Teach a Man to Fish

UK charities have a key role in helping Africa achieve the Millennium Development Goals – and it doesn’t just lie in programme delivery, says Dr Akwasi Aidoo.


It is 2011 and we are 11 years into the 15-year journey towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The final destination is impressive: a world without extreme poverty and hunger, and where universal primary education, gender equality, child survival and good maternal health, among other things, are the norm.

These goals are ambitious but not utopian and when Africa achieves them, the centuries-old suffering and indignities that have afflicted its people would end. Can we accomplish this in the next five years? It is unlikely, but in our lifetime, yes.

Currently, Africa is not on track. As the Sudanese economist, Dr Wani Tombe Lako, put it: "At the current pace, it is unrealistic for African countries to imagine that they could achieve the MDG even in 100 years." Rather than being halved, the levels of poverty and hunger in Africa could easily double by 2015, and Africa is still an ocean of gender inequality. What would it take to get Africa on track? It will take all hands on deck, and three strategic pillars, which I call "the three Ps".

Read the rest of the article at Charity Insight's website.