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october'08

Tackling the grinding poverty found in the world's poorest countries is perhaps the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century.

In 2008, in sub-Saharan Africa, almost 50 years after independence swept through the continent, most people are still forced to eke out a living tilling long degraded soil in ways little changed from Biblical times. Every day families spend endless hours and energy in an enduring struggle to produce enough food and to find safe water. And woe betide anyone who falls ill for medical centres are few and far between and the cost of drugs, if there are any, is prohibitive. This hand-to-mouth existence is experienced from one generation to the next in Africa as governments there, unlike those in other parts of the world, appear singularly inept at laying the foundations needed for economic and social advancement.

The international community then has to face the unpalatable fact that our world can no longer be divided up into developed and developing nations. The desperate state of most of the nations in sub-Saharan Africa demands the introduction of a third category - stagnating nations (stagnations) - where governments for whatever reasons are unable or unwilling to implement policies for strong economic growth which are the prerequisite for social advancement. Some people may argue here that economic growth in Africa is picking up and nations there are advancing but dig below the surface and it will be seen that with increasing populations and extremely low incomes nothing much ever changes for the people on the world's poorest continent.

So what is needed to bring fundamental change to an impoverished subcontinent with, for the most part, sterile leadership?

For many international NGO's and development campaigners the solution lies in the tired old dogma of further debt relief and more overseas aid. However, in the years since independence a colossal $500bn (£275bn) has been given by tax payers in rich countries to governments in Africa with little to show for it. At best, debt relief and overseas aid can only act as a palliative. For real progress to be made on the continent requires 2 things:-

1) honest, competent and determined leadership in sub-Saharan African countries which is prepared to work to improve the living conditions of their people.

2) then when 1) is up and running a compact between the former colonial power (or the EU or the US or Japan) to deliver most future aid in kind in the form of EXPERTISE in agriculture, water supplies, infrastructure, administration etc so that poor countries can benefit from the skilled people able to bring life changing projects through to a successful conclusion.

On this website, under the various issues - FOOD, WATER, HEALTH, EDUCATION, TRADE etc - just1WORLD examines the present situation as they affect Africa whilst under STATE OF THE WORLD we set out what life is like for most Africans today. Then in RECOMMENDATIONS we expand on how best to bring about constructive change on the continent so that the people of Africa can at last start to enjoy the basics of life which we in the developed world too often take for granted.

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