Should we be giving our money to Sir Bob’s latest appeal? (Part 1 – Population)

As Sir Bob Geldorf does another of his “give us your f*****g money” appeals, here are some inconvenient truths from my forthcoming book THE GREAT CHARITY SCANDAL What Really Happens to the Billions We Give to Good Causes?

In 1984, the song �Do They Know It�s Christmas?� was released by Band Aid to raise money to help the starving victims of the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine. The record plus the following year�s Live Aid concert raised around �150 million and made those behind the venture into national heroes.

In 1965, eighteen years before the start of the famine, the population of Ethiopia was about twenty five million. In 1984, in the midst of the famine, the country�s population had passed thirty nine million. Today, Ethiopia�s population is around ninety six million � well over twice the level during the 1983-85 famine and almost four times the population in 1965. There have been similar situations in two other neighbouring African countries where there are regular famines. In Sudan (including South Sudan), the 1965 population was twelve million. Today it�s around fifty million:

�In 1965 the population of Somalia was three million. Today it�s above eleven million.

For all three countries, the population has almost increased by a factor of four from 40 million to 157 million in just fifty years. In comparison, the combined population of Britain, France and Germany only went up from 180 million in 1965 to 211 million today � a rise of just seventeen per cent.

There have been droughts in these countries in 1892, 1913, 1929, 1935, 1942, 1951, 1958, 1966, 1973, 1984 and 1998. It should be more than evident that three largely infertile countries that are regularly affected by drought every seven to ten years cannot successfully support a population that is increasing at such a rate.

It�s understandable why people in these countries have so many children. With a high level of child mortality, few jobs and no pension system, the only way for adults to ensure their future is to produce a large number of children in the hope that some will survive, get jobs and provide for their parents in old age. But what is logical for hundreds of millions of individuals has been a catastrophe for their countries.

Unfortunately, foreign aid�s success in preventing child deaths and starvation in these countries has not been accompanied by a culture change that would lead to a reduction in family size.

Yet when regularly appealing for our money to help with the latest crop failure and famine in these three countries, the charity and aid agencies seem to forget to tell us about how fast these countries� populations are actually growing and that, however much money we give, these countries will continue to experience droughts and famines because the land is simply unable to support the rapidly increasing numbers of people living there.