For the past few months countries in Western Africa have been racked by an outbreak of ebola that finally seems to be just being brought under control. When the epidemic first began, the countries being affected were facing drastic shortages of funds, equipment, and trained-professionals. This began an international philanthropy drive that ended up delivering much needed medical supplies and equipment as well as money to help fight the disease and even medical professionals who were willing to donate their time and, sometimes, their lives in an attempt to help those infected and stop the spread of the disease. With so many countries and civilians and organizations donating, you would expect everyone to be pulling their weight and chipping in; sadly that wasn’t the case in one country.
China is known for it’s booming economic growth, it’s strong economy, and it’s huge number of billionaires and fabulously wealthy corporations. While it is quickly rising in the rankings that monitor wealth and GDP, it has stayed consistently towards the bottom of the charts when it comes to charitable giving and philanthropic causes. It seems as though the Chinese culture and mindset don’t look all that highly upon charity and giving and that the international corporations and billionaires are slow to realize that they’re falling behind the times. The Chinese donated $16.1 billion to charities in 2013 and that’s not a small number in any way. However when you compare to other countries (the USA, for example, donated over $335 billion in 2013) you can see that it’s a tiny amount of money and that the pattern doesn’t seem to be changing all that quickly.
While China hasn’t donated all that much to the African countries in need, or in general, they have invested a huge amount of money into both companies and infrastructure. This means that, should the Chinese change their minds about charity, they would be able to donate things such as roads, schools, and medical clinics with ease and to the great benefit of those African communities. It remains to be seen if this will happen.
If you’d like to read more, the link is here.
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