Every time I see some supposed solution to "the Africa problem" proposed by a European or North American, I have to think that this person has very clearly neve

Every time I see some supposed solution to "the Africa problem" proposed by a European or North American, I have to think that this person has very clearly never been to Africa, or he or she would realise very quickly that armchair economist's ideas are completely out of touch with reality. I have tenuous family ties to southern Africa and have visited on numerous occasions; now, I gather that the south, on the whole, is in much better shape than central Africa, but even here, the problems seem clearly rooted in the cultural clash: the west (globalisation, technology, free markets, powerful invaders) collided with the old tribal system. Both survive to this day, and in some areas this results in a particularly toxic mixture. I don't claim to have a good understanding of the situation, but I know that cultural change is very slow, and I think that's the only thing that might end this mess. But then I only need to look a couple hundred km from here, where until recently Serbs and Albanians were slaughtering each other over Kosovo. We haven't even outgrown the tribal culture in Europe, how can these people seriously believe in macroeconomic solutions for Africa?