A Wonderful PR Move, but...

So Bush and Blair have come to an agreement on debt cancelation for 18 Third World countries. As the NY Times says, "The debts will be written off by the lenders in an effort to allow the debtor countries to start fresh, get their books in order and eventually be able to borrow again for economic development, health, education and social programs, rather than simply to repay existing loans."

I would like to emphasize: "get their books in order"

One of the main reasons countries are in debt up to their eyeballs is corruption. If a country can't get its books in order, or it simply chooses not to, what then? I'm not being cold-hearted here or anything, I'm simply questioning whether or not this is the most effective way to build stable economies.

Why not have repayment assistance? Or better yet, encourage small-scale investment in these countries. What do I mean? I mean like installing toilets at schools. Not even toilets, necessarily. Outhouses. Sanatary facilities. Places to take a crap that isn't in just "over there behind the bushes."

It is these kinds of development initiatives that will begin the process of stablization:

-Kids can go to the bathroom and/or drink clean water at school, which means
-Kids will stay at school instead of going home for water or bathroom, which means
-Kids will learn more, and recieve fuller educations, which means
-There will be a more educated population, which means
-Economic stability is just around the corner

They should be paying me for this.