Absolutely agree with you Backatya. Brown is taking the bleeding-heart approach as though Africans are solely responsible for their own poverty which exists in a vacuum. An approach completely divorced from the historic role of the now-subjugated populations/regions in European economic development; and European/first world defense of its spoils via international capital and it's allies: the international economic institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, G8, Paris Club, UN Security Council).

Basic consideration: the overwhelming majority of aid is conditional on the recipient government accepting neoliberal programs. Time and again it has been acknowledged that these programs do not help poor people. Everyone knows this. Numerous UN, NGO and independent research attests to the futility of neoliberal socio-economic policies for the Third World, and for the poor in rich countries.

Brown is being deliberately obtuse; his job is conditional on sprouting modified neoliberal dogma. Instead of blaming the poor for their poverty outright, Brown's noble position is to: blame their so-called ignorance, offer a little "handout" (that is how Neoliberal logic sees it) to get the Africans started on the road to progress (read: consumption) and then rigidly evaluate according to the protestant ethic. A recipe that has worked well to do this day.

Then when the consumption falls off, as it inevitably does in this formula, begin the process again because as the ideology explains:

'Obviously those stupid natives just didn't get it right with all their corrupt leadership, shunning of proper western education, and over-sexed populations producing children they can't afford to feed; (long-suffering sigh), let's be patient and try again - afterall, they aren't as smart as we are'.

Even though many of the privileged/leaders in African/Black countries were educated in elite western universities, western countries mount overt and covert intervention in Third World politics/governments to support neoliberal economics, and land/food that could be used to feed the local population is diverted toward enriching foriegn interests. The charade makes one tired.

Check out these self-aggrandizing a**holes: http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/. Cancelling some debt to extremely poor countries so that the country is able to continue paying very high debt at shocking rates of interest which results in the poor country having repaid the initial debt many times over, even while that country's population starves. The Paris Club are a bunch of loans sharks. Bob Marley would call them vampires.