In Africa is aid responsible for incessant famines?

[Guest guest]

Folks,

The world is indeed small. I have met a the director of UNAIDS from

Nigeria and who is here in New York City with his wife.

A gentleman he is and requested that I joined him and his wife for

dinner but due to business commitments I declined. I should have set

business aside and had dinner with this guy. Talk to him about

hiv/aids in Africa and are African governments doing anything about

it? I have his contacts and he has mine. I will make sure I will

give him a call and introduce him to some organisations that perhaps

will need him one day. He owes me a huge favor:)

Chifu

New York City

Is aid responsible for incessant famines?

By ph Mudingu

Wednesday, 02 August 2006

In Niger, a desert country, most of the 11 million people live on a

dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of

four dies before turning 5. And that is when things are normal.

Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges:

skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the

flies from their faces.

To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate

challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken

areas. They leave it to the economists and politicians to come up

with a lasting remedy. One such economist is Shikwati. He

blames foreign aid.

" When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize

on how to get more, " said the Kenya-based director of the Inter

Region Economic Network, an African think tank.

" They forget about getting their own people working to solve these

very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our

problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change. "

Moving the aid can be nightmare in itself. Africa's good roads are

few, and often pass through the front lines of civil wars. But

Shikwati notes an additional problem: Even African countries that

have food to spare can not easily share it because tariffs on

agricultural products within sub-Saharan Africa average as high as

33 percent, compared with 12 percent on similar products imported

from Europe.

" It doesn't make sense when they can't even allow their neighbors to

feed them. They have to wait for others in Europe or Asia to help, "

he said. " We don't have any excuses in Africa. We can't blame

nature. We have to tell our leadership to open up and get people

producing food. "

Nature, of course, does bear some of the blame. Recurring drought is

a part of life in Africa. Farmers have learned to cope, but

exploding population growth sucks up water, pasture and livestock.

Many food crises result from bad government and civil wars. For 30

years after winning independence from France, Niger was ruled by

military dictatorship. Now it is a peaceful multiparty democracy,

but its desert is getting bigger and drought is unrelenting. All it

took was the locust swarms of a year ago, the worst in 15 years, to

start tipping Niger over the edge. The crop-devouring insects

ravaged some 7,000 square miles of Niger farmland. The combined

drought-locust onslaught cut cereal production by 15 percent last

year, according to the United Nations.

At first, few noticed. Places like Niger " were never on anybody's

radar screen. They're not considered important, geopolitically or

resource-wise, " said Skoula, executive director of U.S.-based

Action Against Hunger. " It comes down to a question of priorities.

But any human life is important. "

Aid groups say Niger's catastrophe could have been averted that

early warning systems were in place, and the United Nations and

other humanitarian agencies warned of imminent food shortages late

last year.

In November, Niger's government issued an emergency appeal for

78,000 tons of food. Donors, busy with higher-profile crises, barely

responded. The following month came the Indian Ocean tsunami that

entirely eclipsed Africa's misery on the world's TV screens.

Aid workers say heading off famine needs long-term, steady

funding. " Prevention doesn't sell that much, " said Stefanie

Savariaud, spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program in Niger's

capital, Niamey. " The world has to wait for images of dying children

to react. The question is, how to mobilize the international

community when it's still preventable? "

Ironically, G-8 summit pledged to double African aid to $50 billion

and granted 18 of its countries debt forgiveness, including Niger.

At the same time, early this year rock concerts televised worldwide

made sure Africa's troubles stayed high on the global agenda.

A week later, TV pictures of hungry people began beaming out of

Niger, and donors reached for their wallets. But the World Food

Program only raised $9 million of the $16 million it appealed for,

Savariaud said.

At a feeding center in Mada Roufa, in eastern Niger, Mai Sali, a

local employee of the international relief organization Doctors

Without Borders, praised those efforts, but agreed crisis aid was

not the answer.

[Guest guest]

Folks,

The world is indeed small. I have met a the director of UNAIDS from

Nigeria and who is here in New York City with his wife.

A gentleman he is and requested that I joined him and his wife for

dinner but due to business commitments I declined. I should have set

business aside and had dinner with this guy. Talk to him about

hiv/aids in Africa and are African governments doing anything about

it? I have his contacts and he has mine. I will make sure I will

give him a call and introduce him to some organisations that perhaps

will need him one day. He owes me a huge favor:)

Chifu

New York City

Is aid responsible for incessant famines?

By ph Mudingu

Wednesday, 02 August 2006

In Niger, a desert country, most of the 11 million people live on a

dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of

four dies before turning 5. And that is when things are normal.

Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges:

skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the

flies from their faces.

To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate

challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken

areas. They leave it to the economists and politicians to come up

with a lasting remedy. One such economist is Shikwati. He

blames foreign aid.

" When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize

on how to get more, " said the Kenya-based director of the Inter

Region Economic Network, an African think tank.

" They forget about getting their own people working to solve these

very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our

problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change. "

Moving the aid can be nightmare in itself. Africa's good roads are

few, and often pass through the front lines of civil wars. But

Shikwati notes an additional problem: Even African countries that

have food to spare can not easily share it because tariffs on

agricultural products within sub-Saharan Africa average as high as

33 percent, compared with 12 percent on similar products imported

from Europe.

" It doesn't make sense when they can't even allow their neighbors to

feed them. They have to wait for others in Europe or Asia to help, "

he said. " We don't have any excuses in Africa. We can't blame

nature. We have to tell our leadership to open up and get people

producing food. "

Nature, of course, does bear some of the blame. Recurring drought is

a part of life in Africa. Farmers have learned to cope, but

exploding population growth sucks up water, pasture and livestock.

Many food crises result from bad government and civil wars. For 30

years after winning independence from France, Niger was ruled by

military dictatorship. Now it is a peaceful multiparty democracy,

but its desert is getting bigger and drought is unrelenting. All it

took was the locust swarms of a year ago, the worst in 15 years, to

start tipping Niger over the edge. The crop-devouring insects

ravaged some 7,000 square miles of Niger farmland. The combined

drought-locust onslaught cut cereal production by 15 percent last

year, according to the United Nations.

At first, few noticed. Places like Niger " were never on anybody's

radar screen. They're not considered important, geopolitically or

resource-wise, " said Skoula, executive director of U.S.-based

Action Against Hunger. " It comes down to a question of priorities.

But any human life is important. "

Aid groups say Niger's catastrophe could have been averted that

early warning systems were in place, and the United Nations and

other humanitarian agencies warned of imminent food shortages late

last year.

In November, Niger's government issued an emergency appeal for

78,000 tons of food. Donors, busy with higher-profile crises, barely

responded. The following month came the Indian Ocean tsunami that

entirely eclipsed Africa's misery on the world's TV screens.

Aid workers say heading off famine needs long-term, steady

funding. " Prevention doesn't sell that much, " said Stefanie

Savariaud, spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program in Niger's

capital, Niamey. " The world has to wait for images of dying children

to react. The question is, how to mobilize the international

community when it's still preventable? "

Ironically, G-8 summit pledged to double African aid to $50 billion

and granted 18 of its countries debt forgiveness, including Niger.

At the same time, early this year rock concerts televised worldwide

made sure Africa's troubles stayed high on the global agenda.

A week later, TV pictures of hungry people began beaming out of

Niger, and donors reached for their wallets. But the World Food

Program only raised $9 million of the $16 million it appealed for,

Savariaud said.

At a feeding center in Mada Roufa, in eastern Niger, Mai Sali, a

local employee of the international relief organization Doctors

Without Borders, praised those efforts, but agreed crisis aid was

not the answer.