All foreign aid is in the perceived interest of the donor country. Otherwise it wouldn't be given. Think about Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan. The US didn't give $billions to the USSR because we thought Joe Stalin was a nice guy who was doing wonderful things for his people. We did it to defeat Hitler. We didn't give $billions to rebuild western Europe after the war because we're nice people. We did it because if we didn't, Joe Stalin was going to march in with tanks and take over.
Why does the west give foreign aid to Africa? During the Cold War we did it to prop up friendly dictators, just like we gave Lend-Lease to Stalin. The USSR did the same thing to their friendly dictators. That's life. It's the lucky African country where the people themselves actually see any results from foreign aid.
Foreign aid is never going to develop Africa. If the west wanted Africa to develop they would open their markets to African manufactures. If Africa wants to develop and the EU, US, and Japan won't open their markets, Africans will have to make their market big enough, by combining into a United States of Africa. It really has little to do with foreign aid one way or the other. That issue is basically a distraction.
About Africa
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