What do you think that you can do to help permanently reduce starvation in Africa?
Starvation in Niger
According to the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." This is part of the American dream that many of the world's population of approaching 6,500 million would buy into, but many Americans would say has not yet been achieved anywhere in the world, not even the USA.
Many of the world's billions have not even heard that sentence, however, and have far more immediate concerns than the pursuit of happiness. They are spending all their time and energy in the pursuit of the next meal, as they are facing starvation.
A year never goes by without appeals to help the starving somewhere in Africa, it seems. It would appear that we are tired of them, or perhaps last December's tsunami used up all our capacity for charity, as the most recent appeal by the U.N. for Niger has raised only $3.6m of the $18.3m required, or 19.67 percent. That leaves $14.7m to be found. 3.6 million face starvation, so that is $1 per person donated where about $5 was requested. Nearly a million of the starving are children. Other charities are trying to help, but they are two thirds short of their targets too, and the size of the problem is enormous. It can be a lot cheaper to prevent a child from becoming malnourished than to bring them back from the brink of death, so delay is expensive.
Niger is in the Sahel region of western Africa. It is 1.267 million sq km in area, or slightly less than twice the size of Texas, and is landlocked and mostly desert, with the rest mostly savannah. It is one of the hottest countries in the world. It suffers from deforestation, desertification, overgrazing and soil erosion. The wildlife suffers from poaching and habitat destruction. Its population is 11,666,000 and is growing at 2.63%. The fact that the population is growing also puts a strain on resources. Education about and supplies of contraceptives such as condoms could reduce the growth. Only 17.6% of the population can read and write, and nearly 73 percent of those are male.
Niger's economy is mostly subsistence crops and livestock. It also has some of the world's largest uranium deposits. It also has oil, gold, coal, and other mineral resources available for exploitation. Sine 2000 it has received enhanced debt relief, which it allows it to spend more money on health care, education, poverty reduction and infrastructure. Prior to that a lot of its income went on debt repayments, which limited its ability to invest in the future. Nearly half its income is foreign donations.
Niger's problems have not arisen overnight. The most immediate problem is the latest drought, which means there are few crops growing, and therefore little home-grown food for humans or for livestock, which is so emaciated it cannot be sold. Even though some rain has begun to fall, it will be months before crops sown now could be ready to harvest - even supposing the farmers have any seed left to plant. New livestock will also be needed to replace that which has died. Prior to this year's drought there was a plague of locusts.
Going further back, part of Niger's problems can be laid at the feet of imperialism and of capitalism. In the 1950s Niger was a colony of France, and France was concerned at the extent to which it was dependent on the USA for various oils, so it rapidly expanded the amount of groundnut cultivation in Niger, reducing the land available for other foods and for grazing. Niger became independent at the start of the 1960s and capitalism took over. Ground nut production expanded into areas that had previously been left fallow and areas of low rainfall. These had been used by the pastoralists to graze their animals. Much livestock was lost.
Another possible culprit is climate change - desertification has been spreading in Africa since Roman times so the droughts can't all be blamed on man-made changes, but perhaps the most recent can. Over-grazing and other agricultural changes could also share the blame. There is also one theory that a phenomenon known as global dimming might have caused the monsoons to fail. Global dimming is the reduction of the amount of sunlight falling on the Earth because of presence in the atmosphere of particles such as those from diesel vehicles or wildfires. If this theory is correct, then global dimming may have been partially counteracting the effects of global warming, and now that Europe has cut its particle emissions, global warming could accelerate.
Other problems affecting African countries include AIDS, lack of access to clean water (and the river Niger is shared by Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Algeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ivory Coast, Chad and Sierra Leone), and wars. Those who sell weapons or incite war must share the blame.
It is not only humans and their livestock that are suffering; plants and animals are affected by the changes to the landscape and by wars.
The United Nations believes it can prevent situations becoming this bad by having an emergency fund to humanitarian aid, rather than wait for pledges and then actual donations to trickle in.
Speaking at a U.S.-Africa trade conference this week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised $1 million in grants intended to enable West African nations to trade more with the U.S. by improving transportation safety and infrastructure and lifting export duties for thousands of products shipped from Africa to the United States. She wants to countries to diversify their range of non-oil exports. She was due to visit a refugee camp in violence-torn Sudan.
Please see the following message for the remaining stories. Sue [sysop in NewsForum, World Issues, All Animals forums] | 
