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African Nations Need To Grow Up

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May 22 2007 12:00am EDT

African Nations Need to Grow Up

Sometimes even the world's most ardent UN supporters have to despair, and this, it would seem, is one of those times. In a secret ballot (!), the UN Commission on Sustainable Development has voted to elect Zimbabwe as its chair. You couldn't make it up.

The BBC's Laura Trevelyan, in her video report, explains that the member countries are exhibiting all the sophistication and maturity of a bunch of 10-year-old girls:

It may seem strage that Zimbabwe's won this election, but this isn't just about one country, it's more about relations between the developed world and the developing world. Once the European Union started lobbying against Zimbabwe, even those nations with doubts didn't want to be seen to be told what to do by the wealthy world. And that helps explain Zimbabwe's victory.

What's not explained is how on earth Zimbabwe became the African nominee in the first place -- that, too, seems to have been a function of trying to piss as many people off as much as possible. It just boggles the mind that Africa's diplomats and politicians, who have been agitating for years to have more ownership of development programs on their continent, would turn around and nominate Zimbabwe as the chair of a development committee. It's almost as though they want to prove to the world that they simply don't care about murder, corruption, poverty and famine.

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