The West African Food Crisis
Jim Meyer
Social Ethics
3.30.2013
Food Crisis in West Africa
Africa looks like it might be hit once more by a food crisis, this time in the arid Sahel region of Western Africa. A Famine Early Warning System - which accurately prophesied the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa now, warns millions in West Africans that they will face a food crisis in 2012. Men, women and children are destined to be buried because of deprivation, famine and starvation. We are looking at an unprecedented food catastrophe. “The parallels between the Horn of Africa famine and the early warnings in West Africa are striking,” says Stephen Cockburn, regional campaign and policy manager for Oxfam 's Dakar office.1
The world has been put on warning. This is a disaster growing like a tsunami, touching many millions, leaving many lives on a knife-edge and the U.N. has already said it requires another $1.5 billion to deal with the problem. The time ahead is critical here, amid serious warnings about more dry weather. Hospitals in southern Niger, have a serious crisis in the making as children continue dying. There is a bed that becomes a skeletal frame as yet another child dies from hunger. Existing pains to alleviate hunger have been far short of efforts which would necessitate a considerable sacrifice.
When most of us first see images and pictures of extremely malnourished and starving children as those above and below, we want to help them, it’s a sense of responsibility to them, we feel sympathy and compassion toward them. We want to strengthen this sympathetic reaction because this conviction articulates that we are accountable to the children that are malnourished, starving and ravished. We contend that we have a responsibility to hungry children unless there are convincing reasons which show that this sympathetic reaction is morally incongruous.2 They are certainly not the reason for the famine, and over-population; nor are they blamable for social, political, and economic
Social Ethics
3.30.2013
Food Crisis in West Africa
Africa looks like it might be hit once more by a food crisis, this time in the arid Sahel region of Western Africa. A Famine Early Warning System - which accurately prophesied the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa now, warns millions in West Africans that they will face a food crisis in 2012. Men, women and children are destined to be buried because of deprivation, famine and starvation. We are looking at an unprecedented food catastrophe. “The parallels between the Horn of Africa famine and the early warnings in West Africa are striking,” says Stephen Cockburn, regional campaign and policy manager for Oxfam 's Dakar office.1
The world has been put on warning. This is a disaster growing like a tsunami, touching many millions, leaving many lives on a knife-edge and the U.N. has already said it requires another $1.5 billion to deal with the problem. The time ahead is critical here, amid serious warnings about more dry weather. Hospitals in southern Niger, have a serious crisis in the making as children continue dying. There is a bed that becomes a skeletal frame as yet another child dies from hunger. Existing pains to alleviate hunger have been far short of efforts which would necessitate a considerable sacrifice.
When most of us first see images and pictures of extremely malnourished and starving children as those above and below, we want to help them, it’s a sense of responsibility to them, we feel sympathy and compassion toward them. We want to strengthen this sympathetic reaction because this conviction articulates that we are accountable to the children that are malnourished, starving and ravished. We contend that we have a responsibility to hungry children unless there are convincing reasons which show that this sympathetic reaction is morally incongruous.2 They are certainly not the reason for the famine, and over-population; nor are they blamable for social, political, and economic
Cited: Baldauf, Scott. "Famine Alert: West Africa Still has Time to Avoid 2012 Food Crisis." The Christian Science Monitor: 2. Dec 12 2011. ProQuest. Web. 30 Mar. 2013 .