Jaime Doran’s Short Documentary, Africa Rising, Examines an Apparently Successful Ethiopian Self-Help Project that Has Implications for Other Places, including the United States

© 2011 Peter Free

 

 

11 August 2011

 

 

Citation

 

Jamie Doran, Africa Rising, Al Jazeera (10 August 2011)

 

 

Worth 47 minutes of our time

 

Poverty is tough to deal with, and trickle-down doesn’t work, especially in places where financial elites hog resources.

 

Jamie Doran’s documentary looks at an apparently (at least partially) successful self-help project in Ethiopia.  The project predominantly used the efforts of the impoverished people themselves, with just a smidgeon of “helpful ideas” training.

 

The film does not gloss the difficulties involved.  And a major portion of the specifics portrayed are, if superficially seen, most applicable in environmentally stressed agricultural regions.

 

Looking deeper, however, one sees that the Ethiopian self-help project deals with problems that appear everywhere:

 

(a) the tragedy of the commons,

 

(b) “us versus them” mentalities,

 

(c) sloth,

 

(d) varying debtor circumstances,

 

(e) creditor-dispensed discipline,

 

(f) the oppressive role of too-high interest rates,

 

and

 

(g) the arguable futility of outsider-imposed aid.

 

 

The moral? — These ideas may not be just for Ethiopia and Africa

 

If reasonably accurate, Africa Rising may be a source of ideas for American foreign and domestic policy.  Provided that one is receptive enough to see them.