UNITED NATIONS AND AFRICA

The advocacy and concern of the United Nations to assists a looming intensified hunger of a multitude of Africans is good. But, how could a very rich country in natural resources not provide for its population or sustain the basic requirements of life? What are their leaders doing? What are the religious groups doing? Since I was small I have heared of the same story.

I was once visited by a friend and his husband a Swede who live abundantly in Africa. They mine gold. Most of their workers they said have AIDS, and have no schooling. But, the land area according to my friend is so vast. They have abundant food. Three large freezers always contain meat from what they slaughter from the wilds. From their perspective, the number one need that they have observed is education. Because other than accidents, robbery for food alone is rampant when in fact people can easily have them from the wilds.

I have an uncle also in South Africa. He is living a good life in the area. My brother-in-law is in North Africa. But, their national leader ensures that people produce their basic needs. They do not sell their olive oil. According to my brother-in-law, they harvest the olives, bring it to the processing plant, leave a portion as a processing fee, and store the oil for family consumption. Similar things they do with the other produce. In their country, you may say no one goes hungry.

The way I view the case now is that, similar to other nations, the chances of even the small time farming in fertile areas have all been gone to commercial owners. So, what the United Nations must do is to encourage governments in the area to delimit commercial ownerships, redistribute the fertile grounds and educate people that they may learn to feed themselves. Giving food, money goodies is superficial. It may augment needs for a day or two. It will never resolve the growing number of people who will go hungry. It will also only intensify the number of beggars in the world.