if we look around, these projects/institutions are now very much a permanent feature of the landscape. A sure sign that dependency has already taken root and that the NGO industry is not currently prepared to take a long hard look at itself and evaluate where it is going wrong.There are many good books written on the subject and there is nothing new which I can add. It is good that you are raising the awareness of this potentially damaging trend!Paolo PavlidisKigali

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Africa needs to end the culture of begging