According to a report issued this week by the United Nations, hunger kills nearly 6 million children ever year, with a large number of those deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, in fact there are more malnourished and dieing children today in that region than a decade ago. Many of the deaths are attributed to various treatable diseases, which are brought on by the abject poverty that plagues the developing world. According to the UN study, there are over 200 million malnourished people living in sub-Saharan Africa alone, this number rises to the astronomical figure of over 800 million when figuring the regions of Asia, Latin America and portions of Russia and Eastern Europe.
According to the report, “hunger” and “malnutrition” are the principle causes of poverty, illiteracy, disease and death in the developing world. So what’s the UN solution? The UN report emphasizes the importance of providing adequate amounts of food for children, as the primary vehicle for breaking the cycle of hunger. Boy, those UN researchers really have a knack for stating the obvious. The report argued hunger must be combated through economic growth, agricultural investment, education, and political and social stability. US Agriculture Secretary, Mike Johanns, argued free trade was an essential tool in the war against hunger. To some extent Johanns is right, free trade will reduce food costs significantly and lead to greater productivity, but lack of food is not the principle cause of African hunger. What the UN and the left fail to acknowledge is the role personal responsibility plays in the fortunes of every individual. Whether they live in the richest country in the world or the poorest.

Why is it that the UN fails to call these country’s to task for their astronomically high birth rates. The developing world and indeed, the poor everywhere, are plagued by high birthrates, which make self-sufficiency practically impossible. With so many children being born into poverty, the cycle of squalor and depravation becomes all the more impossible to combat. These irresponsible people, who can barely afford to feed and cloth themselves, can’t make the effort to avoid pregnancy? According to many reports nearly 99% of all births occur in the developing world. Yet we are surprised that our efforts to reduce hunger continuously turn up short. Only 19% of couples in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, use contraception, compared with nearly 70% in the developed world. Some would argue that the poor can’t afford to use contraception, but something tells me a child costs more in the long run than a condom, so if you can’t afford the condom wouldn’t it be a safe assumption that one couldn’t afford the child? And thus the simplest solution is to avoid scenarios, which lead to pregnancy. Lets hope we don’t have to spell it out for our readers. But are people in such desperate need of carnal pleasure that they are willing to risk jeopardizing the life of a young child, simply to satisfy their need for sexual gratification?

No high birth rates alone aren’t the cause of all the world’s poverty, but we can be assured that with more reasonable figures the problems that plague sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the developing world would be greatly diminished.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4459348.stm