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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Jul 16 2011 - 06:18:04 EDT
Simple Questions a Reasoning Person ought to Ask
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Announcing forecasts that ‘millions in the Horn of Africa region, but
particularly in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia would face this year imminent
hunger’, UN agencies are as ever soliciting the international community for
emergency food aid. Thanks to the advances in the agricultural science,
nations across the planet are nowadays striving to solve food scarcity. If
there be any nation that suffers from food scarcity, recurrent drought and
famine in the 21st century, it is merely the people of Africa. Reports
indicate that one-third–around 1 billion–of African population lives in
persistent food crisis. About 300 million still lack a single dish on daily
basis. ‘Emergency Vehicles’ with long antennas mounted hit the gas in the
pretext that such and such Africans are starving to death. Africa, which has
reportedly been receiving every year food aids worth well over 4 billion USD
for the past decades, has utterly failed to dispense with the relapses of
need. Why?
In spite of lush soil and major rivers, as well as boundless natural
resources, Ethiopia stands firsthand witness to the privation that exists in
many parts of this continent. As a result of abysmal drought during the
reign of Emperor Haile Selassie that caused the expiry of hundreds of
thousands, as well as the famine that occurred during the Derg regime
claiming the lives of more than 1 million people, Ethiopia sets the example
for hunger in world dictionaries. The country has been conversant with aid
handouts ever since. Government officials appear on state media daily
affixing signatures on agreements of cooperation worth hundreds of millions.
It is to be noted that Ethiopia has been granted development funds to the
tune of 30 billion USD since 1980. Despite such huge contributions, the
country has constantly been going downhill.
Once again, TPLF’s Ethiopia as yet constitutes one of the four countries
across the globe that are granted the highest annual food handouts, and
thus, ranks foremost on the list of aid-dependent nations in Africa.
According to reports, in the years between 1999 and 2010, food aid
approximating more than 700,000 metric tons per annum has been signed over
to Ethiopia. Such tremendous almsgiving, however, has as yet failed to solve
the country’s problems. The people of Ethiopia is always a prey to
intermittent food scarcity. The cliché news of emergency calls on a yearly
basis to ‘save the lives of millions of Ethiopians’ has been a broken record
for the past four decades.
Despite tremendous relief, Ethiopia is to date graded the last of the entire
world in indigence and human civilization. Dire privation, diseases and
other social inequalities in the country are quite appalling. With its
capital city and other major cities overwhelmed by mendicants and street
smarts, Ethiopia is the center for mammoth aid and food handouts.Ethiopia is
merely cited for being the worst example of human civilization; so is the
case akin in many parts of Africa.
Based on these facts, there are simple questions people need to put forward.
Why has the huge financial support and aid funneled the past half a century
towards Africa barely managed to set the course for development? Why is the
continent repeatedly plunged into poverty and backwardness? Is the role of
charity to do away with problems or multiply them? Charity organizations are
well aware of the fact that prime satiety for salting away the vast
offerings is but corruption. Why are they then nurturing the ill-practice
time and again? Is the objective of charity to mentor corruption?
Rehabilitated over the past five decades in first-class buildings for
administrative bureaus, what have these charity organizations operating to
‘put donations and development projects into effect’ made good? More than
1,000 NGOs are on record in Kenya. What tangible outcome has the
contributions of all these NGOs effected thus far, and if not, what are they
doing there? Are NGOs here to alleviate Africa’s problems or micromanage the
continent’s crisis and thereby stay firmly established to eternity? If they
are, indeed, charity organizations operating as per their tags, why not help
upgrade human capacity and boost productivity through enabling support?
Boundless are the questions to pose. And the answer brings the real
undertakings of NGOs and the underlying objectives to light. After a long
experience of resorting to imbue the culture of dependency and corruption,
the governments and peoples of Africa thus need to orient towards the right
direction. To this end, Africa should revitalize the culture of hard work
through becoming the master of its development programs so as to solve its
own problems all on its own. In this respect, Eritrea’s modeled experience
is a case in point for the entire continent. The Eritrean people, which
wrested independence much later than other African countries, has so far
achieved impressive accomplishments at reserving a rich store of
agricultural yields through reinvigorating productivity in the spirit of
self-reliance, while at the same time avoiding the culture of dependency.
Accordingly, Eritrea has all own its own managed to maintain a hunger free
situation devoid of the hustle and bustle of NGOs, thereby setting
self-reliance as a proven standard for others.
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