News & Comment

20 February 2004

Filed under News & Comment

Africa's Potemkin deception

Africa's Potemkin deception

Statistics no better than assumptions are used to sell insupportable schemes, all wrapped in an unwarranted belief that Africa is somehow 'getting better'.

It has been more than 200 years since Prince Grigori Potemkin is supposed to have created mock villages in the Crimea to persuade Catherine the Great her empire was thriving. Although  the techniques are different now, the tactic is still in use. The victim si Adrica, and the perpetrators and benedactors are those who claim to be the continent's friends.

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