World Food Program Executive Director James Morris appeared before the United Nations Security Council in early April urging the world not to forget the 40 million Africans who are still in danger of starvation.
Morris told the Security Council,
Commitments to humanitarian aid are political choices and this council is the most important political forum in the world. There is so much each of you can do to focus the attention and resources on the food crises now engulfing much of sub-Saharan Africa.
Morris contrasted the situation in Iraq, where the $1.3 billion will be spent over the next six months although Iraq doesn’t have anywhere near the food problems that sub-Saharan Africa suffers from (and is likely to even with the disruption caused by war).
Morris suggested there was a racial double standard at work,
As much as I don’t like it, I cannot escape the thought that we have a double standard. How is it that we routinely accept a level of suffering and hopelessness in Africa we would never accept in any part of the world? We simply cannot let this stand.
The key word there, though, is “routine.” Spending $1 billion or so on Iraq once in the last 30 years is something the world community will step up to the plate over. Hearing that Ethiopia or some other African nation needs massive food aid year after year will obviously erode support for aid to such countries.
Source:
40 million Africans on brink of starvation, Security Council told. Press Release, United Nations, April 7, 2003.