There have been improvements in the quality of life of many people living in developing countries, but those improvements can be reversed, and may very will be reversed if care isn’t taken now.
Earlier in this series of reflections, I established that there are good reasons for those of us fortunate enough to live in countries like Canada to be concerned about what is occurring in lesser developed nations. What happens in those countries affects not only their populations but affects us as well. We’re linked to them economically, environmentally, medically. We need to be concerned about them. We need to seek serious means of helping them to address the major problems they’re facing.
And if we recognize the patterns of interdependence which link the peoples of the world, we will also recognize that in saying this is something “we” need to do, we are not speaking only of the governments of countries like Canada and the US or of institutions like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, or the World Bank. “We” does not mean only world leaders or professionals in the field of international development. The fact is that all of us have a role to play in this matter.
To begin with, governments and international institutions respond to public opinion. And often, without the pressure of public opinion, they’re content to let things remain as they are. Therefore one of the most important things concerned people can do is simply to keep informed about the issues, because an informed public has the power to motivate governments and other institutions to respond to situations which might otherwise be neglected. For example, although activists had been talking about the importance of addressing environmental issues since at least the 1940s, world-wide, governments only became committed to doing something when there was a ground-swell of popular opinion forcing them to.
In 2003, the United Nation’s Special Envoy to Africa on the AIDS issue, Canadian Stephen Lewis, spoke out with passion about the situation on that continent. He called it “genocide by complacency” and called upon governments, in particular the Canadian government, to change the legislation protecting drug companies so that less expensive generic drugs could be made available in Africa. Public opinion responded to Lewis’s eloquence, and petitions were collected and forwarded to Ottawa.
The government responded quickly by promising to write the appropriate legislation. Drug companies at first resisted because they wanted to protect their patents, but when they saw the depth of public sentiment on the issue, they also announced their willingness to work with government in order to allow generic drug makers to produce inexpensive medicines for AIDS-stricken areas.
What both the government and the drug companies were responding to was public opinion.
It was also public opinion that drove the millennium Jubilee project which sought to have at least a portion of the debt of the world’s poorest nations cancelled. And while promises made at the turn of the century still haven’t been kept, the greatest incentive that governments and banks have to comply with those original agreements will come from continued public pressure.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
51 - The African Exception
When I am asked if I have seen evidence that conditions have improved in developing countries during the time I have worked in this field with the YMCA, I do have to qualify my answer by saying that it depends upon what you are looking at and how one defines “improvement.” But by and large, if one looks at the community level, then I would say that there has been an overall improvement in the quality of life for people in most developing countries. The exception, however, remains the nations of Sub-Sahara Africa, and this is an extremely important and significant exception. Because what has occurred in Africa demonstrates just how fragile any of these improvements can be.
Africans face many difficulties. There have been a number of self-serving governments and leaders in many African nations who have plundered the resources—and the aid received from more developed nations—for their own benefit, all too often with the support of Western governments. The list is a long and depressing one, including Idi Amin in Uganda, Mobuto Sese Seko in Zaire, Samuel Doe in Liberia, Sani Abacha in Nigeria, and Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, among others.
Parts of the continent are vulnerable to periodic drought which compromises its capacity for food self-sufficiency; inter-tribal violence still rages in many regions. Political and social instability are rife. Refugees from one part of the continent seek asylum in other parts, adding to social tensions. Religious fundamentalism is creating further divisions within nations like Nigeria.
But the most overwhelming problem Africans face is the uncontrolled spread of AIDS. This disease is crippling the continent. Two-thirds of all the individuals on the planet infected with HIV and AIDS are in Africa. The disease kills about 6000 Africans every day, more than wars, famine, and other natural disasters put together.
Elsewhere in the developing world, improved nutrition, improved health care for children, improved literacy have combined to contribute to an overall improvement in life-expectancy. In Africa, on the other hand, life expectancy is falling–and falling dramatically–from an average life expectancy of 60 years only a short time ago to an average of 43 now, a drop of nearly a third. In the five year period between 2000 and 2005, life expectancy in Lesotho fell by 24 years, in Swaziland and Botswana it fell by 28, and in Zimbabwe it fell by 35.
The continent has not benefited from the enormous amount of aid it has received for many reasons—political corruption is high on the list, inappropriate transfers of technology is another. All too often, the projects sponsored by “donor nations” appear to have been designed to benefit the donor more than the recipient. And, as has become evident throughout the planet, the movement from rural farming communities to the cities has resulted in a proliferation of urban slums, with the concomitant social problems common to such areas. A continent in which a 100 years ago almost all persons were engaged in food productivity in one way or another—farming, fisheries, cattle herding—has followed the path of other nations and become increasingly urban.
Africans face many difficulties. There have been a number of self-serving governments and leaders in many African nations who have plundered the resources—and the aid received from more developed nations—for their own benefit, all too often with the support of Western governments. The list is a long and depressing one, including Idi Amin in Uganda, Mobuto Sese Seko in Zaire, Samuel Doe in Liberia, Sani Abacha in Nigeria, and Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, among others.
Parts of the continent are vulnerable to periodic drought which compromises its capacity for food self-sufficiency; inter-tribal violence still rages in many regions. Political and social instability are rife. Refugees from one part of the continent seek asylum in other parts, adding to social tensions. Religious fundamentalism is creating further divisions within nations like Nigeria.
But the most overwhelming problem Africans face is the uncontrolled spread of AIDS. This disease is crippling the continent. Two-thirds of all the individuals on the planet infected with HIV and AIDS are in Africa. The disease kills about 6000 Africans every day, more than wars, famine, and other natural disasters put together.
Elsewhere in the developing world, improved nutrition, improved health care for children, improved literacy have combined to contribute to an overall improvement in life-expectancy. In Africa, on the other hand, life expectancy is falling–and falling dramatically–from an average life expectancy of 60 years only a short time ago to an average of 43 now, a drop of nearly a third. In the five year period between 2000 and 2005, life expectancy in Lesotho fell by 24 years, in Swaziland and Botswana it fell by 28, and in Zimbabwe it fell by 35.
The continent has not benefited from the enormous amount of aid it has received for many reasons—political corruption is high on the list, inappropriate transfers of technology is another. All too often, the projects sponsored by “donor nations” appear to have been designed to benefit the donor more than the recipient. And, as has become evident throughout the planet, the movement from rural farming communities to the cities has resulted in a proliferation of urban slums, with the concomitant social problems common to such areas. A continent in which a 100 years ago almost all persons were engaged in food productivity in one way or another—farming, fisheries, cattle herding—has followed the path of other nations and become increasingly urban.
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