Another Famine in Africa

[shirt]

BliarOut said:

"The rains have failed again". Nope, didn't see that one coming. Are there ANY dams in Africa? Yes the images of individual suffering are horrible, but Africa really needs to get it's st together.

there are. i was in uganda a few weeks ago at one of their hydro-electric plants. what i was surprised to hear was that they have no control at all re: how much water they are allowed to spill across the dam into the nile. egypt does.

wherever i went in kenya and uganda, the locals told me about the soaring prices of food. they said it's due to a combination of the drought and rising fuel and energy costs, and that staple foods had doubled in cost over the past 12-18mths.

uganda itself is very fertile, and should be able to support itself very wasily. however, education re: modern farming methods is only just beginning to receive attention.

[Jasandjules]

I have no idea what the solution is. Or if there is enough money to do so (though I would say that I wish that the populations were able to stop their rulers from living in palaces, driving Mercedes, buying yachts and so on and take that money and use it for good)...

[singlecoil]

Jasandjules said:

I have no idea what the solution is.

There isn't one.The parts of Africa we are talking about are a bottomless pit. Unless the population issue is addressed and dealt with, there is NO solution. The best the aid agencies can hope to achieve is to move the problem into the future by a few years.

[BliarOut]

singlecoil said:

Jasandjules said:

I have no idea what the solution is.

There isn't one.The parts of Africa we are talking about are a bottomless pit. Unless the population issue is addressed and dealt with, there is NO solution. The best the aid agencies can hope to achieve is to move the problem into the future by a few years.

The solution needs to come from within.

[singlecoil]

BliarOut said:

singlecoil said:

Jasandjules said:

I have no idea what the solution is.

There isn't one.The parts of Africa we are talking about are a bottomless pit. Unless the population issue is addressed and dealt with, there is NO solution. The best the aid agencies can hope to achieve is to move the problem into the future by a few years.

The solution needs to come from within.

Well in that case there isn't going to be one. Ever.

[pugwash4x4]

singlecoil said:

Well in that case there isn't going to be one. Ever.

eventually there would be= enough of the population would get fed up, have a MASSIVE civil war, someone would win and they'd get on with things.

Unfortunately the sad fact of the matter is that they don't have the developed bureacracy and social structures to develope mass agriculture and a stable society. They would have been better being left as they were in a fuedal/tribal structure or having had an imperially supplied infrastructure.

They really buggered up in asking us to leave (or forcing in some cases).

Oddly there are some countries that already see this- Jamaica for one- there was a recent report on a jamaican survey that reported that 70% of the population feel they would be in a better situation had they stayed as part of britain. Something like 62% then said they would welcome british rule again. Quite why they think we know what we're going i don't know!

[MarkRSi]

pugwash4x4 said:

singlecoil said:

Well in that case there isn't going to be one. Ever.

eventually there would be= enough of the population would get fed up, have a MASSIVE civil war, someone would win and they'd get on with things.

What, like Animal Farm?

[carmonk]

The real Apache said:

carmonk said:

Tsippy said:

carmonk said:

TimJMS said:

It may also surprise you to learn (it shocked me) that in the short time since Live Aid, the population of Ethiopia has doubled.

And therein lies the problem. The healthier people are the more children they have and the more children survive to have even more children which the land can't support.

I was wondering whether this might be partially to blame, ie too many people for an area that cannot support them.

As sad as these images are, maybe ending aid to areas like this will allow a natural balance to return and a lower future death toll?

Ironic as that sounds that's probably true.

I blame Geldof.....no, I hate Geldof....or is it Bonio, fk it I hate em both

Me too, a disgusting pair.

[singlecoil]

MarkRSi said:

pugwash4x4 said:

singlecoil said:

Well in that case there isn't going to be one. Ever.

eventually there would be= enough of the population would get fed up, have a MASSIVE civil war, someone would win and they'd get on with things.

What, like Animal Farm?

Some will always be more equal than others.

[JB!]

pugwash4x4 said:

eventually there would be= enough of the population would get fed up, have a MASSIVE civil war, someone would win and they'd get on with things.

Unfortunately the sad fact of the matter is that they don't have the developed bureacracy and social structures to develope mass agriculture and a stable society. They would have been better being left as they were in a fuedal/tribal structure or having had an imperially supplied infrastructure.

They really buggered up in asking us to leave (or forcing in some cases).

Oddly there are some countries that already see this- Jamaica for one- there was a recent report on a jamaican survey that reported that 70% of the population feel they would be in a better situation had they stayed as part of britain. Something like 62% then said they would welcome british rule again. Quite why they think we know what we're going i don't know!

Because at that tine we were a forward-thinking nation, built on great industrialists. Great Britains made Great Britain, IK Brunel, RL Stephenson, the founders of Cadbury's, Owners of railway companies that built railway towns.

Now we pander to the lowest common denominator.

[Jinx]

scottdav said:

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll have food for life.

Give him a gun and some other poor fk has to do the fishing.

Charity has failed only the insane would do the same again and expect a different outcome.

[arguti]

shirt said:

BliarOut said:

"The rains have failed again". Nope, didn't see that one coming. Are there ANY dams in Africa? Yes the images of individual suffering are horrible, but Africa really needs to get it's st together.

there are. i was in uganda a few weeks ago at one of their hydro-electric plants. what i was surprised to hear was that they have no control at all re: how much water they are allowed to spill across the dam into the nile. egypt does. wherever i went in kenya and uganda, the locals told me about the soaring prices of food. they said it's due to a combination of the drought and rising fuel and energy costs, and that staple foods had doubled in cost over the past 12-18mths.

uganda itself is very fertile, and should be able to support itself very easily. however, education re: modern farming methods is only just beginning to receive attention.

You only have to look at more "successful" African states such South Africa. HIV continues to kill just short of around 1000 people a day whilst the previous health minister denied its very existence and suggested lemon juice, beetroot and garlic to cure it and the self same government that prosecutes doctors for even putting HIV as contributory cause of death on a birth certificate. similar problems with their hydroelectric/nuclear power and energy infrastructure which is extremely poorly managed.

Lets talk about Zimbabwe which, prior to independence was a net exported of food to surrounding states and now has widespread starvation largely precipitated by seizing white owned farms and re-distributing to Mugabe cronies. there have been numerous examples of dairy farms being seized and within 48 hours, all cattle being killed for meat and then there is no milk...go figure.

[The real Apache]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Airdrop Geldof and Bono into the place and let them get on with it. It's a self perpetuating nightmare, the kids are born into a very cheap, violent and hard life which they consider the norm. There is no solution

[grumbledoak]

The real Apache said:

Airdrop Geldof and Bono into the place and let them get on with it.

Can we do that without parachutes, please?

But, otherwise I agree, there is no solution unless they find one for themselves. Aid and corruption seems to only make a handfull of people very rich while everyone else starves.

[slow_poke]

scottdav said:

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and you'll never see him evenings and weekends again.

Fixed that for ya.

[RemainAllHoof]

JB! said:

Cracking watch.

Thanks. Swiss movement from the 1970s; serviced last year in Bienne.

[pugwash4x4]

RemainAllHoof said:

JB! said:

Cracking watch.

Thanks. Swiss movement from the 1970s; serviced last year in Bienne.

i like your left field thinking

not sure swiss watches are the answer to African poverty, but its something we haven't tried so lets give it a go

we could put service centres in djibouti as that would provide much needed jobs.

think of all the fringe benefits-people would know to the minute how long it was since they last ate- would make reporting much more accurate.....

[OdramaSwimLaden]

MarkRSi said:

pugwash4x4 said:

singlecoil said:

Well in that case there isn't going to be one. Ever.

eventually there would be= enough of the population would get fed up, have a MASSIVE civil war, someone would win and they'd get on with things.

What, like Animal Farm?

No! It's more like the film that i've never heard of, or seen yet, where the supressed rise up against the corrupt government and in turn become the corrupt government and cream it.

[scottdav]

pugwash4x4 said:

have a MASSIVE civil war, someone would win and they'd get on with things.

Pretty sure there's a resistance group of defect military squadrons who have been recruiting. Was around a year ago i found out so might have all ended by now.

[MartyPubes]

One I'd like to put to the PHers who seem far more knowledgeable on the subject than I - why is it that many of the other ex-European colonies are now decidedly second world, with economies which are now seen as future threats to Europe and the U.S? South American and South East Asian countries, which on paper have similar problems to African ones, have developed so well and so quickly, whilst Africans seem to be worse off than pre-independence.

I'm not suggesting that there aren't problems of corruption/poverty/poor education in these other regions, but they at least seem able to feed themselves and to function as a country, even if some individuals are left behind.