George Ayittey Quotes

I think a lot of the problem with foreign aid and things like that is you go in, give a bunch of stuff, and then it runs out. It's about helping them learn how to continue to be sustainable and live.

Africa's salvation doesn't lie in begging and begging for more aid, and as an African, I find it very, very humiliating.

Nobody can come and develop Africa on behalf of Africans.

Aid should shift to investment. This will help countries stand on their own.

The best way to help Africans today is to help them to stand on their own feet. And the best way to do that is by helping create jobs.

The Haiti that has been waiting for help and not moving no longer exists. Enough handouts; we need hands up. Enough aid; we need trade.

By the time Africa is developed, it will be the wonderland of the world, 'cause it will be able to make use of all the mistakes of other nations. But it nah go just drop out of the sky. So we have to put in work.

I believe in supporting African solutions to African problems.

A new generation of leaders is emerging in Africa who does not want to approach the world with a begging bowl. Leaders who want to engage the world as partners; leaders who are prepared to take responsibilities for the problems of their countries and continent; leaders who recognize the enormous opportunities that abound in the world and are eager to connect Africa to the centers of those opportunities; leaders who want to harness the huge resources of Africa to play on the global stage; leaders who are not content to ask, ‘what can the rest of the world do for us', but rather ‘what can we do with the rest of the world.'

We all have to acknowledge a simple fact: Africa is growing.

As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.

The economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that our people need to be re-educated into the importance of controlling the economy of the community in which we live, which means that we won't have to constantly be involved in picketing and boycotting other people in other communities in order to get jobs.

Teach girls to read and to work at something where they can bring home money - and the entire balance of power shifts.

The able bodied poor don't want or need charity.... All they need is financial capital.

After all, for mankind as a whole there are no exports. We did not start developing by obtaining foreign exchange from Mars or the moon. Mankind is a closed society.

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.

Real freedom must include economic security.

Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce - to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. That's true financial independence. It's not having wealth; it's having the power to produce wealth.

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity's golden ladder.

No genuine equality, no real freedom, no true manhood or womanhood can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence.

I want to deal with the truth and a proper education that will not allow us to be educated and then come out and beg another man for a job when you should be creating a job for yourself.

The best way to boycott is to build your own

Choose something that you're passionate about. So for me, that's creating jobs for women who don't have a voice. I would like to be their voice until they're strong enough and on their feet to have their own and really be heard. The way that I can do that is not necessarily by hand-outs, because my hand-outs wouldn't be great enough to really affect change. It's by providing jobs.

I have made revenue collection a frontline institution because it is the one which can emancipate us from begging. If we can get about 22% of GDP we should not need to disturb anybody asking for aid; instead of coming here to bother you, give me this, give me this, I shall come here to greet you, to trade with you.