

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.



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.

Shaka Robert
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