That guy has been through...enough. Glad he's out!

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Hi, I used to do contract work with USAID in Ghana!

Since as far back as the Bush Jr admin, West Africa has been a focus of US foreign policy. Basically, West African countries want to develop a manufacturing sector, but lack the capital to do so. They have a hugely well educated population, but not nearly enough jobs. Meanwhile, the US wants to stop relying on China for things like textiles (China is geopolitically "complicated", labor costs are rising there, and the physical distance to ship from East Asia is much much longer than the distance to West Africa), and has tons of capital at its disposal. Thus, the two have found a common interest to jointly pursue. The Bush Jr administration made West Africa a special free trade zone, eliminating tariffs and encouraged US companies to invest in manufacturing there.

In Ghana for example, the money that USAID invests goes to many things: it helps to subsidize economic initiatives by the Ghanaian government to build infrastructure (roads, ports), manufacturing (textiles), upgrading agriculture (Ghana produces a huge amount of the world's chocolate!), and modernizing its medical sector (out in the countryside it was basically non-existent when I got there). I would imagine that this new investment of money will go towards bolstering some combination of those things.

As to what's in it for the US, it is trying to build good will and soft power in Africa in a geopolitical chess match with China, who is trying to do the same thing. The people of West Africa, as well as other parts of Africa, generally (but not always!) benefit from this competition, as the two Great Powers compete to essentially buy the loyalties of African governments and people ($139Mm is a drop in the bucket in the US, but it goes a long long way in a place like Ghana). China has generally been more successful with this effort, but Ghana is a specific example of a country the US has built a strong relationship with.

I think if it was donated it's not wanted right?

Counterpoint. Someone has value in society whether or not they create a device to make push-ups more challenging.

Are you trying to say the US incarceration system (that still uses the loophole to enslave people left in the 13th amendment, then sells the labor to private companies in states like Louisiana and Mississippi which undercuts local wages while the politicians in charge blame immigrants for stealing jobs) isn't set up to actually rehabilitate people?!!

But if we educated them and gave them the dorm rooms prisoners basically get in Sweden, they would figure out the system is against them and revolt. That's why they make sure free voters are just as dumb. Cut education, ban books, act like $15/hr is too much (even though my dad made $27/hr stocking shelves with a pension in 2011), and constantly do everything you can to manipulate the vote (with Wisconsin Republicans winning 5/8 majority with 1/3 of the votes last state election). Coincidentally why these same people hate "woke" people, because being woke is basically just being smart enough to figure out there are systemic inequalities and they should be fixed.

I'm going to go out on a limb then and say that they are brain dead. They are extremists who want to make headlines and also get arrested. If you think about it like that then stopping formula 1 makes for a great headline. How will they stop formula 1? By standing on the track so the cars can't go round. They are not smart people, their logic could legitimately be as flawed as that. Just because you, a rational person, can see the immediate flaw in their logic doesn't mean they can.

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Good luck and god bless you Ma’am

She looks so young I thought she was an older sister for a minute! Such tall children.

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I think it’s weird that they’re saying a former inmate wouldn’t already have the opportunity to add value to society

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Ghana

You don't have any legal tiers? Well that sounds terrible. You win, I agree. No prosecution for climate activists in Britain.

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>Because of the nature of this sub we often get Uplifting Distortions, and Rushing To Misunderstandings because the misunderstanding is pleasant for the person doing the misunderstanding.
....
negativity is the correct response to oblivious viral lies

Thank you. Far too often things get listed on the subreddit because they cater to confirmation bias of wishful thinking.

And while I am open to the idea of genetic (and most definitly genomic) contributions to addiction, the vast majority of the emphasis on addiction research is on the wrong research.

Addiction is the result of undealt with trauma, not the result of mystical substances that chase people down the street. No matter how much a given source of research funding might benefit from a different set of facts (phamiceutical solutions to addiction are desired by big corporations) here in reality addiction is the result of undealt with trauma & we already have a medication that can resulve the vast majority ot PTSD issues in 1 to 3 sessions.... one that people rarely have legal access to. That medication bypasses the action of the hippocampus so that trama memories can be examined without a heaping serving of PTSD.

I see what you're saying but imo money buys fake friends. When that money stops flowin they get goin.

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If a friend gave me a milliom dollars, I'd be like, dude coming over tonight? Money buys friendships

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I have to be honest. I really don't understand why the U.S. invested the funds. To strengthen relations? What does that mean?

Really scratching my head on this one. All the 'aid' directed at this one country could have gone to any other or even the U.S. itself. What was the real reason for this country in particular?

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Those countries have something in common. Governments that invest in the citizens.

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