Mama said there will be days like this

Following my open letter to the British Prime Minister I found myself thinking about the issue of declared days to mark certain issues in society.

I have written about some of them MALARIA DAY ,  WORLD POVERTY DAY , BLOG ACTION DAY, there is

International Woman’s Day, World AIDS Day and so on and so forth.

I did wonder if somewhat out loud why we need these days and as one of my  Twitter buddies said,

I look forward to a time when there will be no  WORLD POVERTY DAY

I am not necessary concerned with the fact that we have days to mark these issues  more so with what happens for the rest of the year before the day comes around again.

When I think about the G8 and G20 meetings, they meet year in year out but does any work actually go on to effect change? What about all the other days which deal with righting wrongs/injustices even within society?

Do we all forget about poverty, AIDS, MALARIA, DISABILITY, WAR HEROES until the day to mark these issues comes around again?

Having these days concentrates the issues in question in all of our minds but what can we do about these issues/causes during the year to ensure that one day we can do away with these days?  Does it also mean that we are an unfair lot that we need some in society to remind us once a year to be fair to those less fortunate than us and if so what does it say about the human race!

What about the people directly affected by some of these issues, do they get to have a say? How do we improve their circumstances by having these days?

Just some of my thoughts on DAYS. Have you got a view? Perhaps you are a person that plans those days, EARTH DAY or some such day, please share your thoughts

Share

Will Africa be the source of world food in years to come?

Yeah right! I can hear some say and you will probably be right after all we have all seen the headlines of starving children in Africa. Please bear with me whilst I explain.

The world is changing in ways we never imagined nor expected, folk in the developed world are living longer they are more single households, we use more energy and our eating habits have changed etc.

A consequence of this is that we are having to further for some of these resources including food and it would appear that Africa is seen as rich pickings for what The Guardian journalist called the AFRICA LAND GRAB

This reminds me of the O’level history lessons “The scramble and partition of Africa”, that saw Africa dived up and shared up amongst European nations only this time round there is more at stake as far as I can see any way.

If we agree generally, based on the what we see on television that some African countries can’t afford to feed themselves is it right that African politicians should be selling off land to the developed world for their food production? What is our role in all this? What about that of our politicians

And what continues to perplex me is the fact that none of this food actually ends up on the African market and some of those African countries that are short of food like Kenya have to rely on food Aid from the developed nations. Does this make sense at all?

An interesting story that will be worth keeping an eye on is developing on the coast of Ghana. This sees Tullow Oil “fighting2 it out with local fishermen who believe that Tullow Oil is ruining their livelihoods. But not everyone agrees with the fishermen’s point of view and in the words of one local man man “the fish only benefits the fishermen whilst the oil will bring revenue for the rest of the country” (source BBC Radio 4)

Who is right or wrong depends on your point of view!

But with European waters depleted of fish and those in the industry heading out to African waters for fish, how will this pan out?

Have you got a view on any of this? Looking forward to hearing it

Share

ICT and Governance in the developing world

On my most recent visit to Uganda ( December 2009) I attended an ICT exhibition and learned that Uganda’s Judiciary is promoting the use of ICT to deliver what they call a fair and just judiciary. Whilst at another conference I learned that work was under way to introduce something called an e-government as away of enabling more citizen participation.

Given that more than three quarters of the population in Uganda are excluded from ICT I did wonder how all this would be achieved.

My question therefore is

How do you use ICT to ensure a fair and accessible system of governance in a developing country where more than three quarters of the population do not have access to a computer?

Have you got a view? Please join the discussion

Share