(Vatican Radio) Each year, Africa Day provides an opportunity to acknowledge the achievements
of the peoples and governments of Africa.
Celebrated on May 25, Africa Day
marks the founding in 1963 of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), presently recognized
as the African Union (AU).
The Union, comprised of 53 member states, has brought
together the continent of Africa to collectively address the challenges it has faced,
such as armed conflict, climate change, and poverty.
The observance also reaffirms
the support of the United Nations to African nations for their efforts to build a
better future.
It’s a terrific occasion to shine the light on all things African,
but that of course, is an impossible feat. In fact, quoting from veteran journalist
Ryszard Kapuscinski’s book “The Shadow of the Sun” in which he speaks of his travels
and life in the African Continent: “The continent is too large to describe. It is
a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the
greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say “Africa”. In reality,
except as a geographical appellation. Africa does not exist”.
So, let’s say
it’s an occasion to shine the light on – at least – an aspect, an issue or a geographical
area. One African area which is hardly ever in the limelight is the Sahel, the semiarid
region South of the Sahara Desert.
It stretches between the Atlantic Ocean
and the Red Sea covering part of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Niger, Chad,
Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea.
Over-farming, over-grazing, and over-population
of marginal lands and natural soil erosion have caused serious desertification of
the region. Since the 1960s it has been afflicted by prolonged periods of extensive
drought.
Humanitarian emergencies in Sahel due to climatic events and to political
unrest have been so serious in recent years that the British government has a Special
Envoy to the area as part of a Commonwealth programme to safeguard and promote stability,
security and development in the region. Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni spoke to
the UK Special Envoy to the Sahel, the Right Honorable Stephen O’ Brien MP, about
his mission and about the current situation…
Listen to the interview…
The Rt. Hon.
Stephen O’Brien explains that the Sahel is a large region of extremely marginal land,
just South of the Sahara Desert. It effectively encompasses about 9 countries and
about 100 million people. He says that about between 10 and 20 million of them every
year are under extremely severe food crisis and shortage. He says that “the number
of cases of severe and moderate malnutrition is “eye-wateringly” terrifying”. The
people often go from crisis to crisis. And O’Brien points out: “it’s not just water
shortage of the lack of grazing land for their animals. It’s the huge population explosion
in these countries in areas of land which are increasingly becoming desertified, both
due to the over-exploitation and to some climate change effect”. This is also in area
– he says – to which the international community pays very little attention. An area
in which there have been some terrible conflicts “as well as some extremely big governance
challenges which have led to many people being marginalized and excluded”.
O’Brien
points out that the Sahel is generally neglected “even when taking into account the
recent threat to the region’s stability in Northern Mali which saw the intervention
of the French, in particular, but also of the international community which responded
to the Malian Transitional Government and Army’s request to support them in repelling
the terrorist attacks and the attempt to take over the country”. Whilst the military
intervention has - at this time - been successful, O’Brien concludes, “the big challenge,
the much bigger context to recognize – is development support”. That, he explains,
is both stabilization but also resilience, which has to do with access to food, to
water, to services. And what is important, he continues, is also “just feeling engaged.
So many people feel marginalized from their nation’s affairs”, so it is essential
to give them a sense of shared ownership and engagement with their own country.
O’Brien
says that at a moment in which there is greater international focus, “there are grounds
for much greater confidence that we can find a strategic way forward that is going
to help the people of this area, not just be under such enormous pressure for nourishment,
but to build a much more stable area with greater capacity and trust in their governments”
That, he says, is what will give them greater resilience, and over time the chance
to build their economies which is the best way to tackle poverty.
O’Brien says
that any amount of donor money, of mobilization, of grant aid, however huge and important
it may be at the time, “there is no better antidote to poverty than economic growth
and giving people the chance to grow economically through private sector development
rather than the sort-of “hand-out culture” of the past”.
O’Brien observes
that the Sahel area, just as many others in developing countries, receives press coverage
and attention when something terrible happens – like the recent political upheaval
in Mali – but in fact it should not be neglected.
And this – he says – “is
part of my job as well as being a signal from the British Prime Minister that, in
an area where we haven’t necessarily had a lot of interest or focus, the fact that
he has chosen to appoint his own special envoy to an area where it straddles so many
of the traditional boundaries gives us the opportunity to bring it together in a strategic
way that makes it possible to look at the region as a whole, to identify the sources
of instability and vulnerability for people and their governing classes, and to try
and find the methods by which the international community can be most supportive in
helping stability”. Therefore it’s not just a matter of strengthening security for
all the people in the area, but also giving them economic opportunities as well as
their protection in health and education.