PHA-Exchange> THE CHALLENGES BEFORE AFRICA

[claudio]

From: <pambazuka-news at pambazuka.org>

THE CHALLENGES BEFORE AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN UNION
By Rotimi Sankore and Firoze Manji
[Excerpts]

A warnings has been issued by the World Food
Programme of looming food shortages and famine in several African
countries including Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Somalia, Sudan,
Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, where various estimates of between
thirty million to forty million people are at risk of starvation.

By no coincidence, the governments of these countries have been
identified by several international and African press freedom and
freedom of expression organisations as suppressing press freedom and
freedom of expression. In almost all cases, the rights to association,
assembly and political participation have also been curtailed.

There also seems to be no collective awareness of other grim facts and
statistics hanging like a sword of Damocles over of millions of
Africans:

* Of the ten countries in the world spending the least on healthcare,
only one [Tajikistan] is not African. Liberia, Burundi, Somalia, Niger,
Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Central African Republic and Chad
top this list.
* Of the ten most undernourished nations in the world only three
Afghanistan, North Korea and Haiti are not African. The other seven are
Somalia, Burundi, Eritrea, Dem Republic of Congo, Liberia and Niger.
* The ten countries in the world with the highest death rate, and
lowest life expectancy are all African: Botswana; Mozambique;’
Zimbabwe; Swaziland; Angola; Namibia; Malawi; Niger; Zambia; and Rwanda
make up the first list with Sierra Leone, Burundi, Djibouti, swapping
places with Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe on the second list.
* Of the ten countries in the world with the youngest populations
[normally characterised by high death rates and high birth rates] nine
are African: Uganda; Dem Rep of Congo; Chad; Niger; Sao Tome and
Principe; Ethiopia; Burkina Faso; Mali and Benin.
* Of the ten most corrupt countries in the world, five Nigeria, Uganda,
Cameroon, Kenya and Tanzania, are African.
* The ten countries in the world that are worst for education are all
African: Niger; Burkina Faso; sierra Leone; Guinea; Ethiopia; Angola;
Mali; Mozambique; Senegal; Burundi and Guinea Bissau.
* Not surprisingly, eight of the ten countries on the planet with the
highest rates of illiteracy are African: Niger, Burkina Faso; Gambia;
Ethiopia; Senegal; Mali; Mauritania and Sierra Leone [the other two
being Afghanistan and Haiti]
* Yet, Africa seems to be heading full steam towards a housing
catastrophe with ten of the fastest growing countries in the world
being African: Niger; Somalia; Angola; Uganda: Liberia; Burkina Faso;
Mali; Ethiopia and Dem Republic of Congo.

It is therefore no surprise, that malaria, HIV/AIDS and maternal
mortality are estimated to kill one million per year [or 2800 per day
in Africa], an estimated two million per year, and forty percent of an
estimated annual world total of 585,000 women year respectively. Add to
these the numerous ongoing conflicts claiming hundreds of thousands of
lives every year (estimnated at more than 3 million in DRC alone over
the last three years) and it will be no exaggeration to say that Africa
may well descend into a wasteland of conflict, disease and poverty if
the trend is not revered over the next few decades. But 2020 or 2040
this is not so far away. It was only ‘yesterday’ that the 1970s and
1980s targets for ‘everything for all’ by the year 2000 were set
without any clear arrangement to achieve these targets, and today it is
2003.

To anyone familiar with the political and economic history of Africa,
the surprise is not that these statistics exist. The surprise is that
there is no cohesive plan to reverse the trend.

The task to rebuild the continent must therefore begin immediately.
Improved education, healthcare, dealing urgently with the tragedy of
HIV/AIDS, agriculture, scientific and technological development,
housing, conflict resolution, peace and stability, and so forth must be
accelerated to the fore of the AU’s agenda. Unfortunately, this seems
unlikely to happen unless African civil society makes every effort to
ensure it is done.