I went to Prof. Nicolas van de Walle’s talk on political and economic development in Africa last week. He shared his thoughts about political reform as well as his personal experiences from past field work, which I found very interesting overall. I especially liked the way he summed up colonization (the Americas went first because they had a lot of resources and were relatively easy to colonize, Africa went last because it had little resources and was difficult to colonize). He also spoke about different levels of corruption and foreign aid in Africa. More specifically, he pointed out that many (or most) attempts to counter corruption actually contribute to further problems.

One particular subtopic stood out to me – Prof. Blalock told us that he saw a lot of Chinese people in the airport in Ethiopia recently. I found this to be absolutely bizarre until Prof. van de Walle explained that a lot of Chinese immigrants are attracted to Africa’s open spaces and untapped potential. As a result, people are moving there to open up Chinese restaurants/stores, own farms/land, and pursue new opportunities.