CHRISTIAN AID NEWS

Inspired Enraged
Send your views to: The Editor, Christian Aid News, 35 Lower Marsh,
London SE1 7RL or email canews@christian-aid.org
INPUT
POPULATION PRIORITIES
The first article in the last Christian Aid
News (Issue 53) brought me to tears.
Here we can read about two families
with life-threatening problems. In one
family there are six children and in
the other, eight. How can we hope to
improve the lives of such unfortunate
people when their lives are so heavily
handicapped Surely the international
charities bear a heavy responsibility for
not spending a larger fraction of their
resources in the campaign to reduce the
size of families, which is of particular
relevance to Africa.
Dr Sverre Aarseth,
via email
Over the past 30 years food shortages
and famines have frequently occurred
in east Africa. The latest famine is truly
dreadful and is made worse by the
breakdown of law and order in Somalia.
There have been severe droughts in
the past two years and this is indeed
the major precipitating factor. But the
population of the region, which was
already experiencing food shortage in
1984, has been growing very rapidly
since then.
In Ethiopia the population was around
44 million; it is now 87 million. The total
fertility rate (TFR = average number of
babies per mother) is 5.3. For Kenya the
figures are: 1984 population, 21 million;
2011, 41 million. The present TFR is 4.7.
With only a limited land area
available one can understand that rapid
population growth is an underlying
cause of the famines that afflict the
region. The World Health Organisation
informs us that there are currently 200
million couples worldwide who have
no access to modern contraceptive
methods. I suspect that many of these
people live in the east African region.
All charities should prioritise the
feeding of the undernourished babies.
Second to this, it is vital that they make
family planning a core part of their
primary health care clinics. In the long
term, girls and boys must have equal
educational opportunities.
Dr John Moor, via email
TACKLING CORRUPTION
The best way to reduce population
growth is to educate the women, and to
increase people’s wealth. It’s worked
everywhere else, so why not in poor
countries The loss of aid to corruption
ought to be treated separately; we in the
west could actively close down tax
havens, and insist on removal of secrecy
on bank accounts. The corrupt leaders
bank their money somewhere, and use
banking secrecy to keep it hidden. We’re
not making a serious attempt at sorting
this out at all yet.
Making the poor better off requires
keeping money in the poor countries. It
would require us to stop big companies
shifting the money around, and avoiding
paying taxes in the poor countries, as
recognised by Christian Aid. How many
of the problems could be solved if
corporations and criminals didn’t benefit
from the current arrangements
Mike Dommett, Alton, Hampshire
DOING GOD’S WORK
Although I strongly subscribe to the need
to avoid being ‘so heavenly-minded
that one is no earthly use’, I sometimes
wonder why Christian Aid News seems
to fight shy of referring to God and to our
continuing need to pray for success in
His work. The autumn issue is a case in
point. Loads of interesting articles about
Christian Aid’s successful work in the
field, its campaigning, readers’ views,
and imaginative ways of raising more
funds. But, apart from one reference in
a reader’s letter, God – let alone Christ
himself – did not get a mention at all.
At a recent Poverty Over event, I
was encouraged to hear the speaker
from HQ assert that all Christian Aid’s
work is carefully underpinned by
theological principles. Could Christian
Aid News cover these from time to time,
perhaps And a regular notice about the
content and availability of the excellent
Prayer Diary would be helpful, too
John Shaw, Rickmansworth
Editor’s reply: we’ll see what we can do
about more coverage of the theological
principles in future issues. For now, you
can find plenty of theological content
as well as the new Prayer Diary at
christianaid.org.uk/resources/churches/
WHOSE INTERESTS
While I am more than happy to agree
with the modest political campaigning
in the areas of tax dodging and climate
change, I feel that elsewhere in your
magazine you overstepped the mark in
favour of political propaganda.
Roger Fulton’s last sentence of his
editorial reads: ‘Afghan women fear
that the improvements in their rights
may be rolled back in a rush to peace. If
you want to know what our forces are
fighting for, listen to their voices.’
The woman interviewed was, of
course, carefully chosen. No doubt
everything she said was true from her
personal point of experience, but there
are other very different histories in that
war-torn region coming from people
who are used to UK armed drones
dropping hellfire missiles and bombs on
their villages with a frightening regularity
and a death toll in which 28 per cent
(figure given by NATO) are civilians.
What good is anyone’s education if he or
she hasn’t even got life
Politicians have become less bashful
about admitting that the wars they fight
are ‘in our interests’. These interests
have to do with economic and military
global power; and that is what our
soldiers are sent to fight for.
Annette Bygott, Oxford
The humanitarian concerns for the
people of Afghanistan (Issue 53) equal
the economic, security and political
concerns, which I fear are the main
preoccupations of those discussing
Afghanistan’s future.
Nicholas Stainforth, Kendal, Cumbria
Christian Aid News 25