Hello Again,

For todays blogs I have no solutions only observations.............

Firstly I have noticed on the news about the distribution of food aid in African countries how there is only x amount of food to feed this lady and her 10 children etc.......... Well the first thing I would note, is that no matter what the country unless one is very rich one would need aid to feed from externally in order to feed 10 children. People in the west where food is readily available have the sense (on the whole) to limit the number of children they have to what they figure they can feasibly and reasonably provide a reasonable standard of living for. So the question is why does feeding an African family mean feeding 10 children - don't the African parents consider what they will be able to provide when they consider how many children to have?? If its a matter of contraception not being available to these families maybe that is where the west should be concentrating its efforts otherwise come the next generation the problem is going to be 10 times as big....... Food Aid should be given in times of genuine crisis, e.g. a drought, monsoon etc........ when it has to be provided ad-infinitem year in year out, and it is the only food source the children grow up to know and then they have just as large families assuming that the same food source will be provided for their children we are creating a problem that is just compounding. A fundamental principle to solving any crisis is to first prevent it getting worse and then to deal with the problem at hand. Historically large families were OK because of the high infant mortality rate, but now different Aid Organisations ensure that the infant mortality rates are lower hence creating the problem for the next Aid Organisation of how to feed all these people. This is a problem that is exponential in nature and so while there is no disputing it is currently a grave humanitarian crisis, to my mind we are creating a graver one in the future if we do not begin to address this problem of family sizes in countries where parents know they cannot and never will be able to feed themselves let alone large families.

A similar principle applies to the Aids Epidemic. I agree people dying of aids is terrible, but what is worse than people dying of aids is people passing Aids on. Now I am no expert and stand to be corrected, but as I understand it when anti-retrovirals are given to people with HIV/Aids they then get to live much longer and appear healthy and presumably keep spreading the aids virus. If they were not given the anti-retrovirals then they would look sick (hence be less likely to find a partner to infect) and would die sooner - tragic for them, but it would prevent how many others being infected?? It seems to me that we once again have things the wrong way around, with our current policies all that will happen is the demand for anti-retrovirals will continue to spiral up as will the cost of providing them, the percentage of the populations with the virus will continue to increase etc........ Maybe if the disease were left to take its course the rate of infection would naturally decrease over time........ Or if this is unacceptable from a humanitarian point of view maybe a choice should be given with the anti-retrovirals - you get the drugs but you also get medication that prevents you having sex and passing it on (admittedly this would only work for men not women, but at least it would solve half the problem) - so then at least while doing the humanitarian thing, we are preventing the problem getting worse. To me if I caught Aids off somebody I knew but for anti-retrovirals provided by an aid agency would have died a long time ago I would be wishing the aid agency had kept their anti-retrovirals to themselves!!

Thirdly I note Gwenyth Paltrow is on TV advertising for governments to do more in providing medication to prevent the transmission of the Aids virus from mother to child. Well given 1/3 of all pregnant women in South Africa alone (and I doubt these are the worst statistics in Africa) have Aids who is going to take care of all the orphans created by this policy - the African states in question certainly can't afford to, or if they are forced to then it will prevent them spending that money on education, infrastructure, healthcare etc........... and keep these countries in poverty and ensure they become more and more reliant on the west for aid.

To me Death is a natural part of life - simply because it is preventable doesn't mean it should be, simply because somebody has not lived to be over 80 doesn't mean they shouldn't die. Is the death of a baby any more tragic than the death of a 5 year old, 10 year old, 20 year old, 40 year old etc........ Death is Death it is a natural part of the cycle of life and can strike at any part of it. Keeping people alive in abject poverty simply for the sake of keeping them alive is not doing them any favours, merely prolonging their suffering so we have to begin to accept and allow people to die and recognise that as ugly as it may seem sometimes the right to life is dependant upon the economic ability of the person or country to provide what is necessary - be it food, or be it half a million dollar neurosurgery.

As a child I grew up in a household that belonged to the far religious right and we were taught that China's one child policy was evil etc...... something I think even the antithesis of the religious right, the catholic church, would agree with. But it is this policy that has made it possible for China to bring such large percentages of its population out of poverty, and those that are alive in China and reaping the benefits that this policy has enabled would no doubt much prefer to have their current standard of living than 10 brothers and sisters, but be in a hovel starving and relying on food aid. I think there is no doubt that Chinas economic success would never have been possible but for these policies and I think that Africas economic success will also never be possible unless something similar happens there either through nature taking its course or maybe governments there becoming more far sighted.

One thing that is for sure though, the current policies of the west in providing aid are already unable to meet the demand, and this will only get worse while these policies continue just to address the symptoms and not the causes. Its an ugly truth, but the truth it is - Sorry Gwyneth....