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Sustainability of Social Development Already I can sense you rolling your eyes deep into the back of your head. We often seem to be a people with little patience for history or interest in the impact of past events on present realities. There is no other way to understand Africa today without considering the history of the continent.
An estimated 11 million people were forcibly taken into slavery in the New World, but comparable numbers were for centuries also sold across the Sahara, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The enslavement of the black body made way for another equally brutal system, but one that elicits even less public sympathy. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more.
These countries now feel "penalized for progress," as donors disengage while investors are still not convinced, bringing "new hardships" to governments trying to move their nations from a middle-income level "to a wealthy state of general welfare.
The report finds rising sea levels could inundate 30 percent of Africa's coastal infrastructure, while percent of the continent's natural habitat could be lost by According to the article, "climate change is a present reality for many Africans," as a tight link exists between Africa's many violent conflicts — often viewed by the West as stemming from ethnic or religious differences — and the increasing climate-induced scarcity of water resources.
The summit also produced several natural resource investment deals between Chinese companies and African countries, thus further boosting recent years' enormous increase in China-African trade, which consists primarily of oil, minerals and other natural resources along with Chinese-made weapons.
Meanwhile, critics say China "extracts what it needs from the continent, while ignoring environmental and anti-corruption standards. With Chinese trade and foreign direct investment in Africa "skyrocketing" in , China has become a major player in Africa's economic development, and a widely cited "ideal development model" among African leaders.
Many African leaders frustrated by Western policy conditionality have welcomed China's "strictly business" involvement in their countries.
But the Chinese lack of concern for good governance and social responsibility produces a "backlash in several African countries. The resulting exposure to the world market cotton price — significantly driven down by rich countries' subsidies — decreased the price Malian farmers received for their cotton by 20 percent in This could increase country-wide poverty by 4. Funding and visiting AIDS orphans projects in Malawi, pop icon Madonna joins the growing list of celebrities putting resources into Africa.
Christian Science Monitor reports that most aid agencies welcome the arrival of celebrities in the world of humanitarian aid, appreciating the press attention that "these A-listers" can draw to development in Africa. Other analysts, however, fear that too many donors preoccupy themselves with projects that make them "look good," rather than promote long term development.
British climate scientists from the Met Office give "one of the most dire forecasts so far" of the potential effects of global warming. Their study predicts that by year one third of the planet will be desert, "uninhabitable in terms of agricultural production," and that already drought-stricken Africa will experience the most severe effects. While stressing that the findings contain uncertainties, the scientists deem the result "significant" and possibly even an underestimation.
According to this Independent article, the study will be "widely publicized" by the British Government at the November UN negotiations on "a successor to the Kyoto climate treaty" in Nairobi. The "Least Developed Countries Report" found that although the world's poorest countries have enjoyed the highest growth rates in two decades, human well-being in these mainly African countries has not improved.
The author of this Foreign Policy In Focus piece argues that the lack of rural communities' participation in governing their natural resources largely accounts for that imbalance. He warns that initiatives such as the UN Millennium Development Project, the US Millennium Challenge and Oxfam International's "Trade not Aid" campaign will not promote development unless they focus on creating accountable countryside democratic institutions.
Ziegler highlights the obvious, but vastly ignored, connection between EU agricultural subsidies and the large flow of African migrants to Europe. While Europe destroys African agriculture by dumping subsidized food, Europeans want their borders closed to poverty-stricken Africans and respond with security measures to a problem which is in fact about "hunger refugees.
Rosset holds much higher hopes for the "Food Sovereignty" approach focusing on ending "free trade extremism," improving land access for the poor, and increasing support for family farmers and ecological farming methods. As Dutch trading company Trafigura Beheer offloaded tons of toxic waste at a landfill near the Ivorian capital of Abidjan in August , the generated fumes killed six people and forced 15, to seek treatment for nausea, vomiting and headaches.
The incident illustrates that the practice of Western companies dumping toxic waste in poor countries continues. As rich countries' consumption of electronic equipment keeps increasing, so does the amount of electronic waste shipped to poor countries for "recycling," but ending up in landfills posing significant health risks to local residents.
This powerful New York Times article highlights the experience of a nine-year-old quarry worker in Zambia. The child labor problem in sub-Saharan Africa not only deprives young workers of their childhood, but also furthers a cycle of poverty where they remain illiterate and sometimes turn to illegal or dangerous activities to survive. The author notes that child labor goes beyond a legal issue, since poverty and disease contribute to the growing incidence of child labor and many families can barely afford to eat.
Churches, for their part, must acknowledge the stigma and discrimination of their attitudes towards sex and gender. External observers, however, tend to overlook these positive trends, Hunter-Gault says. And aided by the "mountain of negative press" on Africa, they increasingly avoid directing resources to the continent.
Africa needs "fresh new news' reporting" along with debt relief to free resources to finance initiatives like NEPAD - according to Hunter-Gault "one of the most effective forces of change" in Africa. This New Times article labels poverty as the "oldest and most devastating disease in the third world.
The author cites the spread of AIDS, population growth, lack of education, and geographic disadvantage as obstacles to aid and debt relief efforts. The panel will produce an annual report for the G8, UN, and Africa Partnership Forum to maintain international awareness of development progress.
Still, some organizations doubt the capacity of yet another monitoring organization to affect G8 policies. This BBC article discusses the challenges of growing populations in urban centers throughout the world and especially in Africa. Although Sub-Saharan Africa boasts the world's highest rate of urban migration, cities and governments fall short in providing basic social services.
Still, without more funding and investment in infrastructure the number of people living in urban slums could double by Under the guidance of Jeffrey Sachs, the UN Millennium Project established 78 so-called Millennium Villages demonstrating how little spending in fields like health and education can "dramatically accelerate" Africa's rural development. Since , the initiative has shown that villages can meet many of the Millennium Development Goals if empowered by international aid and practical technologies such as fertilizers or insecticide-treated bed nets.
While many of these villages seem capable to gain self-sufficiency in the near future, rich countries have to provide more aid to allow all of the poor areas to follow these examples.
Based on a report by the World Institute for Development Economics Research WIDER , this article looks at the efforts of various donor countries to provide more independent and predictable aid to Ghana. As aid programs conducted directly by rich countries firms "have had limited success" in reducing poverty, the Multi-Donor Budgetary Support MDBS approach directly funds development programs chosen by the Ghanaian government.
Although major donors such as Japan still refuse to participate, the initiative could help untie aid flows from rich countries' commercial interests. Uganda, as many other sub-Saharan African countries, has achieved increased economic growth accompanied by moderate inflation rates. However, this "macroeconomic stability" has failed to improve the living conditions of the country's poor.
At a meeting organized by the International Monetary Fund IMF , Ugandan government officials pointed out that, although the country receives more aid flows "on paper" they have little impact "on the ground. Although foreign direct investment FDI can generate growth, the region requires strong local industries and better access to foreign markets to foster development.
In addition, Mr. Homeku encourages the UN Agencies and Programmes that work in the region to support existing developing campaigns instead of "reinventing the wheel. A small group of donor countries, including the US, contracted the private insurance company AXA to cover the risk of droughts in Ethiopia.
Furthermore, opening humanitarian aid activities to corporate interests is a "risky business. This report provides a wide range of data for each LDC, on topics such as population, health, education, official development assistance and external debt. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. This BBC article looks at the main factors causing Africa's continuous struggle for agricultural self sufficiency. Decades of underinvestment in rural areas, hundreds of armed conflicts, HIV and high fertility rates turned Africa from a net food-exporter in the 50s into a continent dependent on foreign aid and food imports.
Furthermore, many rich countries destroy local agricultural markets with subsidized food exports while abusing aid for their own corporate interests. This article supports top UN adviser Jeffrey Sachs' urgent call on all governments to fulfill their aid promises made in the seventies.
Sachs points out that there are promising practical solutions to lift the poorest countries out of this "seemingly endless cycle of disaster.
This includes:. As the indicators show, education is closely linked to poverty by the United Nations - because those who can not read and write have little chance of getting a skilled job and build their livelihood. Subscribe Here. Give a gift to children in need.
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