When calamus99 refers to excruciatingly poor governance, endemic corruption, tribal exploitation of other tribes through one tribe massacring another tribe (Kenya, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan), he is referring to the reality of the here and now.
Inter-tribal rivalry is a fact of life throughout the continent of Africa.
Was it African "tribes" who organized the industrial genocide of 14 million Jews, Roma people, Poles, invalids, homosexuals, and others? Are African "tribes" the ones who killed 30 million Russians? Were they the ones who wiped out the Native Americans and Australians? Did they butcher 1 million Algerians? 5 million Vietnamese?
In more recent years we have seen tribes like the Serbs, Bosnians, Irish, Russians, Chechens, Armenians, Azeris, Turks, Kurds, ect kill and ethnically cleanse each other in astonishing numbers. Are they African?
The issue is not one of what should have been, but of what is.
There were rampant inter-tribal wars even before the arrival of the European on the African continent. Let us not blind our self to the tragedy of inter-tribal rivalries that as recently as ten years ago saw the massacre of some 1000,000,000 people in Rwanda. Tribal rivalries continue to create the many coups that reflect the unstable nature of governance in many African countries.
You've got it backwards. Instability is what causes racial conflict between the "tribes" which are in fact ethnic groups.
There is more than enough aid entering Africa, but the rich countries also understand that much of this financial aid ends up in the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt African rulers.
This "aid" goes to corrupt & repressive regimes like those of Paul Kagame & Meles Zenawi who are willing to serve US business interests, unleash their markets to neoliberal exploitation, and invade disobedient & resource-rich African states.
Meanwhile progressive leaders like Patrice Lumumba and Thomas Sankara end up being assassinated.
You may not consider the current state of affairs in Africa as regressive, but the United Nations, The European Union and the United States does. They provide most of the aid to Africa.
This strings-attached "aid" and loans are what is impeding development.
If the UN, EU and the USA are so inept we may also consider that they feed and provide for people who are subjected to torture and starvation by their own governments. If this be ineptness, then I say more power to these organisations and countries for feeding and clothing those in need.
The United States foots the bill for repressive governments in Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, & probably elsewhere to torture confessions out of Muslim detainees.
The food "aid" of subsidized US product sent to Africa actually starves Africans and undermines the local agriculture industries:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2871490.ece
"Now Care, one of the world’s biggest charities, has announced that it will boycott the controversial policy of selling tons of heavily subsidised US produced food in African countries. Care wants the US government to send money to buy food locally, rather than unwanted US produced food.
The US arm of the charity says America is causing rather than reducing hunger with a decree that US food aid must be sold rather than directly distributed to those facing starvation."
...
"Critics of the policy say it also undermines African farmers’ ability to produce food, making the most vulnerable countries of the world even more dependent on aid to avert famine."
As for the clothing comment, second hand Western clothes resold cheaply in Africa are ruining local textiles industries:
http://www.newint.org/columns/currents/2004/11/01/uganda/
"Uganda’s textile sector used to employ 500,000 people and earn $100 million in annual exports, but has virtually been brought to its knees by the imports. The country isn’t alone. Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation points out that in Zimbabwe some 20,000 textile and clothing jobs have disappeared directly or indirectly due to imported used clothing from the West. South Africa has lost 20,000 and Senegal 7,000 jobs, while Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana have been hard hit too. ‘In fact, hardly a nation in Africa has escaped the attention of the importers. In some cases, European charities specializing in the second-hand clothing trade, export and retail the goods themselves,’ Kearney said."
