From Dr John Moor
Sir, - The Sahel region of Africa is
again in the news (17
August). Directors of different charities make suggestions
about the "root causes" of famine in these parts. Factors mentioned
include "high food prices and inequality" and "a food system
hijacked by agribusiness corporations". Save the Children says: "we
will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis unless we address the
underlying drivers of hunger that children in the Sahel face every
single year."
One such driver is the rapid growth of
human population. In Niger, the population has risen from four
million in 1970 to 16 million now. The fertility rate (average
number of children per woman) is seven, the highest in the world.
In Ethiopia (also experiencing food shortage), the population has
doubled between 1984 and 2012 from 40 million to 80 million. Is it
surprising that, with a finite area of land and many more mouths to
feed, people go hungry?
Helping African women to reduce their
fertility is difficult, and requires social as well as health
measures, but it can be done. Throughout the 1960s, there were food
shortages in Botswana. The fertility rate was six. In 1968, the
newly independent government invited the International Planned
Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to advise and help in this matter.
IPPF recommended a three-pronged programme: that family-planning
clinics should be a core part of primary health care; that special
"under-five clinics" to protect and treat young children should be
established; and that girls and boys should have equal educational
opportunities.
The government accepted this
programme, and the help from IPPF to train local men and women to
execute the plan. Now, in 2012, the fertility rate is 2.8, and food
shortages are a thing of the past.
JOHN MOOR
7 The Avenue, Petersfield, Hampshire