|
In Sub-Saharan Africa,
rainfall is erratic and amounts to less than 800mm throughout the year. Life
of rural families depends on an intimate relationship with a dust-ridden
barren land that yields little nourishment for them and their animals.
Women, especially in Africa, play a crucial role in rural land management.
They walk almost 5Km daily in search of water and firewood. They bear & rear
many children, cook and maintain the family home. As almost half of the 84
million women in Sub-Saharan Africa are illiterate, it is an enormous
challenge for aid agencies to inform and train them to achieve
self-sufficiency in food production.
In Gambia, women have
been encouraged to plant trees, including cashew, neverdie and papaya. They
have learnt to plant and fertilise seedlings as well as using trees as live
fences. In many areas, the resilient Acacia tree provides nutritious pods
for feeding animals, firewood and charcoal for cooking food, thorny branches
as fencing materials to keep out wild animals, gum Arabic sold as a food
thickener, shade for grass and grazing cattle. The acacias are
nitrogen-fixing plants that enrich poor sandy soils – an essential “repair
kit” for depleted soils and for preventing deforestation in prolonged
periods of drought.
With face to face
training sessions using graphically illustrated posters depicting local
people and practices, flip charts and video film with commentary in the
tribal language, African women are encouraged to adopt better farming
practices based on new technology e.g. Illiterate women from four
tribal/linguistic groups (Mandinka, Fula, Diola, Wolof) in Gambia were
introduced to the benefits of the neem tree in controlling pests against
food crops as well as the value of local production of mango jam and cashew
pancakes. In Zimbabwe, women have learnt to plan their harvests of Broom
grass used for making brooms.
The industrial
revolution in Europe transformed European industry as well as agriculture.
In the same way, the use of solar and wind energy can transform rural
economies in Sub-Saharan countries to help eliminate poverty, disease and
death of millions every year. Using existing solar technology, affordable
solar stoves can be produced for cooking meals. This would save millions of
African women many hours each day in search of firewood. It would stop
deforestation, improve soil conditions and offer the prospect of better
yields on food crops. A solar powered water pump could draw water from a
borehole and pump it to homes giving instant access to potable water to
rural families. Once again, this would eliminate many hours wasted in search
of water far from home. Freed from these daily chores, the rural African
family would have time to plant more food crops, irrigate their crops and
tend their livestock. It would free African children so that they could
attend schools and training colleges to acquire vocational skills. It would
help sanitation and prevent diseases that kill so many millions.
Wind farms generating
energy could supply electricity to villages, towns and cities right across
Africa transforming its agriculture, local industry and economy. Africans
would be liberated from the shackles of ancient technology that deprives
them of the opportunity to be globally competitive.
The G8 meeting in July
2005 must accept that international aid to the poor in Africa so far has
been no more than a drip feed. It may impress politicians but it does not
impact on us as we watch on our television screens the poor die of lack of
water, hunger and curable diseases! The British public generously donated
£300m for the Tsunami and Bill Gates Foundation has donated billions to
numerous worthy causes. This is proof of genuine concern and compassion of
many of us in the rich industrialised countries.
Let us impress on the
G8 leaders to incorporate in all aid to the poor a major allocation of
resources specifically for implements using solar and wind energy for
African countries. Energy for the poor will help eliminate disease, poverty
and civic unrest that lead to war and terror forcing so many to flee to our
shores.
|
