The day of African Child... (2)
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Dear Colleagues
I would like to follow up on Dr. Peter Bujari' s most appropri-
ate comments about parent's responsibility and the Day of the
African Child. First thank you Dr. Peter.
I am based in New York. 20 years ago it was expected that AIDS
would spread like wild-fire through the USA and the NORTH. Ex-
pectation of life was months not years with an HIV-AIDS diagno-
sis. But with enormous effort and commitment of resources the
crisis has receded and is much diminished and essentially under
control.... not totally, but relative to what might have been.
But one cannot say the same for Africa (and other parts of the
global SOUTH). The international community has totally failed to
come to the SOUTH's assistance, and the crisis still is spiral-
ling upwards and out of control. There is little international
effort and commitment of resources.... but there is a massive
and enormously valuable local effort by people and little or-
ganizations we (in the NORTH) know little about.
Local communities and extended families are doing a lot for
children whose parents are gone. But this traditional safety net
is not big enough and rich enough to handle the crisis without
some help from outside. But how to help, when we do not know who
to help. But we (the NORTH) should help. And we (the NORTH) is
generally speaking not helping.
Why not? There are many reasons. One of the big ones is that
small people who would like to help do not trust the various in-
termediary organizations that say they are helping at the grass-
roots level. This is very sad, because some of these organiza-
tions are very good and very responsible, but some are not. How
do you tell the difference? Where is the accounting and account-
ability.... real accounting.... real accountability.... and not
just an audit whitewash that is essentially meaningless!
So today, as we think of the African Child, let us think how is
it going to be possible to organize so that resources can be mo-
bilized and delivered to help the African Child.... all of them!
And for the record, I think that the population in Africa that
is under 16 is around 500 million. Let's make sure health and
education and jobs and opportunities are available as these
young people grow up.
Sincerely,
Peter Burgess
Afrifund in New York
Tel: +1-212-772-6918
mailto:peterb@afrifund.com
http://www.afrifund.com
http://www.afrifund.com/wiki/index.pcgi?page=DevelopmentDialog