I agree Yabby. We can't keep throwing food and money into a bottomless pit. The only hope is to assist the people to grow their own food and start their own small businesses etc.

However, corruption is rife in those countries, and any aid or assistance is taken by well-off or violent people just because they can.

I don't know what will happen, but I guess all the aide agencies just have their hands full trying to save lives, let alone trying to help them to help themselves.

It is all too hard for me!

Australian Govt had already sent 40 million $ to assist...
Yabby,
Is there any indication in what form this money was spent ? I'd support it if it were sterilisation equipment with many wheelbarrows & shovels thrown in. I refuse to support out of control breeding with only further starvation on the horizon.

The main cause is the rapidly rising population in the region.
Take Ethiopia as an example. In 1984 there were food shortages and the
population was around 40 million.In response to this Bob Geldof organised giant musicalconcerts in America and Europe which brought in vast amounts of money to feed the hungry.By doing this he saved many lives. Now 27 years later food is again so short that NGO's are issuing a disaster appeal. The population has grown from 40 to 80 million but of this important fact they say nothing. It is blindingly obvious that the rising population is an important factor in causing the disaster. However much money they raise and spend on emergency food aid and improving the agriculture in Ethiopia there will continue to be food shortages because there will be more mouths to feed. I believe they are deceiving donors by concealing this fact
If you feed the the hungry but do not provide family planning clinics giving mothers the CHOICE about the size of their families, you will only increase the number of hungry people in the next generation.

A few years back I watched a documentary on ABC, or SBS, in praise of one of these NGOs that save the world.

In this area they brought in a $200,000 boring rig, & dug a hole. They struck water at 15 ft, & continued to 25 ft, declaring this would never run dry.

They lined the hole, & installed a pump, then after much cheering for the camera by the smiling populous, our heroes climbed onto their white chargers, [Toyotas I think], & drove off to save the world somewhere else.

I thought at the time, "what a waste of time & effort". If these people are so bone idle that they will not dig a well for themselves, they are not worth saving. This is a perfect instance where the Darwin Principal should apply.

Hard? Perhaps, but I dug a well on the outskirts of Bathurst NSW, when I was 10 years old. If we wanted water, we dug a well. No one cried if we did not have water, & neither they should have.

My father had dug one, when he needed water to build our house. However in that post WW11 period, he could not get anything to line the walls, & it collapsed after a few years.

He finally managed to get a few 3 Ft lengths of 3 FT diameter cement pipe, & I was the only one small enough to dig inside that space.

I am horrified that some misguided bleeding hearts want to bring these waste of space, drop kicks here.

I agree with most posters thus far. Just an ever escalating problem unless serious birth control measures are undertaken.

All I can add is again repeat that Iran lowered their birthrate fro 6.5 per woman to less than 2 per woman, thus proving it can be done without draconian methods. Here is a wikipedia link and there are others if one cares to google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran

It certainly needs a concerted education programme by government and support from religous leaders, but it can be done.

What a wonderfull dream not to see anymore pictures of starving babies ever again. But a long way to achieving that.

Without birth control, if we keep feeding them they will keep breeding.

It is obvious the land cannot support the people.
So they must die.
The kindest thing we could do for them would be to send troops in to
shoot them all and put them out of their misery.
Thats what the cattlemen in the Northern Territory are considering
to do.
Are cattle more important than people ?

The whole of Nth Africa is in an overpopulation drive. It is their
own resposibility. Just like populations of other animals when there
is a surge in population they either find space or die where they are.

Mother nature does not negotiate.

What puzzles me is that western man, basically Euro man arrived on
this continent and with an axe and a shovel built this country in
just over 200 years.
Some of these starving people have lived in the area for thousands
of years. Why are they so stuck in their misery ?

Is it religion ? Is it intellectual capacity ?

Whatever it is, I don't think the rest of us will be able to support
them in the low energy future that we face.
As the current food shortage gets worse you may be asked to go hungry
or eat less to enable supplies to be sent to them.