We can't turn our backs on Africa
Monday November 02 2009
In responding to my article on the current food shortages in Ethiopia (Irish Independent, October 28), Kevin Myers accuses me of not facing up to certain realities in that country, particularly the reality of population growth.
Concern started its work in Ethiopia in 1973 and has worked there almost continuously since then. We have responded to every major emergency: we have been doing long-term development work aimed at preventing future emergencies. We know the realities.
The central reality is poverty. Per capita income (2008) is €190; 45pc of the population lies below the poverty line; one child in 13 dies before reaching one year.
Explaining why hunger affects many parts of Ethiopia annually, a recent internal report identified "increasingly erratic rainfall, population pressure, degraded land, archaic farming practices, regular pest infestations, conflict and disease". We know the realities.
Mr Myers acknowledges a number of these factors. The difference between us lies in what should be done about them.
But let us start with what unites us. We can agree that governments in developing countries have the primary responsibility for the welfare of their own people. For most of the past decade the Ethiopian government has overseen annual growth rates of 8pc to 9pc.
But the economy is very vulnerable to weather shocks -- as this year when there has been a failure of the rains.
Mr Myers implies that advocates in the 'aid community' harbour a 'patronising and racist conceit that we can save Africa'. I know nobody within Irish government circles or the wider non-governmental world who labour under this conceit. Rather our approach is to work in partnership with governments and local institutions in developing countries to meet the immediate needs of very poor people while seeking to find ways out of the deep poverty traps in which they are caught.
The population issue is a good example of this. The population in Ethiopia has indeed more than doubled over the past 25 years to reach the current level of 73 million. The main factors underpinning rapid growth are high levels of child mortality, poverty and illiteracy, particularly among girls. Directly tackling these causes is the most effective way of reducing family size and this has occurred in Ethiopia.
Between the late 1980s and now, the average number of children born to an Ethiopian mother fell from 7.09 to 5.38.
There are no quick-fixes to the problems facing Ethiopia and a number of other African countries. But turning our backs on the problems and letting Africans 'learn lessons the hard way' will not contribute to solving the problems. And it would condone an unacceptable approach to preventable human suffering.
Tom Arnold
CEO, Concern Worldwide
Irish Independent
