Tonight at the Rose cafe Nicolas van de Walle, a Professor in the department of government.  I had not read what the talk was about so I found it very interesting that the focus was on the political economy of development in Africa and on democratization and the politics of economic reform in the region.  Africa is not a focus in many history classes, the only mention in my class was when talking about slavery and colonization.  It was interesting to hear more of an economic/governmental talk about Africa as I had not heard much about it previously.  What I found interesting was that one of the only countries in Africa that was economically successful and had a dictatorship without corruption was one that had not previously been colonized.  All other countries who were colonized and receive help from the UN are unstable and have corrupt governments.  This stands as some proof that perhaps if we stop trying to decide everything and provide funds and instead gave them knowledge they may be able to pull themselves together.  One assumption, however, that is being made by both Professor de Walle and the UN is that being a developed country is better.  Perhaps having advanced agricultural methods and farming methods would be beneficial to provide the country with food but other than that it seems that other countries are deciding what is best for another country.

I also think that developing a place like Africa which has such a important diversity of animals and space.  Developing it could turn the once beautiful safari’s filled with animals into a smog filed suburbia with no wildlife.