Band Aid 1984 - Legacy

eyescreamcone

Band Aid was set up in 1984 to raise money for those starving in a famine in Ethiopia.
Irish men and women gave generously as visions of a famine were even more distressing for us due to our history.

The population of Ethiopia in 1984 was 40 million persons.
The current population is estimated at 90 million persons.



Why should we continue to send aid to this region and other regions like it???
Are we just encouraging over population and future famine???




I'm not sure if I'm in the correct location.
Mods - please feel free to move it.

RichieC

I heard of one organisation that allows you to invest money in small poor african start ups, its a really great model, your 50 euro could be an awful lot to these people.

here's the url:
http://www.kiva.org


Anyway I think it's a far better model than just simply throwing money at the problem.

Cork boy 55

Ethopia is caught by demographic disentrapment

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/demographic.disentrapment/
A community is demographically trapped if there are too many people for the land to support [they have exceeded the carrying capacity of their ecosystem], AND they have nowhere to go, AND they have too few goods and services to exchange for food and other essentials. The result is the severest poverty, stunting, starvation, and commonly violence.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/demographic_entrapment/Ethiopia.htm

Ethiopia has the reputation of being demographically trapped. Here is a preliminary attempt to document it.
The continuing need for food aid is a good indication of entrapment. Ethiopia shows this particularly clearly.
Population and food aid in Ethiopia. In 1900 Ethiopia's population is estimated to have been 5 million, it is presently about 70 million and is projected to be about 170 million by 2050.
FAO first record food aid it as having been required in 1970. There was a dramatic increase in 1984 with the Live Aid initiative, and an irregular increase subsequently. In 1991 about a million tonnes were required for about 50 million people. Since 250 kg of grain are required per person per year, a tonne feeds four people for a year. A million tones therefore feeds 4 milllion people. So food aid supplied about 8% of Ethiopia's food requirements in that year - without taking account of the unmet needs of much chronic malnutrition. More recent data are not available.

http://countrystudies.us/ethiopia/43.htm
Ethiopia's total fertility is still 6.14 (2000 - 2005), having been 7 in the 1970s. Its population growth rate is 2.69%

Note the following graphic(leeds uni). See how AID(since 1984) is continous and correlates with population growth

Cork boy 55

goose2005

the Ethiopian famine was not caused by overpopulation, it was caused by the terribly misguided plans of Mengistu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984%E2%80%931985_famine_in_Ethiopia