Jason Hickel

The world’s governments are preparing to finalise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United Nations this month.

The crisis of capital, the rise of the Occupy movement and the crash of Southern Europe have brought the problem of income inequality into mainstream consciousness in the West for the first time in many decades.

Another World AIDS Day is behind us, and the usual spatter of annual reports and politicians’ eager promises continue to reverberate through the media. If you’re like me, you’re probably tired of the whole show at this point.

When you pour a packet of South African-made sugar into your morning coffee, you can feel good about the fact that the workers who milled, refined, packed and shipped it are paid relatively decent wages, enjoy basic benefits and are protected against severe exploitation.

In 2006, Uganda confirmed the presence of enormous commercial petroleum reserves around Lake Albert along the country’s western border. Since then, geologists have proven at least two billion barrels.

The last decade has seen a remarkable surge in US economic interest in the continent of Africa. Policymakers who once considered Africa the languid backwater of global economics are now rushing in to stake a claim in the continent’s enormous resource endowment.

The past few years have seen a dramatic up-tick in American diplomatic efforts in Africa, which has coincided with a decisive shift in political rhetoric about the continent.

Jeffrey Sachs has become something of a force in international development circles over the past decade.

'Development’, I’ve discovered, operates as a flagrantly racist discourse in some guises. Scrambling to explain the reasons for Africa’s perpetual poverty and apparently incurable misery, laypersons in the West point to Africans’ ‘savagery’ and alleged incapacity for civilisation.

‘But we can’t eat rights, hawu!’ Those five words of protest that usher from the lips of South Africa’s underclass sting like a slap in the face. Good liberals will always take offence.