Having recently spent 3 weeks in Malawi, with my daughter who was there with the Peace Corp, the issue of hunger was an eye-opener.

Read "Africa Doesn't Matter" by Giles Bolton.

Food is not the issue. Most of Africa can and does feed itself. Starvation happens as a consequence of social breakdown, which is usually caused by local human decisions, not nature and not the behavior of the Western world.

Pouring food into the mess is the WRONG answer. It simply prolongs the misery. What is needed is fixing the society.

Futhermore calculating the $ value of things also is misleading. People can live on $200 per year if they also happen to live somewhere that doesn't need heat, where the water is free, where the land is owned by communities, where the houses are built from local mud/trees/grass.

Lastly, you mistake things for happiness. I saw villages whose views were absolutely spectacular, whose people had a lot more free time than I do, and who were happy and relaxed and friendly.

There are problems with Africa, there are problems with the USA, but food is not the issue.

/Bevin

"Pouring food into the mess is the WRONG answer. It simply prolongs the misery. What is needed is fixing the society."

Exactly. If you give a man a fish...

"Futhermore calculating the $ value of things also is misleading. People can live on $200 per year..."

I think part of my motivation for the $10-a-week idea, though I didn't say it, was to prove that cost of living, nutritionally speaking, is close to the same in the West as in Africa. i.e. that we consume more of the world's resources needlessly.

"I saw villages whose views were absolutely spectacular, whose people had a lot more free time than I do, and who were happy and relaxed and friendly."

Absolutely. And when things are going well -- when your family is fed, when your social environment is secure, and when you feel like your life's work is worthwhile -- happiness is not a problem. If there's anything I learned in Africa, it's that you don't need a bunch of toys to have fun (Though that doesn't mean envy isn't still prevalent).

It's when things go wrong -- when your brother gets AIDS, when three of your five children die of protein deficiency before their third birthday and, worse, your culture thinks it's normal. It's when you're taken advantage of by corrupt police officers, when you have big dreams but no opportunities, and when your crop fails. This is when grown men, who otherwise have anything but neurotic tendencies, break down and cry.

So, yeah, pouring food or money arbitrarily across the pond would hardly even help short term. I'm thinking mutual funds instead, because that's a way to stimulate the capitalist machine that brought us the luxury and social mobility we enjoy in the West. Even if I, as a college student, can only afford to invest $1000, that's enough money to provide two full-time jobs for a year to the average African.

And, finally, I also intend to join the Peace Corps, helping first-hand to bring about the sort of societal changes and empowerment that Africa needs to learn for itself. And they have as much to teach me as I do them. On that note, I'd be more than interested in hearing about your daughter's experiences.

***As an addendum, my girlfriend and her mother came up with a litany of counter-arguments to my assertion that eating less expensive food made some sort of global impact. I don't recall them all, but chief among them was the idea that fair trade markets has a more direct effect, and furthermore that the local foods movement might have a more positive effect on sustainability than considering the world one corporate global market.

Happy Tuesday,
SigmaX

Eric, eat all the expensive food you want. The rest of the world lives on staples Americans have little taste for or only include as side dishes.

Around the world many cultures eat more healthy than do Americans.

The other dimension is the countries with rampant inflation.
What we would consider the poorest of the poor like a rice farmer will soon be a king since at least he can grow his own food and the the lawyers and profesors cant afford it.

I have friends who are missionary's in some of these places and they said that if they can keep everyone else from stealing it, farmers will be able to pay off their debts, feed themselves and their families and actually return a profit in the next little while.

Its kind of nice to see the underappreciated get the upper hand once in a while.

It is amazing how little we understand of what makes us prosperous. American's tend to claim it is either God blessing us, hard work, or both. It is neither - it is a combination of luck, natural resources, history, and culture.

The West (including the USA) does not just 'consume more of the world's resources needlessly' - it has also makes most of those resources. Putting a hydro-electric dam in a river, then using the electricity, is not "consuming resources".
Taking a previously useless black liquid out of the ground, modifying it, and then burning it for energy or turning it plastic bottles is both producing and consuming. Turning sand into computers is both producing and consuming.

Sure, a lot of what we do is silly. But until the global warming issue it really wasn't that harmful - we produce and consume lots of stuff for fun. The important point is WE PRODUCE and consume.

You must examine all the steps, not just some of them.

Similarly in Malawi you have to see whole chains of cause and effect.

For instance a society which
(a) does not reliably pay its teachers, and
(b) insists they teach in a language neither the teachers nor the students are fluent in, and
(c) does not make sure the curriculum is directly relevant to the country's needs
should not be surprised when the system fails!

My daughter has been trying to show the teacher's how to be organized enough to run a school effectively, at the same time as teaching students enough to get some of them good enough to get them into teacher's college.

Malawi, like most of the rest of Africa, is getting better. Cell phones - that decadent piece of luxury item - is making everyone's lives there dramatically better. Roads are getting slowly but steadily better. Solar panels are making it possible for villages to have TV's, and hence to learn English and be exposed to the educational messages the government is running. Simple messages like "breast milk is better than bought stuff".

Western aid, both government and christian, has plusses and minuses. Read the book I mentioned above. It should be required reading. The West sends in cheap subsidised food, demolishing the local farming industry. They send in health care to keep babies and the chronically ill alive, so that the population explodes and gets burdened with a health care problem. They send in dumb clothing ideas, so people wear suits and shoes in a climate that calls for practically no clothes at all.

Some of the aid is stupid, really stupid. My daughter's school is beside an orphanage. The orphanage gets supplied by Western christians with more educational materials than the orphanage knows what to do with, while right next door my daughter's school sits 3 students to a desk and lacks basic supplies - but the christian's supplying the orphanage have targetted their aid there, and not at the real need, and when it is pointed out to them say "oh, but this stuff was given for the orphanage, we can't give it to where it is really needed".

The critical resource in Africa is not food. It is not even money. It is the ability to organize to get things done. Just like here.

/Bevin

SigmaX/Eric

Rather than individual food consumption, fair trade and local food movement, as your girlfriend and her mom suggest, may have a greater impact in solving world hunger and poverty, I think. But I also believe you're on the right track positing that some actions taken by citizens in one country, such as the U.S., may have global implications. One example of this is the current economic downturn consequent to the mortgage crisis in this country.

About mutual funds in Africa and developing countries, you'll have to explain this further since I really don't know how it may work in changing the equation to equalize opportunities and alleviate world hunger.

Bevin

From Nov 1999 thru Feb 2000, I was in Malawi on a relief mission at our Blantyre Adventist Hospital. Coming from a poor country myself, with some experience behind me in aid work among tribal minorities at home, my initiation to life in Africa wasn't too much of a shock. It confirmed an earlier impression I had, which others before me may have already learned such as the observation that:

"... there is very little evidence that foreign assistance has made much difference in overcoming the poverty trap in any country."

Why is that?

"Planners have no responsibility for ensuring that funded projects meet their goals in the field. Other than requiring periodic written reports and demonstration of individual cases where success has been prearranged, there is little feedback or accountability. Beneficiaries are not in a position to let their views be known, nor do they understand what is expected in the longer run."

- Why the Fight against Poverty Is Failing: A Contrarian View
Published: October 31, 2006 in India Knowledge@Wharton by Abraham George

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4114&spec...

Just wondering, Bevin, in what way the above comment compares with your observation in the mission field. Seems true, at least in my case.

I thoroughly agree with this comment.

Most money given through aid is somewhere between neutral and negative impact. Your article and the book I mentioned above align very well.

It was obvious in my daughter's house. Hers was one of 6 someone had built. They had pipes going in for taps and showers, and pipes coming out for sewerage. But neither set of pipes were connected. There was not enough water pressure or volume to justify pipes into the houses - by forcing the use of buckets, an effective rationing system was maintained. If the pipes were connected, it would have been detrimental to everyone because water would have run out more often. The rainy season and the soil and the cost make it practically impossible to have a septic field, and there is no practical way to have 'town sewer', so the indoor toilet and septic piping was also an utter waste of money - actually negative because it made one of the rooms less useful!

But the bigger reason aid fails is it gets thrown at the wrong people. It gets aimed at the unproductive, just enough to keep them alive and being a drain on the productive. The money should be targeted at things which it will increase productivity.

Some countries see this. I was thrilled to see various European countries were funding road construction. The Chinese also. Good roads will dramatically reduce the cost of transportation, hence will make it possible for the goods from the city to reach the rural communities, and the food from the rural communities to be sold in the city - reducing the amount of food that is imported, and (more importantly) reducing the amount of car/truck parts and fuel that are imported.

I came away from Malawi realising that if aid organizations really want to make a difference, they would stop wasting their money on hospitals and start building roads and paying for local teachers in the elementary schools.

I was disgusted to see a Hollywood star recently throwing more money at keeping African babies alive. All over Malawi are girls having more babies. Scarcity of babies is NOT the problem. The inability to educate the children they have is a HUGE problem - and keeping more babies alive is making it worse.

/Bevin

I've posted a lengthy response to all three of you in The Struggling Masses, Part 2.

Thankyou for the discussion -- between hearing your points of view and doing more research online, I've learned alot.

SigmaX

So I guess we are supposed to think that you are a moral Christian because you say you want to help Africans. However, you are an American. The only problem in the world, is not African hunger, and underdevelopment.

I think Adventists like you have used so-called African issues as a distraction from problems of injustice here in America, that affect black and brown peoples native to America. Many of the people here hold stereotypical views and political orientations which exacerbate problems of inequality and injustice here in the states. Conveniently continuing to talk of African hunger, etc. and then to the next day, talk about certain political issues and views and peoples from a stereotypical standpoint - or which shows support for certain conservative political stances and parties which have been involved in injustice in this country

is immoral. I think your advocacy with regard to African hunger, is immoral to the extent that it is used within the Church to serve as a distraction from how you are also contributing to the perpetuation of injustice here in America - either through neglect and lack of an advocacy for social justice issues here- and/or either through a support for certain political parties and viewpoints that have been involved in the perpetuation of injustice especially with regard to particular groups in this country.

It's also wrong to focus on Africa to the extent that this is used to divert or shield African persons from their own culpability in perpetuating injustices in their own country or elsewhere through their participation in certain conservative paradigms which have been involved in bigotry.

It is idiotic to as an American person who calls themselves Christian - to only Discuss African Hunger and poverty, to the exclusion of injustice issues here in the US. It's also immoral to the extent that is going on - yet, Adventists continue to participate in Republican politics and discuss certain American racial groups in a stereotypical, dishonest and crude fashion. I think many people use Africa really as a way to relieve their own racial guilt at how they continue to mistreat black people in their own country and their churches. This is immoral.

"I think many people use Africa really as a way to relieve their own racial guilt at how they continue to mistreat black people in their own country and their churches. This is immoral." -- Patrice Savron

Whew. Quite the tyrade. First of all, since you're responding to me, I should point out that your generalization does not hold in this scenario: I attend a Unitarian Universalist congregation (i.e. I'm a secular humanist), quite the opposite from Adventist. I'm on Spectrum because I was raised Adventist and live in an Adventist community, so interaction with believers is still of interest to me.

Secondly, my interest in Africa is not simply out of desire for blind activism -- and definitely not from latent racist guilt. The reason we're discussing this in so much depth (Notice the multiple threads and in-depth analysis) is because I want to make sure I've got my thinking cap on. What really draws me to it is the fact that I, my parents, and my grandparents have lived in rural Africa and have friends there -- friends that would like nothing more than for me to vouch for them and get them into America. My aunt and uncle are African-Americans, adopted from Kenya a couple decades ago.

But, even if I'm a non-Christian who leans to liberal politics, women's "choice," and gay rights, etc, you may still have a point. There are problems here in America. Just because we have wealth and the third world doesn't doesn't mean there aren't social injustices here at home that demand our attention.

I have friends who, lacking international experience, are appalled that I would focus on something so far from my home country when there are problems everywhere. We've come a long, long way in ending racism in the states -- but there is still plenty of room for growth. And depression, broken families, etc aren't going away any time soon.

That said, I'm a big proponent of international awareness. If we knew how much we had, we'd realize that much of our complaints are akin to the whining of a spoiled child, and how much security we really have.

SigmaX