This is too good not to pass on to you. It made my day and is keeping me from going to sleep. Imagine we finally allow hungry people in Africa to be fed using food grown in Africa. Why is this so exciting? Buying food locally strengthens the local African economy, it creates jobs in the poorest or poor countries, it safes transport cost and fuel, never mind pollution and CO2. What happened? The Rome Food Summit finally got common sense. Or maybe they realized that rising gasoline cost are exceeding their budgets… They dismissed the old “Direct Food Aid” model, which sends food from rich donor countries to poor developing countries.

Owner Robert Achu shows off his huge cabbages to AIDSfreeAFRICA founder and President Dr. Rolande Hodel.

This used to be called “Charity”. What it really was, is using your donation dollars to pay for food, transportation, fuel, salaries – in short supporting the US economy. Thus most of your donation was going to stay in the country and not used for human relief. The hungry got food – never mind never enough food – and often only after nights of television stories and pictures of malnourished dying babies and appeals from UN officials. Direct food aid distorts markets, says Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations. For example, today Mozambique provides 80% of food aid being sourced in the country itself. This secures markets and helps to create the infrastructure needed to bring food from the farms to the markets and consumers. Translated, this means Africa will finally get roads build, a major handicap to economic development and prosperity.

First world diseases such as Diabetes and high blood pressure are rampant in Cameroon and medications to treat these conditions are not always available.

AIDSfreeAFRICA, a New York based non-profit uses the same arguments of economic sustainability to built a local pharmaceutical infrastructure to empower Africans to produce essential generic drugs. Only ½ million dollars away from starting full scale production, the organization is confident that producing drugs locally, by Africans for African, will finally make a dent in the notorious lack of essential medicines. In Cameroon, AIDSfreeAFRICA’s first factory, less than 1/3 of drugs urgently needed are imported. The country needs drugs worth US$16 000 000.
Hopefully more organization and Foundations will make the change - bye bye charity – welcome sustainable economic development. At the end of the day the question has to be answered: Who is making money off your donated dollars?