U.S. Backs Away From Poverty Alleviation

The U.N. lead effort to halve extreme poverty by 2015 has been dealt a sharp blow by the United States. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) create an ambitious plan that, if followed, can alleviate poverty and hunger worldwide using less than 1 percent of the developed world's monetary resources. However, in preparation for next month's U.N. summit, the United States has proposed a revised document that eliminates nearly all mention of the program. With the addition of the recent hurricane disaster, it is unlikely that many foreign aid commitments will be met by the national government for some time.

Potential Financial Boost

The U.N. has put out a call for 88 million dollars of donor support for Malawi. This money would fund both immediate food aid and farming for next season.
The article mentions the complete dependence that Malawian farmers have on rainwater. It would be good to see an irrigation program developed alongside the fertilizer aid. At a Children of the Nations farm I visited, crops were extremely healthy due to a simple irrigation system. Such systems would bring stability to the Malawian agricultural market.

Famine Information

This article contains a lot of information about the present state of Malawi. Their government is planning on spending 80 million on fertilizer, which is great for the future but will obviously not affect the present food shortages. The article states that, falling agricultural output is set to slow economic growth in Malawi to just under three percent in 2005 from 4,6 percent last year, bad news for a country where more than three-quarters of the population live on less than $1 a day.
This is the trap. A poor agricultural nation like Malawi can't rise out of poverty when famine strips away any progress made in earlier years. Africa needs intense support so that economies can grow, diversify, and support people as intended.

The Famine

It seems that this year's famine will directly affect nearly 4.6 million Malawians. While in the country, I watched as COTN dished out a single meal every day to local children. I was told that many of these kids receive only this meal; their families do not have food for them. This was pre-famine. It is hard to think about millions of Malawians being in the same position without the benefit of a group like COTN.