Every day, around 25,000 children die. (TED) Every year, nearly 9,000,000 children under the age of 5 die. (WHO) And about 70% of these deaths are due to conditions that could easily be prevented with proper food, water and medical resources. (WHO) Many countries like Africa lack the resources to properly provide food, water and healthcare to their citizens. Despite the media and propaganda encouraging international citizens to donate to help their cause, I believe the challenge must be addressed by local citizens for it to be truly solved. So, even though the media encourages us, rich countries should stop giving monetary aid to Africa, because they will not become independent by receiving charity and the aid is placed in the wrong places. nations, we are taking away their ingenuity. “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him to fish; you nourish it all your life. -Chinese proverb. If you give people money, of course you can help them a little, but if you introduce them to new ways to create wealth for themselves, they will ultimately be better off. And even if Africa has certain weaknesses, it is also full of potential. The challenge facing Africa should therefore not be to reduce the number of poor people; it should be about creating skills and frameworks that enable people to lift themselves out of poverty. If you say that Africans are poor and they need to reduce the poverty level, you get international donors with money for the poor, medicine for the sick and food for the hungry. However, this is counterproductive because you are treating the symptoms and not the problems. If you were to send a p...... middle of paper......, February 2010. Web. March 6, 2014.Glennie, Jonathan. “Helping poor countries is not a great act of generosity.” Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, June 14, 2011. Web. March 06, 2014. Mwenda, Andrew. "Andrew Mwenda: Help for Africa? No thanks." Andrew Mwenda: Aid to Africa? No thanks. TED Talks, LLC, 2007. Web. March 06, 2014.Ntale, Charles Lwanga and the opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Charles Lwanga Ntale. “Where does the aid money actually go – and what is it spent on? CNN. Cable News Network, January 1, 1970. Web. March 6, 2014. Pasquali, Valentina and Denise Bedell. "The richest and poorest countries in the world | Global finance." The richest and poorest countries in the world | Global finance. Np, and Web. March 06, 2014.Shah, Anup. “Foreign Aid for Development Assistance.” - Global issues. Np, April 8, 2012. Web. March 5. 2014.