"It’s worse when you consider that today, almost all the world’s knowledge is not only available in books, but also in most cases for free on the web. Cool, so

"It’s worse when you consider that today, almost all the world’s knowledge is not only available in books, but also in most cases for free on the web. Cool, so suppose you may want to take advantage of this knowledge - you need a reliable internet connection for a start and power supply, probably also running water. Some places lack that (more specific statements are impossible because the article has drawn 'Africa' as a single entity) Alright, so suppose you decided that you can improve your community and want to order some farming equipment - does aliexpress deliver to your location? Does a package arive to you without getting stolen on the way? Suppose it arrived and you produced something, can you ship it to global market, is infrastructure for that present? Does a container of good reliably reach Europe (for example, large market) on time and at competitive price? Suppose you are a city mayor, and you need to provide power to your residents, and you know you could isntall solar panels and they would pay for themselves in 10 years. Many western countries enjoy 0-2% interest rates, they can finance such projects and make a profit - but many developing nations can only access loans with 10% interest or even higher, making it impossible to finance simple projects with clear return on investment. This article fails to address any of the structural disadvantages that developing nations suffer from, the fact that both South Korea and West Germany have recieved more aid that all of Africa combined - so yes, it is poor, in addition to being terribly managed. That's even before we begin to address various underhand tactics, for example such as were deployed against south-american governments to prevent them from banning children from smoking.