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The rich helping the poor. [People giving steet beggers money]

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Sounds simple and good.

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Like homemade vanilla ice cream.

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But when we’re talkin’ rich countries sending aid to developing economies in Africa,

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the ice cream flavor gets complicated.

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Of course, things might be a little less complicated now than they were during the Cold War.

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Back then, aid almost always came with a bundle of expectations for a government to support

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the United States or the Soviet Union.

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If an African state tried to go back on whatever promises they made to their super powered

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benefactors, there’d be the devil to pay. [Man with devil horns knocking on Africa's door]

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These days, things are little bit less ideological.

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A lot of times, Western governments give aid in the form of debt forgiveness. [Government hands over 'certificate of debt forgiveness' to Africa]

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This is when Western countries pay back African debts to Western central banks.

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This helps African countries dial down their debt-to-GDP ratio, which makes all those neoliberalist

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investors text happy emoticons to everyone they know. [Phone with smiley emotes appearing on the screen]

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Other countries are a little pushier.

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We’re lookin’ at you China and Iran.

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When these countries send aid to Africa, there are definite strings attached.

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Like the expectation that Iranian and Chinese companies be allowed to build factories there on favorable terms. [Big factories producing smoke]

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Most people know that a bunch of foreign aid is pumped into Africa every year.

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But it’s not quite as much as we might think.

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Roughly 100 billion bucks come from the West…

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About 150 billion from China…

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And around 20 billion from other countries in the Middle East and Asia.

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And yeah, all those billions sound like a lot, but it only makes up about 13% of Africa's

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total GDP, which is actually 2 trillion dollars.

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Of course, that’s an important 13%.

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Imagine living with 13% less allowance.

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That might mean nixing Friday night’s movie marathon at the local cinema… [Man with empty wallet walks away from the Theater]

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Or even having to buy the iPhone 5 when all of your friends have the iPhone 97….that's

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the generation they're on now, right?

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Admittedly, this would not be cool.

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But imagine if cutting 13% slashed stuff like basic health services and maintaining roads

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and power grids.

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Without that 13%, the developing nations of Africa might develop a lot slower. [Africa in a baby cot]

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The United Nations also has skin in the aid game.

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The UN founded the International Monetary Fund, an agency that provides low-interest

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loans to developing governments.

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However, the IMF can get a little pushy.

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Much like the Lannisters, once you take the IMF's money, you're in its pocket.

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The IMF has come under fire for strong-arming its borrowers into adopting neoliberal reforms.

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And sometimes these reforms hurt a lot of people in the indebted country. ['Reform hammer' bashes governments into the ground]

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In Tanzania, for example, the water supply of the Dar es Salaam region

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was privatized and sold to a German company.

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What did the Germans do with that precious substance that’s absolutely necessary for

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life?

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Well they jacked up the prices, that's what.

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Which made the IMF eerily similar to the villain of a recent Bond movie… [Man with metal teeth]

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So, yup, aid and loans from richer countries can definitely help developing African states

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But a lot of Africans are mega-suspicious of the agendas of foreign countries and organizations.

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Word to the wise: when an ice cream flavor gets this complicated, you never know what

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might be lurking in the mix. [Cockroach crawling around in ice cream]

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