JTaylor

I'm not interested in the short-term. It's futile. If a geographical location can't support life, don't live there. Where life can be sustained, learn to read and write in order to move beyond the animal existence you describe above. In other words, if the west are going to spend cash, invest in schools in a location that has some soil and water. What's the point in giving bags of rice and the odd well to people living in essentially inhospitable parts of the planet? It eases our conscience, and the pictures are heartbreaking, but we're simply prolonging the agony.

AsifScoob

I am generally not of the view to send aid if I feel the govts concerned are not themselves doing everything possible to help their people.

Surely by Live aid and so on, (which I did give money to) we just gave support to the likes of Mengistu to stay in power?

However, we in Europe do interfere, in a sense. By not allowing African goods a fair go at being sold in the EU, we are creating barriers to trade. Trade is the best way to help them out of their plight in my opinion.

Asif

dpb

it sounds a bit over the top , if im wrong , i apologise

If the populations of these places have risen , i cant see its just been down to live aid donations et al . It must be actually possible to live there !

But i can see the disincentive if you believe all your cash is going straight to the local warlord

tony de wonderful

That is their economic role though, in a primitive economy the economic role of women is JUST child bearing.

Give them all Doctorates and without other economic roles then they would be doing the same things.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

I can't comment on the incident austinwrx described specifically, but it's undeniably true that attacks against aid workers (rapes and sexual assaults included) in Africa and elsewhere are becoming increasingly common, as is corruption and misuse of funds. The fact that a lot of the larger NGOs won't let their reps/volunteers setup camp in many places now without guards and other security measures speaks volumes.

As for the reasons why populations have increased, I'd put it like this. First, the direct cause of the famine right now is a massive drought, the worst in 60 years, which can therefore legitimately be described as a once in a 100 year event or thereabouts, and consequently it's pointless trying to argue that people in the area haven't been genuinely caught off guard. That said, although we're talking about a natural disaster of fairly considerable scale, it's nevertheless a disaster which would have been to a greater or lesser extent predictable, from the perspective that the region must be naturally prone to these specific sort of extreme climatic events. I would take a guess that this is the sort of thing JT was hinting in his post, although I could be wrong. Assuming this is true and we could travel back in time 3000 years, we would undoubtedly find occasions when similar droughts occurred, the only difference being that we would never have got to hear about them over in Europe. Does that mean the impact on the people of the region would have been any lesser back then? Short answer yes, longer answer, it depends how you define impact. 3000 years ago the world's population as a whole was far smaller, so it stands to reason that the population of the Horn of Africa would have been proportionally smaller too. In terms of actual numbers affected then, yes the impact would have been lesser. For the people on the ground though, it's likely it would have been perceived as just as grave a calamity.

OK, so that's drifting off the point slight, so far as why the population there is so much greater than it used to be is concerned. I don't buy the 'outside aid' explanation entirely either, I think it would be more realistic to say that outside aid merely contributes to some degree to a 'boom and bust' cycle that would be happening anyway, either accentuating it slightly or having some marginal impact on when the cycle actually hits. The real answer is a lot more straightforward than that. Simply put, even in non-industrialized corners of the globe, the benefit of basic iron tools and even very limited access to other modern technology and information means people can plan and manage the planting of crops far more effectively than they used to, so the same area of land is able to sustain far larger numbers of people (5 to 10 times larger isn't an overly ambitious number), even without any form of mechanized farming or agricultural chemicals.

The crucial thing to the current situation is what's still missing in this modern-day version of the non-mechanized agricultural society, and that's the ability to cope with large-scale disasters that don't just reduce crop yields by a factor of a quarter or a half (which would undeniably make life pretty unpleasant and difficult, but shouldn't make it unsustainable), but wipe them out completely over large areas. For that sort of resilience, the only answer is a coordinated, centralized planning structure of some kind, which in most cases means a responsible and accountable government. That's where Somalia, Ethiopia and the rest repeatedly fall down, because for one reason or another they still haven't learned to place a high enough priority on establishing that.

So I would agree with JT and others that looking at the long term, they're never going to break this cycle of recurring famine when faced with a natural catastrophe unless they (with or without help from outside) seriously pull their fingers out and do what needs to be done. You make the point that 'we should provide them the infrastructure ...', but the obvious counter to that is why haven't they figured out yet that they need to do this? We're after all talking about a naturally occurring cycle of severe drought which is bound to hit again sooner or later, so you'd think by now they might have started getting the hint.

Looking at the short term, people sent aid to Japan after the Tsunami despite it being the most technologically advanced society (and one of the richest) on the planet, so I don't see why they shouldn't also send short-term aid to Africa. Anything more substantial than that though should definitely come with pretty major strings attached - invest in ways to mitigate against the same happening again in future, or don't come asking for help next time.

JTaylor

Yep.

dpb

I dont think the climate/weather has been at all predictable , just check our last few years


Also , faced with starving wouldnt you join the army ?

Leslie

You should be thoroughly ashamed of making such a completely selfish post.

Les

Leslie

It is worth remembering that those people are suffering under an unusually serious drought which is why they have no food and water.

It is disappointing to see the various excuses for not helping people who are dying from lack of food and water.

Les

dpb

I doubt it Les , i severely doubt it

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

Where did I say they did not deserve primary health care?

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Sorry, but that just doesn't wash. Trying to say the Horn of Africa hasn't been prone to severe droughts every few decades for many centuries and probably millenia is like saying Japan isn't prone to massive Tsunamis on a pretty regular basis. True, it might not be possible to predict in either case exactly when they're going to occur, but anyone who's bothered to inform themselves on the subject knows that sooner or later they will.

Sorry, I don't see what point you're trying to make here. How does a person joining the army because their farmland has turned into a parched wasteland change the basic facts of this situation? The bottom-line is still that if a population insists on living in a region that's historically susceptible to a particular kind of extreme natural phenomenon, it only really has two choices - either develop a long-term strategy to minimize the impact of that phenomenon when it occurs, or learn to live with its full impact in a state of complete unpreparedness, with all that that entails.

Leslie

Doesn't excuse the civilised world from helping them out though!

Les

JTaylor

What about the greater good?

tony de wonderful

At least aid to Japan is much less likely to end up subsidising the lifestyle some corrupt local charity boss or politician.

Japan is a success, it's good side to success. Africa is a failure, and the history of western charities there is ultimately one of abject failure.

dpb

Like a give a **** what one bigoted old murungu thinks

Leslie

Yes...what about it then?

Les