Timing is everything!
Therefore, with the world now focused on providing all kinds of relief for American victims of Hurricane Katrina, no one should be surprised that pleas for (yet more) relief for African victims of chronic starvation have been entirely ignored. And, in this regard, I refer you to the BBC article “Malawi appeal gets not a penny.”
Malawi woman hoeing land from which she has as much chance of reaping a harvest as drawing blood from a stone…
But where displaced Americans from New Orleans were victimized primarily by human error and rank incompetence, starving Malawians remain powerless against Mother Nature’s pestilence of drought. Indeed, for so many Africans, it seems that chronic starvation is their cursed fate. And, despite the Live Aid, Live8 and G8 initiatives to Make Poverty History, we seem unable to do a damn thing about it (as I lamented in this recent article).
Yet, there are things Africans can do to help mitigate their plight. Because, with credit and technological assistance to implement better management of arable land, they can survive periods of drought without suffering total corrosion of fertile topsoil that took centuries to form.
(In addition to combating chronic starvation, sustainable land use practices would also reduce the desertification of land that causes mass migration and inevitable land conflicts (eg. in Darfur) as poor and hungry people seek greener pastures throughout the continent.)
Therefore, instead of continuing this cycle of celebrity fundraisers to fight acute famine, let’s hope that NGOs like CARE will finally prevail upon donor nations to invest in sustainable poverty alleviation and land management programmes. Because it will be a crime against our shared humanity if – 10 years hence – images of mass starvation are still pricking our conscience and picking at our wallets.
Note: Today, American federal and local officials are ruing their failure to invest $14 billion a few years ago to reinforce the levees in New Orleans. Because, it will now take an estimated $125 billion to repair the damage caused by anticipated breeches in those very same levees. Therefore, we should take heed where famine is concerned: Let us not be penny-wise today only to look pound-foolish (and unforgivably inhumane) a few years from now.
Please give all you can to CARE and specify Malawi Famine Relief!
News and Politics
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