I’m probably overreacting, but the phrase “unless Africa tames corruption, new aid effort will fail” was off-putting to me.

It was the subhead for an article titled “Can We Defeat Poverty?” I know corruption is a huge problem in Africa, but in the Western world our warts have been exposed to the point where it seems inappropriate and arrogant to talk down to the rest of the world about corruption.

Before reading the article, I was wondering if we were going to pat ourselves on the back for what we are doing about poverty in Africa and then make sure people know it’s Africa’s fault if our efforts don’t work. I read the article and got some information, but no answers.

Can we defeat poverty? Not with articles and not with blogs overreacting to article headlines.