Oxfam warns of West Africa drought 'catastrophe'

Urgent action is needed to stop drought in West Africa's Sahel region turning into a humanitarian disaster affecting 13 million people, Oxfam says.

The charity says the international community waited too long to respond to famine in East Africa last year.

Oxfam has launched a £23m ($36m) emergency appeal to help reach more than a million of the most vulnerable.

A BBC correspondent says refugees fleeing fighting in northern Mali are adding to the problem.

Launching its appeal, Oxfam said that malnutrition rates across Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and northern Senegal are hovering between 10% and 15%, and in some areas have risen beyond the emergency threshold level of 15%.

It says that more than one million children in the Sahel region are at risk of severe malnutrition.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Once again, while everyone is looking at the rich countries, and getting all titilated over a 'will there, won't there' be a war...and billions being spent everyday on weapons, and other # that nobody needs. Millions of people are without even the basic commodities of life and will be soon dieing in their thousands for want of water and food.

Just as it was last year...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

East or West, it's Africa, so still nobody cares.

its oxfam and i'm afraid i hate the organisation due to their chugger attitude where if you give them £1 a month they'll spend more than that ringing you up to try and get you to increase your donation and once you have done that you get a few month breather before they start again and they don't stop and the best thing was once i went into the local oxfam shop and found primark stuff for sale that was more than the original price

reply to post by Biliverdin


Honestly, these people are starving to death on the most fertile soils on the planet.
You have western countries who are resource poor providing them with aid, yet these poor countries are resource rich, does that make sense to you?
We can't look after their people, we have our own people to look after.

Originally posted by Jace26
reply to post by Biliverdin

 

Honestly, these people are starving to death on the most fertile soils on the planet.
You have western countries who are resource poor providing them with aid, yet these poor countries are resource rich, does that make sense to you?
We can't look after their people, we have our own people to look after.

And are you? What are you doing to look after your own people? Or do you mean, you just have to look after yourself?

Fertile soils are no good if you do not have the freedom to till them.

Personally, I see all people as my own people.

Originally posted by Maxatoria
its oxfam and i'm afraid i hate the organisation due to their chugger attitude where if you give them £1 a month they'll spend more than that ringing you up to try and get you to increase your donation and once you have done that you get a few month breather before they start again and they don't stop and the best thing was once i went into the local oxfam shop and found primark stuff for sale that was more than the original price

Well I have to agree on this one. I won't give to organised charities, but if you take the time, and want to give you can find groups that work directly with affected groups.

Primark use exploitational labour practices, and are not fairtraders, so I will only buy their clothes from charity shops. I do not shop as Oxfam's shops for the reasons that you have already stated.

But nor do I shoot the messenger. Oxfam are raising awareness of the crisis. The crisis exists despite the high administration costs of the messenger.

Originally posted by Biliverdin

Originally posted by Jace26
reply to post by Biliverdin

 

Honestly, these people are starving to death on the most fertile soils on the planet.
You have western countries who are resource poor providing them with aid, yet these poor countries are resource rich, does that make sense to you?
We can't look after their people, we have our own people to look after.

And are you? What are you doing to look after your own people? Or do you mean, you just have to look after yourself?

Fertile soils are no good if you do not have the freedom to till them.

Personally, I see all people as my own people.

edit on 9-3-2012 by Biliverdin because: (no reason given)

Honestly listen to yourself, "I see all people as my people".

What a load of nonsense, there are plenty of people out there who would kill you just for being different. The whole world isn't ripe and shiny like the west ya know.

Besides, white people built their own civilizations, we didn't have another race come in and teach us how to build schools and stuff.
As well as Asians who have constructed their own civilizations.
Why do we still need to help them, they need to learn for themselves.

Originally posted by Jace26
Honestly listen to yourself, "I see all people as my people".

What a load of nonsense, there are plenty of people out there who would kill you just for being different. The whole world isn't ripe and shiny like the west ya know.

Besides, white people built their own civilizations, we didn't have another race come in and teach us how to build schools and stuff.
As well as Asians who have constructed their own civilizations.
Why do we still need to help them, they need to learn for themselves.

I think you will find that the first civilisations were not built by white people.

I take it from your response that your answer to my questions, were 1) No, 2) Nothing, and 3) Yes.

ETA In fact, if you studied history, you would find that white people usually destroyed or took over other none whites civilisations, rather than built any of their own.

reply to post by Jace26


A little history lesson for you...

Furthermore, the effect of the Atlantic Slave Trade on West Africa was harmful to the African economy. European imports encouraged underdevelopment of local African economies, encouraging the development of African slave raiding and trading as alternative procurements of profit. Part of the underdevelopment of the African economy began with the importing of European goods into Africa, which began with the Portuguese, followed by other European’s in the 1400s, which led to the excision of local African goods from the demand of the African consumer. As a result of this, goods from Europe gained a foothold in African markets, and became methods of displaying wealth. An example of this is the popularity of linen cloth in Africa, as the flax used to make it does not originate in Africa.[30] Furthermore, buying foreign textiles was “…a way of displaying taste, style, sophistication, and wealth.”[31] With a growing reliance on European imports, the shift in African development shied away from “domestic production in key industries such as metal goods and textiles[, which] led to a dependence upon the Atlantic trade…”[32] as well as promoting “the export of slaves to cover the cost of imports while at the same time… reducing the capacities of African production to fill needs.”[33]

Further compounding the difficulties of African development was the ability of Europeans to “offer goods more cheaply and in larger quantities tha[n] the local [African] economy could.”[34] And even worse, one of the major manufacturing sectors in Africa was textile production, which in John Thornton’s work was described as “…western Africa’s greatest single underdeveloped technology relative to its population’s needs and desires…”[35] As such, local products “could not be produced in sufficient quantit[ies] to meet demand, [and their] price would inevitably rise and allow inferior foreign [products] to be imported, and… drive the [African] product into a limited market.”[36]

Furthermore, with estimates of Africans exported from the West Coast starting around 10 million (mentioned by Patrick Manning, Walter Rodney, Fage, and Inikori), it is clear that as a direct impact of European intervention, in the form of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the West Coast lost everything that those 10 million may have contributed to the African economy. Fage describes the situation as one where African rulers and merchants sought to exploit their territory in many different forms, in order to procure the commodities which were accepted by Europeans as forms of trade currency.[45] This included people, as rulers would have people taken up on dubious charges to enslave and trade them, or in order to reprimand subjects for debt, or misconduct. This developed conditions for political fragmentation which created States which were gathering wealth in response to opportunities presented by Europeans to take captives from, and exploit weaker states. This, as Inikori describes it, resulted in the Atlantic Slave Trade “adversely affect[ing] the populations and economies of the weaker communities that comprised the vast majority of African peoples at the time.[46] J.D. Fage states that “institutions of servitude developed in [African] societies essentially as a result of the European demands upon them.”[47] With this assertion, it is possible to assume that had European traders not been interested in slaves, that African merchants would have had no increased need to procure them on a grand scale, resulting in “…the deaths of slaves during their capture, transport to the coast, and confinement on the coast in preparation for shipping… [which] average[d a] 15% mortality…”rate.[48]

en.wikipedia.org...

And let's not forget the incredible mineral wealth that exists in these countries, which is the reason that they are kept in the third world, because heaven forbid they should be allowed to have the stability that would allow them to exploit that wealth for themselves...

www.african-minerals.com...

30 years ago I done the 40 hour famine to help raise money
for starving people in Africa, I think it was Ethiopia at the time.
Since that time back in 1981, I wonder how many billions of dollars in
aid has gone to the African continent? And the same stuff is still happening there.

From 2009

Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for doubling the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that already goes to Africa each year.

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.

It's not dought causing the famine.
I'm an Aussie, I know about drought. There were regions here
where it did'nt drain for 10 years, our local main water supply became so crap
we had to use nearly 50,000 tonnes of chemicals to make it safe to drink.
If you call that safe

The problem with Africa is all of the corruption and wars etc.
Very little of the aid reaches it's intended destination.
The whole problem about Africa needs to be reassessed so we, the world
can actually help these people.

As recently as 2002, the African Union, an organization of African nations, estimated that corruption was costing the continent $150 billion a year, as international donors were apparently turning a blind eye to the simple fact that aid money was inadvertently fueling graft. With few or no strings attached, it has been all too easy for the funds to be used for anything, save the developmental purpose for which they were intended.

Link to source of quotes Wall Street Journal

reply to post by LeLeu


I agree, corruption is widespread in West Africa, as it is in all of Africa. What has led to that corruption? Well I have already posted links that point to the beginning and end of the current situation. So that should be obvious. However, none of that is going to prevent those children from dying. That is what I care about personally, right now.

On a ongoing level, I make sure that I know where my purchase has been produced and have originated. I make sure that I buy Fairtrade, and I support worker's co-operatives, and the goods that they produce.

It is a travesty that the UN exists and does nothing to prevent corruption, that it does nothing to prevent human rights abuses. But again, that does not detract from the fact that children are going to die in their thousands unless aid reaches them. We can ALL do more to ensure that our governments, members of the UN, do more to ensure that the UN does it's job properly. We can ALL do more to ensure that we are not greedy and gluttinious too, and do not waste what we have at the expense of feeding others.

In the long term, studies have shown that those children who are nutritionally deprived at a young age, as a result of such famines, are a much greater burden in terms of maintaining them financially, and never go on the reach full economic self-sufficency due to the brain damage caused by famine, and are more likely to go on to be recruited into armed gangs and further proliferate violence, hence keeping that wheel of misery spinning into the next and the next generation. So, in the meantime, until we end corruption, it is much more economically viable to invest in aid to prevent such malnutrition and it's after affects than allow it to occur because they might just spend the money on something else. Most famine relief now is in the form of materials, not money, so corruption is in that way limited anyway.

I am sorry but I don't care why or how children are starving and dying, I just care about whether they are, and whether it can be prevented. Those children, no matter the crimes of their rulers, oppressors, or even parents, deserve to be helped.

reply to post by Biliverdin
Here's an article that shows some innovative ways of helping these people:

Source: allafrica.com...

Vertical Farming. Over 800 million people globally depend on food grown in cities for their main food source. Considering that women in Africa own only 1 percent of the land, a practice called vertical farming gives these women the opportunity to raise vegetables without having to own land. Female farmers in Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum, have been practicing vertical farming using seeds provided by the French NGOSolidarites. This innovative technique involves growing crops in dirt sacks, allowing women farmers to grow vegetables in otherwise unproductive urban spaces. More than 1,000 women are growing food in this way, effectively allowing them to be self-sufficient in food production and to increase their household income. Following the launch of this initiative, each household has increased its weekly income by 380 shillings (equivalent to US$4.33).

Originally posted by seentoomuch
reply to post by Biliverdin

 

Here's an article that shows some innovative ways of helping these people:

Source: allafrica.com...

Vertical Farming. Over 800 million people globally depend on food grown in cities for their main food source. Considering that women in Africa own only 1 percent of the land, a practice called vertical farming gives these women the opportunity to raise vegetables without having to own land. Female farmers in Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum, have been practicing vertical farming using seeds provided by the French NGOSolidarites. This innovative technique involves growing crops in dirt sacks, allowing women farmers to grow vegetables in otherwise unproductive urban spaces. More than 1,000 women are growing food in this way, effectively allowing them to be self-sufficient in food production and to increase their household income. Following the launch of this initiative, each household has increased its weekly income by 380 shillings (equivalent to US$4.33).

Such ventures are brilliant. But as has already been pointed out, there is no shortage of fertile workable land in those areas that will be worst effected by the famine. There are many such initiatives and they are very much the solution in the long term. But this is a short term issue, that the OP refers to. Such initiative will not be necessary if there is no one to feed.

Much funding and resources is going into supporting womens groups, aimed at empowering women to get involved in social planning too, and in the peace process so necessary amongst the conflicting factions. And it gives hope for the future, but it is the present that these people must first be helped to overcome.

reply to post by Biliverdin
What exactly are you wanting us to do? Send cash to the corrupt govts? Send cash to badly organized charities? Tell us exactly what you imagine the answer to be?

Oh and btw, vertical farming is fast if the right seeds are distributed, it may not be immediate but it is most definitely not long and it would be in the hands of the ones who care for the children, the women, no land deed needed for it.

Originally posted by Biliverdin

Originally posted by Jace26
Honestly listen to yourself, "I see all people as my people".

What a load of nonsense, there are plenty of people out there who would kill you just for being different. The whole world isn't ripe and shiny like the west ya know.

Besides, white people built their own civilizations, we didn't have another race come in and teach us how to build schools and stuff.
As well as Asians who have constructed their own civilizations.
Why do we still need to help them, they need to learn for themselves.

I think you will find that the first civilisations were not built by white people.

I take it from your response that your answer to my questions, were 1) No, 2) Nothing, and 3) Yes.

ETA In fact, if you studied history, you would find that white people usually destroyed or took over other none whites civilisations, rather than built any of their own.

edit on 9-3-2012 by Biliverdin because: (no reason given)

Name me some then? What civilizations did they take over?
When the British came to Australia there sure as hell was no civilization like what you said, they had to build everything from scratch.

Plus I never said the first civilizations were built by white people? I don't know where you got that from, so stop putting words in my mouth.

I have studied history, and if you did too you would realise white civilizations were destroyed an taken over as well.
What about Asian civilizations? I don't hear you ranting on about them? Or is it just PC to bag out on white civilizations?

Besides, it is no excuse as to why Africa is so poor and war torn today.

Originally posted by Biliverdin
And let's not forget the incredible mineral wealth that exists in these countries, which is the reason that they are kept in the third world, because heaven forbid they should be allowed to have the stability that would allow them to exploit that wealth for themselves...

www.african-minerals.com...

Give me some facts as to who is keeping them in the third world?
No one is holding these countries down, its their own doing, just like Greece has gotten itself into trouble for living the high life for too long.
Look at Asian countries just a few decades ago were mostly embroiled in war, but now they are the fastest growing region on Earth.

just like last year, the year before, the year before that etc etc etc.
atleast some millionare celeb's will be able to get on the charity advert's acting like they give a #.

Originally posted by Jace26
Name me some then? What civilizations did they take over?
When the British came to Australia there sure as hell was no civilization like what you said, they had to build everything from scratch.

There was a population there though, that was able to be successful within the constraints of the environment. But, obviously you do not consider those people to have been 'civilised'... When the British 'discovered' Austrialia, like Africa, they exploited those resources, and the native peoples. They sent convicts there because it was not deemed suitable for habitation...only as a means of curing the social problems of over-crowding back home, a dumping ground if you like. I presume therefore that you condone such behaviour? And do not see the effects that these policies had on the native populations as a travesty. I'm all right Jack, so who cares about what went before?

Originally posted by Jace26
Plus I never said the first civilizations were built by white people? I don't know where you got that from, so stop putting words in my mouth.

I have studied history, and if you did too you would realise white civilizations were destroyed an taken over as well.

Well of course they did. The Vikings were very white. The Saxons. As were the Normans. Further back, the Scythians, the Celts, etc etc. Ancient history though. Northern raiders laid waste to Rome. To Greece. To Egypt, etc etc.

However, barbarians, and capitalist colonialism is an entirely different kettle of fish. And simply stating that the Africans are victims of their own choices displays a gross ignorance of the history and socio-economic factors that keep Africa in the third world.

Originally posted by Jace26
What about Asian civilizations? I don't hear you ranting on about them? Or is it just PC to bag out on white civilizations?

Where in Asia are they on the brink of famine, which is the subject of this thread? I didn't bring up civilisations you did. I am merely highlighting, that while huge sums of money are being made from West Africa, very little of that money is going on the people that need it, and that those people are on the verge of major crisis. While much of that is due to corruption, that corruption is supported by the West who want the resources at a price that suits them, and by default they support and facilitate that corruption. Are you having a problem understanding that? Are you not, afterall on a 'conspiracy' web site? Is it not natural that I should present such news from a conspiracy angle with that fact in mind?

You are the one that got defensive on the matter, rather than actually addressing the conspiratorial nature of this news. I have not asked you for money, nor do I expect you to donate any to the cause. Perhaps you could present examples of the corruption that is aiding in the destruction of these people, rather than simply attempting to justify your own indifference. Or perhaps not comment at all if you have nothing to add.

Originally posted by seentoomuch
Oh and btw, vertical farming is fast if the right seeds are distributed, it may not be immediate but it is most definitely not long and it would be in the hands of the ones who care for the children, the women, no land deed needed for it.

It is difficult though, I should imagine, for refugees fleeing from violence in neighbouring territories, living in tents and other temporary facilities. It is difficult too when resources cannot be distributed. And when there is no access to water.

Once groups find that stability, yes it is very effective, as I have already agreed.

The OP was clear that the additional refugees would add to the problem. The majority are not refugees. I still stand by the vertical farming.

Also, from what I understand it is not the west that is involved with controlling their resources as much as it is China.

Where's Bono when you need him?

STM