Zim: Forget the crap; what about the aid agencies?

While the negotiations between the major parties on Zimbabwe’s future are ongoing, I have specifically avoided giving any commentary. This is being done to afford the negotiators every chance of succeeding while giving Zimbabwe’s starving masses the opportunity to receive aid.

I therefore find the continued refusal to give the aid agencies access to the majority of the 5.1 million people at risk unbelievable.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7562776.stm

While I’m not going to join in the speculation surrounding these negotiations I would remind the parties, members of the SADC and the South African government that the aid agencies are complaining that less than 20% of the required aid is being allowed in.

As the ZANU-PF. MDC and MDC splinter group are supposedly representing the people of Zimbabwe the first thing you would have expected was agreement to rush through aid for these people.

Apparently that is not the case.

While everyone is fighting about positions and titles could they spare a moment to remedy this (irritating I know) side issue.

In East Africa the Times of London is reporting:

“Rapidly rising global food costs have contributed to the worst hunger crisis in East Africa for eight years, with at least 14 million people at risk of malnutrition, aid agencies said yesterday.

In Ethiopia, the worst-affected country in the region, the Government said that 4.6 million people faced starvation, but aid agencies claimed that the true figure was closer to 10 million.

The United Nations World Food Programme is providing emergency food assistance to 3.2 million people in Ethiopia and 900 000 people in northern Kenya, where poor rains and political violence have disrupted food production.

The programme is also feeding 707 000 people in the Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda, where erratic rainfall has prevented 90 per cent of the population from planting for the current growing season and aims to give help to 115 000 people in Djibouti — just under a quarter of the tiny country’s population.

The UN says that 2.6 million people in Somalia are in need of food assistance as a result of drought, conflict, hyperinflation, and high food and fuel prices. The World Food Programme believes that the figure will rise to 3.5 million in December. ”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4553673.ece

Let’s also spare a thought for our brothers in that region.

While in West Africa the SABC is reporting:

“The combination of abundant natural resources, a history of autocratic, unaccountable government and high perception of corruption have posed particular challenges to governance in West Africa.

Civil bodies in the region are now working to get laws around access to information and freedom of expression laws into statute books.

West Africa is abundant in mineral resources like oil, gold and fishing stock. Yet its people have received little or no benefit from it all. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where half of the continent’s population of 840 million people live on less than $1 a day.”

Whether it’s political, climatic or bad governance that is responsible the time has come for Africa to start looking after its people and preparing for contingencies like East Africa, a lot better than it is doing right now.

In the case of Zimbabwe and West Africa the circumstances bringing about their situation is infinitely worse because the damage is self-inflicted.

Africa has got to learn that every life is sacred and that people are our most valuable resource.

Starting now.