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