Again sticking with LA Times, here's an editorial from the famous economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, author of "The end of Poverty", a book that I'm planning on reading later this year. Besides denouncing skeptics of foreign aid he makes his case that there is indeed much hope for Africa and provides several steps on what needs to be done to substantially help Africa with a very vital one being support in the areas of agriculture, health and agriculture. If China and India can do it, so can Africa, he basically states. A little too optimistic in my view but I support his overall point that the West does have a responsibility and must continue to aid Africa.

However on the issue of western aid for Africa, there is much more than just charity and developmental aid that can help Africa. There's also political and economical measures that the West can do especially with fairer trade practices. One of the biggest contentious issues Africa has with the US is the farm subsidies that American farmers get from their government which thus allows them to sell their produce on the world market for far cheaper than African farmers can so driving them out of business and livelihood. See this op-ed about the most recent WTO failure in Geneva back in July to read about American subsidies and their detrimental effect.
This article from the Washington Post however reveals another disturbing fact with American farm subsidies, namely that many Americans who are paid subsidies are not even farmers but receive such payments because they own land that used to be farmed.
In many cases people are being paid even if they are using such land for other uses such as building residential neighborhoods, starting timber plantations or just living on the land. These people often are not farmers but land developers, investors or landowners who've inherited their land. For them it's a good piece of change they get from the government. According to one of these recipients, an oilman who purchased 20 acres and lives on the land "The money is free".
In Texas "..... so many landowners and farmers are collecting money on their former ricelands -- $37 million last year alone -- that the acres no longer used for rice outnumber the planted ones."
Of course the federal government should repeal or change the laws granting these subsidies so that the only ones who receive subsidies are those who farm and get low prices for their produce. Sadly obstacles such as this- "Efforts to overhaul the farm subsidy network have been repeatedly thwarted by powerful farm-state lawmakers in Congress allied with agricultural interests" abound.

If American lawmakers can't even stop farm subisidies going to those who don't need or deserve them, how can they stop subsidies going to American farmers who export their crops onto the world market and compete unfairly with poorer farmers?