27 July 2009
editorial
Lagos — The Group of 8 at its last meeting pledged 20 billion dollars in agricultural aid to African countries to the delight the beggarly African leaders and some aid agencies, but not everybody is happy about it.
Although the amount, which is for three years, does not compare favorably with the $13.4 billion which the G8 said it disbursed between January 2008 and July 2009, aid groups said the new pledge in Italy is more clearly focused and could be more beneficial.
For the first time, instead of being given directly as food aid, these funds are to be allotted for building an agricultural economy in African nations in need. It is for agricultural infrastructure such as fertilizer and seed, grain storage vessels and plant variety research.
Although the form of the aid looks more decent than the traditional food handouts, it still does not justify Africa's food insecurity. Not even the on-going global economic meltdown justifies the level of poverty in the continent.
According to the United Nations, the number of malnourished people most of who are in Africa, has risen in the past two years and is expected to top 1.02 billion this year. This reverses decades of declines.
For years, the face of Africa has been the poor and hungry malnourished child with flies perched on his lips. Considering Africa's enormous resources, we find this face of the continent unacceptable.
The same view was expressed by US President Barack Obama during the announcement of the aid. "There is no reason Africa should not be self-sufficient when it comes to food," Obama said, recalling that his relatives in Kenya live "in villages where hunger is real," though they themselves are not going hungry.
Africa's geography and environment are in direct contrast to its political and social circumstances.
According to observations made by the British charity Oxfam, development efforts have been in place all over the continent throughout the past two decades, yet Africans continue to grow poorer with each passing year. Africa is blessed with all the resources that make for greatness - human, material, and ecological. The continent harbours more than 40 percent of the world's potential hydroelectric power supply; the bulk of the world's diamond and chromium resources; 30 percent of the uranium; 50 percent of the world's gold; 90 percent of its cobalt; 50 percent of its phosphates; 40 percent of its platinum; 7.5 percent of its coal; 8 percent of its known petroleum reserves; 12 percent of its natural gas; 3 percent of its iron ore; 64 percent of the world's manganese, 13 percent of its copper, vast bauxite, nickel and lead resources, and millions of untilled farmlands.
But a continent that is so rich in natural resources has been plagued by destructive leadership motivated mainly by greed. Most African leaders have personalised their countries and appropriated the countries' resources in such a greedy manner that some of these shameless leaders are richer than their countries.
We believe that the poverty and devastating diseases that serve as the hallmark of the average Africa citizen's daily existence is caused by the widespread failed leadership on the continent. It is a continent where citizens have no opportunity to change their failed and inefficient leaders. Rather, it is a continent, where leaders plunder state treasuries and suppress their people to sit tight over the ruins. They build themselves into monsters, thinking that they are powerful, when indeed they should build institutions to strengthen democracy and good governance.
Speaking in Ghana shortly after the G8 summit, President Obama noted that Africa does not need strong leaders but strong institutions - " capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the key to success .....those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in people's everyday lives."
While we agree that some drought stricken African countries genuinely need food aid, we believe that with effective and visionary leadership, hunger would not have been pervasive in those countries.
Despite the desirability of the food aid, we believe that poverty and hunger can only be sustainably addressed with economic growth and development. And that these have a clear linear relationship with good governance. Therefore, we urge the G8 to also use all the opportunities available to it to promote good governance in Africa. This include efforts to ensure that even the aid they provide to the continent is used effectively. Also, Africa, more than food aid, deserves foreign investment.
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The key to Africa's food supply is water. The key to Africa's water supply is the clearance of the weeds in it waterways. Since that is a huge and never ending task, it needs a profit for its performance. That profit is available in biofuels. Typha, in particular, is excellent biofuel feedstock. You'll like the environmental side effects of its clearance, too- reduced flooding, Quelea, malaria, bilharzia, cholera,and yellow fever.
Other things that will help everywhere include rainwater harvesting and container gardening.
Your relationship with the outside world will be much better when you really don't need us. That is called independence. Better for us too.
I totally agree with this editorial from ThisDay stable.
What African leaders have done is to pauperize their people so they are too famished to ask questions, these leaders under-invest in education, so their people are too ignorant to ask questions. They invest heavily on terror machines, so the few and courageous who dare the well-oiled and institutionalized state terror machine are crushed.
Unfortunately, the G8 who give food aid and pledge 20 billion dollars to Africa are the same G8 that lend support to these leaders. Therefore, Africans must rise as no G8 can solve her problems.
Your story is better told by you as your fight is better fought by you.
So long as we remain dependent on G8, so long our troubles remain.
Here's a tip for all the Farmers & gardeners. The "best fertilizer" is not even chemical fertilizer. The best kind of fertilizer is rotted-out(black-colored) hardwood sawdust or cotton-seed meal. I know this from first-hand experience. Back when I was in high school, I planted some sqaush & what I put on each seed was 1 round-point shovel of rotted-out sawdust that we got from the local sawmill. Needless to say,when the plants were ready to harvest the leaves were as long as my arm & the squash was as long as my forearm. I think we did the same thing with sweet-potatoes & 1 of those sweet-potatoes was as long as a 5-gallon bucket.We even planted some beans but this time we only put cotton-seed meal on half of the seeds & chemical fertilizer on the other half. The plants with the cotton-seed meal did better than the chemical fertilizer. The chemical fertilizer we used is called "triple-13".
it seems to me that Africans are not independent afterall.the implied actions of the europeans on africans is obviously,a master resposibility to his slave.There aids seems very decent and filled with empathy,but beleive me,there are worst conditions attached to this aids or grants or whatever they call it.The most annoying aspect is that our leaders would never cosider the consequences of this grants conditions,simply because they are egocentric and greedy in heart...since independence all the europeans grants or help,are filled with exploiting africans.or what can justify the G8 summit,shuldnt every leader be equal
Since statistics consistently show the problems of Africa , is there any country that will allow American-Africans to come there and extend skills to natives and allow imports into the country without Corruption to ruin the gesture ? If so please e-mail me at Sharpspear21@gmail.com. I have many friends that are willing to make small economic investments that certainly could make a difference.
We have seen numerous such fine articles in recent years and it has gotten even finer after Obama, but the question remains that: how do we move from just talking to taken the necessary action to change our situation? In my opinion, there needs to be fundamental change in the way we educate ourselves. I will give just one example. I was taught in school in Ghana that Ghana was rich in Timber and that the Europeans and Americans depended on our timber to survive. Well, years later when I went to America, I realized that America probably has more timber than the whole of West Africa and so I started to question why we were educated to be content in exporting timber rather than processing timber into finished goods for export. This and many others, I think has to change before we can make a head way.