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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 28, 1984
PAGE 9
Recently the LOS ANGELES TIMES ran an excellent in-depth series of articles
for four days (December 16-19, 1984) on "Africa--The Harsh Realities Dim
Hope." Here are highlights from that series, written from various parts of
Africa by staff writer Charles T. Powers. To begin with are excerpts from
the December 16 article datelined Nairobi, Kenya:
The economies of most nations on the continent could serve as
case studies of slow collapse. Food production is losing ground
to an exploding population•••• Poor government is the continent's
greatest handicap. Instability is a plague more constant than
drought.
In the past five years, there have been violent coup attempts in
12 of Black Africa's 39 countries, eight of them successful. In
the quarter-century of the independence era, more than 70 heads
of state have been forcibly removed from office. Thirteen have
been assassinated. Many of those who remain in power seem intent
mainly on enriching themselves••••
The population of Black Africa is growing at the rate of 3.1 per
cent a year, faster than any region of the world. In some coun
tries, notably Zimbabwe and Kenya, the rate exceeds 4 per cent.
Kenya's 19 million people will become 40 million before the year
2000; no one has the slightest idea how Kenya will feed those 40
million on the meager resources now apparent. The .E!esent sub
Saharan African population of 359 million will triple before the
year 2020, the World Bank says. The pressure on African cities
is building remorselessly. In 1960 there were three cities in
Black Africa with a population of more than 500,000. Now there
are 28••••
Per capita food production has been declining for 20 years, to
the point that one person in five is now fed by imported food.
Some of the largest declines in food production have taken place
in countries with the greatest agricultural potential, such as
Nigeria and Zambia. These were countries that once raised enough
food to export.
And the hunger in Africa spreads. The World Bank estimates that
the number of "severely hungry and malnourished people" increased
this year to 100 million.
In Liberia, one child in five is
stunted. In poorer regions of Zambia, the bank says, "height for
age ratios have fallen in all age categories."•.•
Repressive governments dominate a continent where presidents tend
to rule for life unless they are shot out of office•••• The main
concern of too many governments is to stay in power. The focus is
on the immediate future. Far-sighted planning in the fields of
agriculture, family planning and education is�-
Across Af
rica, the leading employer remains government--generally waste
ful, unproductive, moribund--which puts it at once in the con
flicted state of being both the burden and the livelihood of most
o� the people••••
Where African leaders are remembered, they rarely are remembered
for their achievements in power, but rather for their struggles