Three years ago...
the view of Mt. Baldy after a wonderful storm...have we seen snow like this in CA since then? Climate change? Oh yes...
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Reflections on Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis (UN 2006)
I think we have all seen videos like this before...seeing water pipes funnel through piles of human excrement and then the poor fellow down the way drinking from these pipes. I believe we understand the gravity of this problem. One thing that caught my attention was that the journalist said that in order to make dents in this problem, African governments need to make a decision today to combat this problem. While I very much agree with this statement, it may be very difficult to actually address these problems when there is so much corruption in these very governments. This corruption I'm sure makes the allocation of resources to the problems of sanitation and potable water very difficult to address. Seems like the key is, how do we make sanitation and clean water monetarily attractive for governments so that they will look at it as a business venture and rather than a public health problem? If we shift the perspective in addressing this problem, could we talk corrupt governments into properly directing funds?
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6 comments:
Andrea, I very much agree... looks like we need a stakeholder analysis here. How can we make this a win-win situation for both the government and the people? It is absolutely unacceptable that people have to live in these conditions.
A brilliant man once said, "You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." Regardless that that man was a somewhat tactless Al Capone, maybe we need to examine what's in our public health arsenal and figure out how to place it to the heads of foreign governments to prompt some action without utterly destroying our diplomatic relations. But for now, maybe we can try out this stakeholder analysis.
hey andrea, good point. we have to approach it from a diplomatic point of view to ensure governments that making these changes will be a win-win situation.
I believe that this corruption is indeed a major barrier to solving any and all of the problems in Africa. Whenever we talk about this it makes me think of Blood Diamond and the man who says, "Every time they discover something of value in Africa, there is war, poverty, and famine. I prey that they don't find anything else." What if they discovered that their people were their greatest asset?
Andera hon this is great point. We have been talking about so many health and physical issues, that environmental challenges never seemed big. I am glad that we had this lecture which gave us the opportunity to think out side of box. I believe approaching the problem via government can be a good start, but providing them by data and back ground information can prepare them better in coming up with innovative solution.
These corrupt governments cannot be stopped. We should take every single one of them in a line and then shoot them. Seriously, if there was a solution to this problem, it would have been dealt with by now. The real problem is that we are still sitting here talking about this problem, and while the rest of the world agrees the African government is corrupt, who is doing anything about it? No one. Why? People do not benefit from helping them, and those that DO care to make a difference in the world simply do not have the financial power to change things around for them.
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