Uganda:Challenges of the Digital Divide

The agricultural revolution like the industrial revolution made their impact on societies like the Information Revolution has and continues to do. Those of us who are paranoid that fat cats from corporate America and Europe have a hidden agenda with this Digital divide thing will simply have to appreciate global realities. There is no further pretence about corporate capital interests. The agenda for the capitalist elite is on and almost irreversible. The key concept is aggressive competitiveness in economic terms. Can Uganda ignore or block the flow of foreign capital into her economy while experiencing a land bonanza to investors? The resistances experienced to reforms in Uganda whether it’s about land re-allocation to investors or privatization of inefficient public corporations is purely a lack of cohesion on the direction the country must take especially among the political elite. The visible intellectual paralysis in institutional decision-making processes is attributable to a lack of a shared national vision for the future.

This intellectual paralysis is visible across most of Africa. Countries that have invested in strategically in key sectors such as energy, transport, telecommunicatio, education and security have stood out more competitve than their sisters stuck in the industrial revolution structural formations. South Africa, Tunisia today stand out of the crowd as Information states while the rest are the bloated governments of the past century. ICT like any other engine of development operates in an intergrated way. In Uganda today, much as government have made good of the policy incentives to develop ICT through taxation incentives, it has not done the same on energy which has hit the heart of ICT growth with constant power black-outs. That even with the formation of the ICT Ministry,politically its hard to tell whether the government has the vision to re-engineer business, restructure government departments and streamline operations in order to be in the lead of revolutionarizing economic production.

ICT today is an epicenter of development because it helps economies run competitively in this era of the information boom.Malysia; Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong have upgraded their economies because the right political decisions have been made by the top leadership. These Governments that have digitalized Information today have made a shift from industrial revolution structural formations because they see reason for being people-centered governments. They appreciate the good in building accountable and efficient national institutions that must serve country. In Africa we are stunted in the industrial revolution structures manifested by big cabinets, big armies, a Nambole parliament, a battalion of RDCs, LCs, DISOs, DPCs, Presidential Advisors, Mobilizers and all forms of Public Administration bloated ness. This characteristics render human capital redundant and non productive as predation on the state is perpetuated politically albeit ignorantly or deliberately.

Governments, all over the world are the biggest custodian of Public Information and must be the biggest employer of ICT so that it can complement and serve the Business Community and Citizens more efficiently. The Telecom Industry in Uganda is doing fairly well but needs infrastructural and policy incentives such as a stable energy supply and the right policy prescription to reduce cost of administration. The establishment of the Ministry of ICT must reflect a shift in policy and a clear vision of where the top leadership wants the country to go. The momentum for policy formulation and implementation must reflect a committed leadership too. The Private Sector in Partnership needs a government willing to re-engineer business processes. For government to fully appreciate the positive impact of ICT It has to develop a vision and the right policy thrust. It is from the Political vision that government will see the need to restructure its departments and reduce inter-agency duplication (URA, UIA, ULC etc) of roles and thus reduction of wastage and paralysis in decision making. It means automation of business processes and therefore a government going On-Line. Restructuring of government means elimination of whole or merging of redundant departments with potential to demobilize personnel. This is political and has cultural and political back-lashes but the good must always out-weigh the bad. The fear to take bold decisions especially when fully armed with knowledge of models that have worked should be discouraged.

The right policy prescription means addressing those strategic sectors that will help expand an economy for all. It means strategically addressing the energy demand issues in the immediate, short and long term. I means exploring renewable energy sources, it means revamping the education system to build a core human capital to meet the new global, regional and national market demands, it means forming strategic public-private partnerships, it means looking into the future and extrapolating our strategic national alignment with the emerging regional and global alliances. Finally it means revolutionarizing our thinking and attaching value to time. It is a shared vision that will bring cohesion on our development needs, priorities and then embark on building a future Uganda for our children.

Shaka Robert
Network Engineer/Biochemist

Oil in Uganda's Albertine Rift-watch out for fat cats from the corporate world

Heritage Oil? Executive Out-Comes? Saracen? Sandline? The Common Denominator in all these outfits is Tony Buckinghum aka 'Bishop" in the chess game. This piece of research would help the President and his strategic policy advisors to understand the trail of the multi-national corporate interests in our midst so that appropriate anti-dotes are deployed in the defense of our strategic national interests. According to the IRIN Web Special Report on Ituri, the "prospect of petrodollars in Ituri may have provided a new impetus to the bloody battle for control of Ituri in 2002." The Albertine oil concessions are likely to become the next big thing. Ituri region and the Lakes Albert, George and Edward, around which the oil concessions are located, as well as the Semliki Flats, are in the Albertine Rift.

The Albertine Rift has a massive potential to be the most productive source of oil in Africa. The Albertine Rift covers a vast region that forms the frontiers between Congo on one side and Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Sudan. Geological surveys have indicated potential oil reserves in the Semliki basin, south of Lake Albert. A Canadian firm, Heritage Oil Corporation, has been exploring western Uganda since 1997 and is in the process of drilling a test well in the area called "Turaco-1". In June 2002, Heritage signed an agreement with President Joseph Kabila to gain initial rights to a staggering 3.1 million hectares of eastern DRC, including eastern Ituri. Drilling on the Ugandan side of the border has shown positive results. In another illustration of the links between the security and commercial dimensions of the conflict, a founder and director of Heritage Oil, Anthony (Tony) Buckingham, was the "inspiration behind Sandline [International]", the British private security firm.

Canada-based mineral extraction firms account for 30% of the world investment in African mining, and their reputation is rotten on account of their aggressive methods. Besides Heritage Oil Corporation, controversial Canada-based firms include Talisman that fueled war in The Sudan, Diamond Works that gained notoriety for human rights abuses in Sierra Leone, and Bre-X Minerals which claimed it had discovered the largest gold deposit in history at Busang, Indonesia. Independent analysts later concluded that Bre-X had perpetrated a hoax "without precedent in the history of mining anywhere in the world." Bre-X’s stock value collapsed by US $3 billion almost overnight, raising questions that remain unanswered about regulations governing the Canadian mining sector. The Buckingham "inspired" Sandline is the British mercenary company that broke a UN arms embargo in Sierra Leone, allegedly with British government approval. Sandline was also the principle cause of the political uprising in Papua New Guinea in March of 1997.

Civilians and troops opposed to the Sandline military contract took to the streets after Brigadier Jerry Singirok made a public radio broadcast denouncing the contract. Sandline is infamous for its involvement, along with another mercenary organization, Executive Outcomes, in the war in Sierra Leone. Sandline was contracted for $10 million by Canada-based businessman Rakesh Saxena to execute a coup d'etat in Sierra Leone. Saxena is famously implicated in the fraud and collapse of the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, and his business dealings with the Saudi weapons' dealer Adnan Kashoggi. Saxena and his associates are reputed to have embezzled $2.2 billion from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce in 1996. The ensuing crisis caused the collapse of the Baht and of the Thai economy. Besides Sandline and Executive Outcomes, Tony Buckingham is also involved in another mercenary outfit called Indigo Sky Gem. According to a Sandline report on its incorporation in 1996, Tony Buckingham was the inspiration behind Sandline, Tim Spicer is its Chief Executive, Michael Grunberg has acted as a consultant and Nic van den Bergh was the leader of the team sub-contracted from Executive Outcomes to undertake some of the work in Papua New Guinea. At the Papua New Guinea Commission of Enquiry into Sandline's contract with the PNG government, Colonel Tim Spicer denied that Sandline was part of Executive Outcomes. However the Enquiry concluded that the 'controllers' of Sandline International were obviously Anthony Buckingham, Michael Grunberg and at least to some extent Mr Spicer.

It said Executive Outcomes was a 'significant' sub-contractor of Sandline and 'supplied a significant number of the personel' brought to PNG by Sandline. Tony Buckinghum is the senior director of Heritage Oil. The Heritage Oil Corporation website describes Mr. Buckingham merely as "a self-employed businessman with a wide array of international business interests, particularly in Africa. He is the founder of the Heritage Group. Mr. Buckingham commenced his involvement in the oil industry as a North Sea diver and subsequently became a concession negotiator acting for several companies including Ranger Oil Limited and Premier Oil plc." Heritage Oil Corporation is listed as a Canadian-based independent, international oil and gas exploration, development and production company, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the listing "HOC.A".

In 1997 Heritage Oil and Gas, its parent company was listed as a London-based Bahamian company with the Block 3 concession in the southern Lake Albert Basin and around Semliki Flats. The head office of Heritage Oil is in Calgary Alberta. Its partner in Uganda is called Uganda Africa Energy Corporation, a subsidiary of South African based Africa Energy Corporation, that has 50-50 split of any profits with the Heritage Oil Corporation. In fact Heritage Oil and Executive Outcomes have a long history together. Executive Outcomes fought against UNITA in 1993 to recover the oil storage area in Soya owned by Heritage Oil and Sonangol. At that time Executive Outcomes claimed that they were security guards of the Heritage Oil facilities, and that they were justified in their actions. It appears that Heritage Oil and Executive Outcomes are owned by the same network of mercenary corporations that includes Branch Energy (reputedly a Heritage Oil share holder), ex-South African troops, and Canadian mineral extraction firms. Heritage Oil has operations in Angola, Congo-Brazaville, DRC, Oman, and Uganda. Executive Outcomes was involved in Sierra Leone, Angola, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Canada. Measures to curb the commercial fuel of the conflict have been suggested by the UN panel's report, which recommends reducing development aid flows to offending countries; tighter controls on the trade in conflict goods; travel bans on individuals; freezing of personal assets; and blacklisting of selected companies and individuals from dealings with international financial institutions. Mercenaries, now simply called "private military contractors", some of whom are subsidiaries of Fortune 500 companies in the USA, are violating the Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. Moreover, the US is now completely dependent on mercenaries for the conduct of its defense policy, and most likely cannot conduct war without mercenaries.

Mercenary companies are reinventing themselves as humanitarian organizations, learning to use double speak with dangerous alacrity. MPRI claims to provide training in Democratic Transition in Nigeria, and a subsidiary is promoting Gender Equality mercenarism, presumably because its run by a retired female officer. Sandline describes itself as a "Peacekeeping" operation. The surrealism is astounding. Military Professional Resources Inc [MPRI], the most prestigious mercenary corporation in the world, is run by retired US generals, including some of sterling reputation and exceptional skills at humanitarian discourse. It is likely that either they or their African employers are naive about the historic crime they are engaged in. Unlike sovereign foreign governments engaged in training, they do not have accountability to voters, nor are they bound by a consistent policy, and in Africa they are not sensitized to the struggle to end neocolonialism and the need for African unity. The MPRI training of the Nigerian Armed Forces included simulated killing of Ghanaians.

The political ethos of the MPRI, like Bush's divisive Africa policy, is just wrong headed and ignorant. Supposedly the US has no problem using private military contractors to train the US army. After all the contractors are Americans, well grounded in American war doctrine, and their patriotism may be unquestionable, seeing as they fought for their country for no money, why would they do otherwise for high contract fees? However, ex US marine generals have no business teaching Africans how to kill other Africans. They should know better. The African governments may delude themselves in thinking that mercenaries are alright in activities that do not actually involve combat, such as logistical support to battlefield training and military advice, but this is a false understanding of what Africans need to be doing to resolve their conflicts. Private military contractors go where the Pentagon would prefer not to be seen, carrying out military exercises for the American government, far from Washington's view. In the last few years, they have sent their employees to Bosnia, Nigeria, Macedonia, and Colombia. Using a method first employed by the Cubans in the Congo, the US deploys African-American mercenaries for assignments that involve combat in situations that violate international law, or in wh
ich the presence of whites would raise questions.

The Rwandan government has come under direct accusation by UN agencies for allowing US based African American mercenaries access to the Congo. But the use of Diaspora Africans for sensitive mercenary work began during the era of the international slave trade, and is no different from the use of ethnic manipulation in Africa's "indegenous" conflicts . It is a conflicted legacy that causes a lot of confusion among all Africans, whether diaspora-born or motherland-born, and exploiting this says a lot about the US government. The apartheid regime excelled at the use of this strategy, but in the end it failed. The Organization of African Unity and the international revulsion over apartheid was just too strong. Perhaps the revulsion over the continued militarization of Africa and the looting and misery caused by shady mercenary programs will result in the fall of mercenarism. Motivated as much by profits as politics, these companies — about 35 all told in the United States — need the government's permission to be in business.

A few are somewhat familiar names, like Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Company that operates for the government in Cuba and Central Asia. Others have more cryptic names, like DynCorp; Vinnell, a subsidiary of TRW; SAIC; ICI of Oregon; and Logicon, a unit of Northrop Grumman. MPRI, boasts of having "more generals per square foot than in the Pentagon." But merceranries, or private military contractors, as they like to call themselves, can be singularly unsuited for involvement in conflict. And results can be disastrous. In Bosnia, employees of DynCorp were found to be operating a sex-slave ring of young women who were held for prostitution after their passports were confiscated. In Croatia, local forces, trained by MPRI, used what they learned to conduct one of the worst episodes of "ethnic cleansing," an event that left more than 100,000 homeless and hundreds dead and resulted in war-crimes indictments. No employee of either firm has ever been charged in these incidents. In Peru in 2001, a plane carrying an American missionary and her infant was accidentally shot down when a private military contractor misidentified it as on a drug smuggling flight.

When a United Nations arms embargo restricted the American military in the Balkans, private military contractors were sent instead to train the local forces. In Africa mercernaries keep conflicts going that should have been exhausted or that could be resolved by diplomacy. In all cases the use of mercenaries intensifies the use of terror and brutality as a tactic. In most cases the terrorists are trained by mercenaries sponsored by governments that are not prepared to accept responsibility for the techniques and doctrine they are passing on to Africans. The mercenary corporations in the African Union are driving out the legitimate business corporations. The case of the Heritage Oil Corporation is a case in point. Locals living in the Albertine Rift's Ituri region and the Rwenzori range may only now have began to reel from the effects of intractable military conflict. Once oil supplants diamonds and gold as the main commodity of the region, the number of casualties could go up as regimes entrench themselves even more deeply, corrupted and supported by mercenaries with greed for petrodollars.

Shaka Robert
Social Enterprenuer

Africa's Exclusion & The Crisis of the globalistst Project.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with Diplomats:

Africa faces a much more state of hopelessness as the Globalist Project, despite all its hiccups and benefits, Africa has not and will not be in the global lenses at all till a critical threat to Europe and North America from a Climatic perspective becomes an immediate danger and reality. Until Chancellor Gordon Brown thrusted forward Labor's new moral crusade, in an effort to rebuild Labor's electoral fortunes after the damage of taking Britain to war in Iraq based on doctored intelligence, Africa was yet available for the wrong reasons for the British to experiment on their electoral strategy.

The launch of The Africa Commission, known as the Blair Commission on Africa, before the British Election was aimed at rebuilding the Labor Party and Mr. Blair's tattered Image having taken his Country to Iraq based on sexed up Intelligence. It was aimed at re-aligning the British to another humanitarian foreign Policy so much to rehabilitate and not really to develop Africa. Mr.George.W.Bush Vs Al Gore having got serious electoral glitches which made the American 2000 Presidential Elections look like typical African Elections with the help of his strategists had to fish out a troubled Island for yet another moral crusade that would effectively help consolidate him as the President of the Americas.

The man who did not know the location of Nigeria during his campaigns in 2000, made a mother of all tours in Africa by a Republican President to Africa announcing> the $15bn HIV/AIDS PEPFAR Initiative thus getting his Baptism as the COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT. With a largely agro-based peasant economy, Africa has been left to> remain a medieval society characterized by violence, disease, hunger, wanton poverty, Ignorance, HIV/AIDS as others plan expeditions to the moon and further into the universe. African elites have not been so gullible though in this status quo of master/slave or donor/recipient relationship between the West and Africa.

They have been reduced to consumers as they form the political class with no means of production but intellectual empowerment for predation. Fundamental social evolution of most African societies today presents another picture from a statistical point of view. The population is exploding at an alarming rate causing real global concerns. And Uganda is in the lead position with an annual average growth rate of about a million people despite the food insecurity, disease, HIV/AIDS and all the other calamities characteristic of the Sub-Saharan region. This population explosion can be explained from an ecological perspective but equally presents the most hidden strategic key to opening our door to the geo-global political system as agents of development rather than beings waiting for humanitarian interventions in perpetuity. The natural instinct that dictates genetic self preservation has induced Africans and Ugandans in rural communities into this wave of mass-reproduction. No population planning program has been able to decelerate the current reproductive rates among the illiterates in Uganda. No amount of HIV/AIDS has forced the very drenched of the earth from their natural responsibility of self-preservation. No amount of famine, draught, or violence has stopped the most vulnerable from re-producing and all this points to that survivorship phenomenon where many Africans and Ugandans find themselves in this lop-sided global order that emphasized aid rather than balanced trade.

The threat and reality of global warming in Europe today makes Africa a serious partner in development rather than merely keeping the position of the Carbon Dioxide sink it has been in the last century of the Industrial revolution. The US, more interested in aggressive capitalism, is unwilling to sign the Kyoto treaty which reflected the concern of Europe on the effect of massive industrial carbon dioxide emissions causing the depletion of the Ozone layer thus accelerating global warming. From London in Britain, Paris in France, Geneva in Switzerland, Oslo in Norway and across the Scandinavians nations, Ice-blocks are melting under a critical assault of the record summer heat waves. But the heat wave carried by winds from Africa has more devastating consequences in the Swiss mountatins, The Alps, shifting freezing points to a much higher altitude and melting the ice that normally binds the rock faces together at the height of the climbing season.


Scientists in Europe now recognize another role of the Alps, like many mountain ranges with glaciers, as a barometer to asses the extent of climatic change and the> impact of global warming. In Uganda today, the Scandinavian nations have a massive environmental program which indeed emphasizes growing trees by the rural folks. Poor Africans will not grow trees because that is not their immediate interest. They do not even care what forests are for because they are illiterate. They also want land to grow food for their growing large families since they can't sell their produce anywhere.The increasing population of the poor and illiterate who form the most important agent of environmental degradation forms the epicenter of my discussion.

Agriculture in rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa is mainly for subsistence purposes. Collapsing Market prices for agricultural produce often in raw form does not favor small farmers in Africa. The Subsidized extension farmers in Europe, Japan and America who enjoy Economies of scale, value addition through agro-processing enjoy the fruits of their work. With the IMF/World Bank thrusted SAPs, the rural poor cannot effectively respond to Markets which is the back bone of Economic Liberalization and in the process, they have been reduced to survivors and at the mercy of nature. This forms the cornerstone of Africa's current wave of population Explosion and the obvious Natural Forest Cover Degradation.

The use of firewood as the only energy source by the rural poor forms the basic reason for forest degradation. The high cost of power in urban/semi-urban centers has forced many poor urbanites to resort to charcoal as the source of energy and this forms the market for the burnt charcoal by the rural poor as the only sound economic activity with no serious financial requirement for investment apart from an axe and ones energy. Since they are many in number they form a critical mass of forest cover destruction. As Africa fells down her natural tropical forests to create land for agricultural produce to sustain her growing poor and illiterate population, she is degrading the Carbon Dioxide Sink that has supported the Industrial Revolution far off her continent for a Century. This is causing more and more carbon Monoxide emissions to the atmosphere resulting into the heat waves from Africa heating Europe and drastically changing the climate. Having shouldered the global climate for years Africa is not responding to markets but to nature to survive. Environmental Programs funded by Norwegians, The British, the Dutch and Danish will not make Impact if the population growth rates are not checked. This can be done by improving the standard of living of the poor to become agent of development rather than beings who deserve humanitarian interventions in perpetuity. These poor people need education of worth as interested group of their environment.

Africa overall needs sound Infrastructural development, economic empowerment through balanced trade and not "donor AID" which has been the focus of most Global Planners. The energy sectors needs revamping and accessibility issues physically and in terms of cost need to be addressed. Europe in this century faces a real threat of submersion by the sea if the current temperature Increments, which point to a drastic Climatic change, are not checked. The growing population in Africa holds the Key to our strategic gate-way into World Affairs. Europe must address issues to do with Trade, Agricultural subsidizes lest Africans remain poor, respond to their natural instincts of self-preservation, degrade the Environment and finally Europe gets the heat waves they do not need.

Shaka Robert

Africa's Population Explosion-A case for genetic self preservation!!

Young and Hopeful Children, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in the wings.

Africa has not and will not be in the global lenses at all till a critical threat to Europe and North America from a Climatic perspective becomes an immediate danger and reality. Until Chancellor Gordon Brown thrusted forward Labor's new moral crusade, in an effort to rebuild Labor's electoral fortunes after the damage of taking Britain to war in Iraq based on doctored intelligence, Africa was yet available for the wrong reasons for the British to experiment on their electoral strategy.

Organized farmers.

The launch of The Africa Commission, known as the Blair Commission on Africa, before the British Election was aimed at rebuilding the Labor Party and Mr. Blair's tattered Image having taken his Country to Iraq based on sexed up Intelligence. It was aimed at re-aligning the British to another humanitarian foreign Policy so much to rehabilitate and not really to develop Africa. Mr.George.W.Bush Vs Al Gore having got serious electoral glitches which made the American 2000 Presidential Elections look like typical African Elections with the help of his strategists had to fish out a troubled Island for yet another moral crusade that would effectively help consolidate him as the President of the Americas.

Young People Need an Education of Worth.

The man who did not know the location of Nigeria during his campaigns in 2000, made a mother of all tours in Africa by a Republican President to Africa announcing> the $15bn HIV/AIDS PEPFAR Initiative thus getting his Baptism as the COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT. With a largely agro-based peasant economy, Africa has been left to> remain a medieval society characterized by violence, disease, hunger, wanton poverty, Ignorance, HIV/AIDS as others plan expeditions to the moon and further into the universe. African elites have not been so gullible though in this status quo of master/slave or donor/recipient relationship between the West and Africa.
Our Children Deserve Quality Life.
They have been reduced to consumers as they form the political class with no means of production but intellectual empowerment for predation. Fundamental social evolution of most African societies today presents another picture from a statistical point of view. The population is exploding at an alarming rate causing real global concerns. And Uganda is in the lead position with an annual average growth rate of about a million people despite the food insecurity, disease, HIV/AIDS and all the other calamities characteristic of the Sub-Saharan region. This population explosion can be explained from an ecological perspective but equally presents the most hidden strategic key to opening our door to the geo-global political system as agents of development rather than beings waiting for humanitarian interventions in perpetuity. The natural instinct that dictates genetic self preservation has induced Africans and Ugandans in rural communities into this wave of mass-reproduction. No population planning program has been able to decelerate the current reproductive rates among the illiterates in Uganda. No amount of HIV/AIDS has forced the very drenched of the earth from their natural responsibility of self-preservation. No amount of famine, draught, or violence has stopped the most vulnerable from re-producing and all this points to that survivorship phenomenon where many Africans and Ugandans find themselves in this lop-sided global order that emphasized aid rather than balanced trade.
Intensive farming.The threat and reality of global warming in Europe today makes Africa a serious partner in development rather than merely keeping the position of the Carbon Dioxide sink it has been in the last century of the Industrial revolution. The US, more interested in aggressive capitalism, is unwilling to sign the Kyoto treaty which reflected the concern of Europe on the effect of massive industrial carbon dioxide emissions causing the depletion of the Ozone layer thus accelerating global warming. From London in Britain, Paris in France, Geneva in Switzerland, Oslo in Norway and across the Scandinavians nations, Ice-blocks are melting under a critical assault of the record summer heat waves. But the heat wave carried by winds from Africa has more devastating consequences in the Swiss mountatins, The Alps, shifting freezing points to a much higher altitude and melting the ice that normally binds the rock faces together at the height of the climbing season.

Incentives to love the environment?
Scientists in Europe now recognize another role of the Alps, like many mountain ranges with glaciers, as a barometer to asses the extent of climatic change and the impact of global warming. In Uganda today, the Scandinavian nations have a massive environmental program which indeed emphasizes growing trees by the rural folks. Poor Africans will not grow trees because that is not their immediate interest. They do not even care what forests are for because they are illiterate. They also want land to grow food for their growing large families since they can't sell their produce anywhere.The increasing population of the poor and illiterate who form the most important agent of environmental degradation forms the epicenter of my discussion.

How do they concern their environment?

Agriculture in rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa is mainly for subsistence purposes. Collapsing Market prices for agricultural produce often in raw form does not favor small farmers in Africa. The Subsidized extension farmers in Europe, Japan and America who enjoy Economies of scale, value addition through agro-processing enjoy the fruits of their work. With the IMF/World Bank thrusted SAPs, the rural poor cannot effectively respond to Markets which is the back bone of Economic Liberalization and in the process, they have been reduced to survivors and at the mercy of nature. This forms the cornerstone of Africa's current wave of population Explosion and the obvious Natural Forest Cover Degradation.

Children working against all odds.

The use of firewood as the only energy source by the rural poor forms the basic reason for forest degradation. The high cost of power in urban/semi-urban centers has forced many poor urbanites to resort to charcoal as the source of energy and this forms the market for the burnt charcoal by the rural poor as the only sound economic activity with no serious financial requirement for investment apart from an axe and ones energy. Since they are many in number they form a critical mass of forest cover destruction. As Africa fells down her natural tropical forests to create land for agricultural produce to sustain her growing poor and illiterate population, she is degrading the Carbon Dioxide Sink that has supported the Industrial Revolution far off her continent for a Century. This is causing more and more carbon Monoxide emissions to the atmosphere resulting into the heat waves from Africa heating Europe and drastically changing the climate. Having shouldered the global climate for years Africa is not responding to markets but to nature to survive. Environmental Programs funded by Norwegians, The British, the Dutch and Danish will not make Impact if the population growth rates are not checked. This can be done by improving the standard of living of the poor to become agent of development rather than beings who deserve humanitarian interventions in perpetuity. These poor people need education of worth as interested group of their environment.
Africa overall needs sound Infrastructural development, economic empowerment through balanced trade and not "donor AID" which has been the focus of most Global Planners. The energy sectors needs revamping and accessibility issues physically and in terms of cost need to be addressed. Europe in this century faces a real threat of submersion by the sea if the current temperature Increments, which point to a drastic Climatic change, are not checked. The growing population in Africa holds the Key to our strategic gate-way into World Affairs. Europe must address issues to do with Trade, Agricultural subsidizes lest Africans remain poor, respond to their natural instincts of self-preservation, degrade the Environment and finally Europe gets the heat waves they do not need.
Shaka Robert