Letters to the Editor
-
Malaria and DDT
This is a little off-topic, but I could not stand to see such blatant misrepresentation of the facts regarding DDT and environmentalists. Contrary to Xanthro's claim, the reason DDT is not used to kill the mosquitoes that transmit malaria has little to do with its effect on bird populations.
In the 1970's and 80's, a coalition of forces including the WHO were emboldened by the successful eradication of smallpox and chose malaria as their next target. Widespread DDT use followed - huge swaths of land were blanketed with this poisonous chemical in an attempt to get rid of the vector mosquitoes. The attempt was unsuccessful in large part due to the ability of the mosquito to adapt and become resistant to DDT within one generation. In fact, this campaign ultimately made more children at risk for malaria as it created DDT resistant mosquitoes, thus limiting the available tools to fight incidental outbreaks of malaria.
By stating that people (presumably environmentalists and/or conservationists) would rather see birds live than children, Xanthro has created a straw man argument. If there are people who would make such a choice, this subset of the environmental movement is miniscule and certainly not mainstream. Further, the non-use of DDT benefits everyone, not just the birds. While children may suffer a fast death from malaria, the poisonous elements of DDT will remain in their environment for decades causing future medical problems.
-
Economic development the key
The key is economic development. Africa has the arable land and the population to produce all the food its people require; and much more. There are many aspects to what African agriculture needs but it boils down to a dramatic increase in productivity. This means the application of more energy per hectare in the form of a variety of inputs, including fertilizer, irrigation, and mechanization among others. It is what everyone has known for a long time but for which there has never been the political will in the industrialized countries to turn into a reality.
Years back I did a crude study of the scale of agricultural output that Africa would have if it had the productivity of the average American family farm. Its food production would dwarf that of the U.S. because of the much larger areas of arable land. We and the world need a true development bank, not the anti-development world Bank and IMF (to which years ago Jeffrey Sachs was wedded). Emergency food aid of sufficient quantity, large-scale grants and long-term development credits at extremely low interest are what is necessary. But it always comes down to the question of political will.
-
Fair Trade?
Why is there no discussion here about agricultural subsidies, and neoliberalism, and corporate pillage, and the global justice movement, and so on and so forth? Is that just too last summer, or perhaps too 1999?
-
Niger has the highest birth rate in the world -- 8 children per woman
I do believe that we should provide food aid, but for the individual, the sums required are so large that the best way to do one's part in seeing that delivered is to try to pressure our government to fund this.
For my OWN money, I would give it to Engender Health. (Just google it; they have a large website.) This organization provides essential health care, including birth control, in many countries in Africa and elsewhere.
Surveys (now you can get money to do surveys in Africa but precious little to do anything about the horrors you have all that data on) have shown that large percentages of married couples with large families in Africa would immediately and voluntarily use birth control if they could afford it and/or access it.
They do NOT need "education." They need CONTRACEPTION.
Free, accessible contraception.
I believe that if contraception were more widely available, free and accessible, the problem of "educating" women to use it would take care of itself through simple word of mouth.
The politics around simply providing free contraception to women with 5 to 10 starving children are insane. There are actually people opposed to this. They claim that "we can't be sure the women want it." Well, offer it up for free and we'll know from their reaction, won't we?
Oh, no. The opponents to providing contraception to these women are largely the males who control these countries and are interested in fielding armies to fight their neighbors -- and their hoodwinked Western patsies.
Food aid PLUS contraception is the key.
One of the clear problems with offering only food aid and medical help to these rapidly growing and increasingly impoverished populations is that the rapid rate of birth absorbs the food aid quickly and the problem of starvation remains. It even enlarges itself. It begins to feel to many in the First World like a bottomless pit. Because it IS a bottomless pit.
If we offer food aid, we also need to be sure that these populations simultaneously get access to contraceptions. If they don't take it up, well, then that would be a problem but there have been very few cases so far of properly-done, woman-targetted, affordable or free contraception programs which failed for lack of demand for the services.
The idea that "the women want all these children" and "they won't use the contraception without a lot of education and paternalistic, emperialistic indoctrination" are simply not born out by the facts.
Food aid PLUS contraception is the only way to actually reduce the problem. Food aid alone can actually make the problem larger.
Without the contraception component, donor fatigue and a sense of hopelessness on the part of the First World are inevitable.
Organizations which continue to press Americans to give for food aid while failing to discuss the very real problem of rapid and uncontrolled population growth are inviting the very hardheartedness and cruel "let 'em starve" attitudes which so many profess to have difficulty understanding.
There has to be some light at the end of the tunnel, or no one is going to be willing to move forward. Only capping the rate of growth of the starving hordes will release help and aid from the average First Worlder.
Jan VanDenBerg
-
The Red Cross made it difficult to donate money to Niger during Katrina
After Katrina hit, I attempted to donate money to Niger via the Red Cross website. To my frustration, I could not find a single link to enable me to donate to Niger. All the web content was focused on Katrina. It appeared that all online donations would be going to Katrina. It's as though the organization makes the assumption that people cannot focus on more than one disaster at a time, or worse, the priorities are skewed.
Should the Red Cross have made Katrina their priority given that we have a gov't (albeit incompetent) that is supposed to provide internal disaster relief? If anything, the Red Cross website should have stressed the urgency to continue to donate to Niger, despite Katrina, and offered an option of specifying where one would like their money allocated. I don't know the internal workings of Red Cross monetary distributions but the abrupt dropping of Niger on the Red Cross website during Katrina seemed to me a needless additional barrier to helping.