No single local action can increase the standard of living in any measurable way. To even think in those terms is to utterly misunderstand the scale and depth o

No single local action can increase the standard of living in any measurable way. To even think in those terms is to utterly misunderstand the scale and depth of the problems that face Africans as they work to construct a functioning economy and its institutions. Do you even understand what creates a "standard of living"? It is things like, "if I start a business, and people don't pay their bills, can I take them to court?" If the answer is "no" then you are stuck with a cash economy, no credit, no trust. Everything becomes more expensive. How do you create functioning courts? You need honest politicians. How do you get honest politicians? You build coalitions of power that boot out the thieves. How do you build such coalitions? You spend decades slowly growing your economy so the commercial middle classes get wealthy enough to become politically relevant and interested. How do you grow your economy? You cut the cost of transport and communications. How do you do that? Etc. etc. I'm not giving a recipe, I'm giving examples of how complex this is. The scale is such that you'd need absolutely staggering amounts of money and political will to run studies that would show useful data. I'm talking entire regions, even countries, changing policies. Cases like Rwanda focussing on the Internet. Give it a decade, then compare to Burundi, which focusses on (e.g.) child health and political stability. Anyhow, there are no easy answers for this and forgive me if it sounds like I think there are.