Towards a world without "development" ?
Sixty years of development assistance later, the poor remain poor, inequalities are growing, and hopes for change are becoming few and far in between. Severine Rugumamu writes: " In the long run, and all other things being equal, foreign assistance dependence, like drug addiction, destroys rather than enhances the institutional capacities of the users, paralyses national initiatives ... and erodes the very basis of national sovereignty " Is development assistance just like a drug addiction? It certainly seems like it at times here in Mbandaka. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a particularly sobering example of how international involvement has failed to improve, maybe even in parts worsened the situation. Fact is that the average income is lower in 2013 than it was 1960 (the year of independence). Who is to blame and to whom can the Congolese turn to for help? Certainly the infamous kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko is on top of the list