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Large-scale philanthropy is not incompatible with a lust for power. I'm sure most people who try to effect wide-ranging change think of themselves as quite magnanimous - say, any third world dictator or 19th century robber baron. The effects of their "charity" may not be quite what the recipients were hoping for when they signed up.

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Perhaps, but that's an entirely different argument from your original one (that Gates and Zuckerberg are trying to sell African schoolchildren a substandard product at inflated prices).

I suspect the G&Z agenda is to set up a sustainable model of investment in Africa by western countries. They don't want BIA to lose money because that would scare off investment partners who are more loss-averse. They believe in the long term, the most important thing is for people in democratic countries to engage with Africa and bring it about to their way of life. The collateral damage is that children may not be getting a great education; it may or may not be better than what they would have got otherwise, but it's breaking the old model of cyclic dependency on foreign aid.

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