The Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof has been back to Ethiopia, 20 years after the historic international concert which not only produced huge sums for that famine-stricken country but raised the profile of all Africa’s starving in a way that no fleeting TV news report could ever have done. Though he had praise for George Bush’s administration, which has earmarked $15 billion to tackle both AIDS and hunger in Africa, for the rest of the world and Europe in particular Geldof had little but harsh words.
He cited remarkable statistics to show that members of the European Union spend $4 a day feeding cattle which are in fact surplus to requirements, while the average individual income in Africa is just $2 a day. These figures will doubtless be hotly disputed, but as Geldof intended, they have brought the issue of Africa’s starving back into the spotlight.
There are, however, some tough questions that campaigners like Geldof need to address. Most basic is why, despite years of international help, so many African countries still find themselves on the edge of starvation.
Certainly they have been victims of meteorological change. Drought has destroyed the cycle of crops throughout much of Africa. But this by itself does not account for the regular failure of African governments to assuage their citizens’ plight.
The harsh truth is that pointless local wars, oppression by thuggish authorities and massive incompetence and corruption lie at the heart of Africa’s pain. If there were an official will to act positively on the problems, much more could be achieved.
Africa will need food aid for years to come, but it also requires proactive governments to launch coordinated and carefully planned programs to help farmers combat drought, promote reforestation and acquire the technology and new techniques necessary to adapt to the tougher new environment.
The problem is that many African governments appear to lack not just the will but also the organizational structures to accomplish such a program. It therefore seems that much of the work will need to be done by Non Government Organizations (NGOs), some of whom have the structures in place to mount such concerted campaigns.
But using NGOs is not without its dangers. There is already growing international concern that these bodies are not properly accountable to anyone. The ideal solution would be for the United Nations to take an overarching role and actually run the NGO efforts. Whether all the NGOs would be prepared to accept this is another matter. Nevertheless, some accommodation will need to be made, because by itself the UN does not have the funds to implement such a far-reaching program of agricultural reform.
No such effort will however be successful unless the African governments involved go out of their way both to facilitate the effective use of outside help and to learn the lessons that need to be learned from well-wishers within the international community.
Among those lessons are the need to give up vicious local conflicts, clamp down on corrupt officials and politicians and inject some genuine vigor — at the expense of rhetoric — into their prime duty of caring for all their citizens.
