Despite Live8 and G8, Relief Looms like a Cruel Mirage to Millions of Africans Dying of Starvation!

Less than a month after Live8 bands played and G8 leaders pledged to Make Poverty History, international news agencies are reporting that over one third of Niger’s population of 10 million are on the brink of starvation. But these reports are particularly tragic because for months world leaders simply ignored pleas by private voluntary organizations (PVOs) for a relatively modest amount of money to prevent this crisis (only $30 million compared to the $50 billion pledged recently by the G8). In fact, they even ignored Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary General (UN USG) for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, who warned of dire consequences from persistent drought and a plague of locusts that have decimated the crops these God-forsaken people depend upon to feed themselves and their cattle.

Child of Niger representing millions who did not hear the music and know nothing about the pledges of relief. Alas, their lives consist entirely of coping with the death throes of death by starvation…

Many Africans feel cursed by God, and, who can blame them. Just imagine the cruel irony of Niger’s drought now being broken by torrential rain; only instead of bringing relief, the rain is spreading malaria and other diseases amongst people already suffering plagues of biblical proportions (water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink…). Indeed, as one grieving mother wailed:

“As far as I’m concerned, God did not make us all equal – I mean, look at us all here. None of us has enough food.”

Meanwhile, the mortal gods (G8 leaders and rock stars) have been too busy negotiating long-term, pan-African relief to be bothered with the logistics of providing emergency food aid to Niger. And, even if the world were to mobilize one of its patented band aid solutions today (as France initiated on Monday with an airlift of 200 tonnes of food), it will be too late for hundreds of thousands of these poor children. Because, as a frustrated Milton Tetonidis of Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) lamented:

“There are children dying every day in our centres….We’re completely overwhelmed, there’d better be other people coming quickly to help us out – I mean, the response has been desperately slow.”

But, where the mysterious and vexing workings of the almighty God must be respected, the salutary disregard world leaders have shown towards this preventable suffering must be condemned. However, the brunt of this condemnation should be focused on African leaders who spent most of this year calling for debt relief for their national treasuries but seemed deaf, dumb and mute when it came to calling for aid to feed their own people.

(For the record, the Panafrican News Agency gave African leaders constructive notice of this looming crisis in Niger as early as 2000 and yet not only did they do nothing themselves but they also neglected to sound the alarm for international aid: “African solutions for African problems” indeed!)

Even though African leaders did not seem to care, UN USG Jan Egeland appealed to rich governments for money to avert an ‘acute humanitarian crisis’ in Niger. Unfortunately, their response was essentially let them eat (yellow) cake…

Beyond condemning government leaders, however, citizens of rich countries must also be challenged to reflect on why it takes TV images of starving children to stir their compassion for fellow human beings who are known to be living in the vice-grip of chronic poverty, disease and starvation in Africa. Indeed, as UN USG Egeland observed only yesterday:

Niger is the example of a neglected emergency, where early warnings went unheeded….The world wakes up when we see images on the TV and when we see children dying….We have received more pledges in the past week than we have in six months. But it is too late for some of these children.

We could have prevented this, and the world community didn’t.

Ethiopia, Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, the Sudan, DR Congo, Zimbabwe and now Niger (one “g” despite racial inferences that might explain the world’s neglect of this entire continent). So, where in Africa will “unconscionable” images of starvation come from next…Mali?

Clearly, no one with a conscience can ever become inured to this suffering. But it is almost impossible to avoid feelings of hopelessness and unmitigated cynicism. After all, funds from Live Aid in 1985 were supposed to provide emergency famine relief to the people of Ethiopia as well as ensure that starvation was eradicated “forever” from the continent of Africa. Yet today, not only are the people of Niger starving on a greater scale than the Ethiopians did back then but the continent seems even more ravaged by starvation when one considers current conditions in other places like Darfur and the DR Congo.

Furthermore, even though this year’s Live8 concerts raised worldwide consciousness about extreme poverty in Africa, they seem to have had far less impact on the national priorities of some G8 countries (like Germany and Japan) that are already expressing misgivings about fulfilling their pledges of debt relief. Even more ominous, however, are the criticisms that have come from the very aid workers who are supposed to implement the new G8 framework for aid to Africa. Because leaders of prominent PVOs complain (and warn) that “its guidelines do little to help with health care, drinking water supply and long-term financial viability”.

Therefore, no one should be surprised years from now when persistent starvation in Africa prompts calls for another Live Aid event to make poverty history…again.

But don’t wait, please help now: UNICEF; UN World Food Programme; CARE

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