| Tears and snot - a universal image of dying children |
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| Written by Daniel Steinmann | ||||
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The hallmark of poverty the world over is abused and neglected children.
My hurt is always gripped by the sad images one sees on television showing scores of displaced people living under the most appalling conditions. And invariably these images are filled with the desperate reality of suffering infants and toddlers.
The face of poverty the world over is the same. The face of poverty in
Africa is extreme. And it is always the very young that is affected
most. Poverty is the most pressing economic and political issue that will face us for the next 100 years. Given that we are now in the midst of an energy crisis, it is perhaps fit to remember Fritz Schumacher’s watershed work “Small is beautiful” in 1973 at the onset of the previous major energy crisis. This little book has a subtitle “Economics as if people mattered” and it applies every bit as much today, as then. But the question I keep asking myself is: Why do we seem to proliferate at a faster rate when conditions for raising children are at their worst? I think Schumacher identified one of the most important fundamental elements of development when he described an end-of-the-road scenario for typical western-style profit driven enterprises. Schumacher rightly pointed out to the basic fact: We live on a finite globe with finite resources. That reality is slowly impressing itself upon us in two ways. Firstly, the way we are modifying our environment and our climate and secondly, the millions upon millions of unwanted children who have absolutely no future in the modern world. This week, the World Bank held its annual conference on Development Economics in Cape Town. This event did not nearly receive the same exposure and attention as last week’s World Economic Forum, but in my mind, many more basic truths were expressed at the lesser event than at the first. In one of the plenary sessions on regional integration, growth and poverty, the speaker said southern Africa is in trouble as far as regional integration goes. Reading these remarks, I recall the Southern African Customs Unions meeting late last year in Gaberones where it became apparent there are serious cracks in the almost century-old trade block. Opinions expressed at the Development Economics conference echoed my earlier impressions. The nations in southern Africa simply do not have the institutional and legal framework yet, to work together towards a meaningful, practical and lasting integration of the region. For our efforts to combat poverty, this spells future trouble. And the sad reality is: we shall still see many images of poverty-stricken children suffering under the most disadvantaged conditions before we see images of improvement. |
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