In Africa, you often see that the difference between a village where everybody eats and a village where people starve is government. One has a functioning government, and the other does not. Which is why it bothers me when I hear people say that government is the enemy. They don’t understand its fundamental role. — 2007

My Take – Actually, to my knowledge, in villages that have little formal government, where each family takes care of themselves and their neighbors, and doesn’t have a warlord or a dictator skimming off the top of the fruits of their labor, more people tend to have enough to eat.  The great African famines have either been caused by or made worse by government manipulation of the food supply to people they didn’t like.   The AIDS epidemic in Africa has been made worse by government programs that hinder prevention and treatment.  TB is making a comeback at least in part because of government corruption that keeps the drugs that control the disease away from those who need them in favor of a black market.

On the very small scale of a village or the large scale of the entire continent, government is the root of a lot of the problems most people face.