Hungry schoolkids

The U.N. World Food Program warns it may be forced to end school meals for more than 1.3 million children in west and central Africa unless it receives $48 million.

School begins in September and October in Cameroon, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. More than half-a-million children in those countries are likely to be deprived of life-saving school meals, according to the WFP. Another 700,000 children in 11 other countries will no longer receive the crucial meals when their schools start later in the year.

Bettina Luescher, WFP spokeswoman, says the vital programs are endangered because of the competing humanitarian crises around the world. The situation in west and central Africa is especially critical, she says, because WFP is the sole or main provider of school meals in most of the region.

"Families rely on this. If we cannot deliver this, they often are really stuck,” Luescher said. “What could happen is that families take their children out of school. We have seen that all over the world — if money is being spent on school meals, the whole country will profit, the family will profit, the villages will profit." Without those WFP meals, she says, children who go to school on an empty stomach cannot concentrate, and many will become malnourished. "What it means is they … will never be as productive in the long run as other children would be,” Luescher added. “School meals help the children, especially girls, get an education."

Hunger persists

According to the 2015 report on the State of Food Insecurityin the World released Friday by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, hunger remains an every-day challenge for 10m Ugandans. 

The experts argue that this figure of under-fed or malnourished people indicates that the country has scored dismally on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) one—eradication of extreme poverty and hunger.

For instance, the report shows that the prevalence of undernourishment in Uganda has been increasing from 4.2m in 1990 to 10.3m in 2015 up from 8.7m people in 2010.

“Eastern Africa remains the subregion with the biggest hunger problem in absolute terms, being home to 124 million undernourished people,” the report states.

In east Africa, Tanzania has the worst undernourishment figures (16.8m), while Kenya comes third (9.9m) and Rwanda register a minimal 3.9m people, who are under-fed. Uganda is second.

Angola's Stunted Children

Angola is sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest economy. Porsche dealerships and Armani shops cater to members of the elite under President Jose Eduardo dos Santo’s 35-year rule while two-thirds of the nation’s people live in slums or impoverished rural settlements, often without running water and electricity. Africa’s second-biggest crude oil producer has the world’s highest rate of child mortality under the age of 5: 167 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). That’s one in six.

Sub-Saharan Africa hosts all 12 countries where more than 10% of children die before their fifth birthday, according to UNICEF. Sierra Leone is second, followed by Chad, Somalia and Central African Republic (CAR). Nigeria, which has the region’s largest economy and population with about 170 million people, is ninth. Angola is by far the richest country among African countries with the highest child mortality, with gross national income per capita of $5,170 in 2013, according to the World Bank. Nigeria, which pumped 2.1 million barrels of oil a day in March compared with Angola’s 1.84 million, earned $2,710 per person two years ago. In Somalia income per person is just $150. The figures for Chad, Central African Republic and Sierra Leone are all less than a fifth of Angola’s wealth.

About 30% of children in the southwest African country are stunted because of malnutrition, according to a 2007 government survey. The figure may be higher now because there are fewer aid agencies. For about two-thirds of Angolans living on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank, funge is a staple often made from cassava roots that have few nutrients.

Malnutrition stunts growth and causes about half of child deaths under 5, according to Maria Futi Tati, head of nutrition at Angola’s Ministry of Health. “It is not due to lack of food,” Tati said. “The problem resides in poverty and lack of meal diversification. You can’t be healthy when you only eat rice and funge and a lot of families just have one meal a day

“Cassava is indeed next to nutritionally useless,” Stephen Foster, a doctor who runs a private hospital in Lubango. 

Bad Food

Poverty is at the heart of South Africa's food problems. While the country produces more than enough food to feed all its citizens, many do not have access to the right amount and types of food, according to a 2014 report by the Southern Africa Food Lab. With a national unemployment level at 25 percent and 15 million people receiving social grants, many people do not have enough money to buy food, while others cannot afford to eat healthily, according to Oxfam's Hidden Hunger in South Africa report. The price of white maize increased by 90 percent between 2011 and 2012

South Africa is the fattest country in sub-Saharan Africa and one of the 20 fattest countries in the world. At the same time, one in every four South Africans regularly goes hungry Meanwhile, half of us have access to so little food that we are at risk of hunger. Doing the maths, this means that many South Africans then are both fat and hungry. About 40 percent of South Africans eat the amount of calories recommended daily but eat food with so little nutrition that they are actually malnourished, according to the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

"People think of food insecurity as only having insufficient amounts of food, but it can also includes not having enough food of sufficient quality," says Prof David Sanders from the University of the Western Cape's School of Public Health.

A typical "low quality" meal consists of mostly mealie meal, bread or rice, with very little animal protein or vegetables. The meal is also usually prepared with cheap oil and lots of salt. This means that South Africans, even those who are overweight, experience high levels of nutrient deficiencies, including those relating to vitamin A, iron and other minerals and vitamins.  Although all commercially-produced maize meal in South Africa must be fortified with micronutrients, three 850g-servings supply less than half of the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) of protein and iron, and only about a third of the RDA of vitamin A.

On average, the IQs are being lowered because of this chronic under-nutrition, especially in early childhood" Close to half of all children (43.6%) have vitamin A deficiency, while one in 10 are anaemic, a condition linked to iron deficiencies and can leave children feeling tired and weak. Both conditions result in stunting, or a failure to grow, in children, according to the SANHANES 1 report.

"They are not thin and wasted like children you see in pictures of places where there is famine," Sanders tells Health-e News. "This is a much more chronic form of under-nutrition where they may not go to bed hungry, but they don't get enough nutrition from their low-quality diet."

Stunting may put children at risk of infections, particularly diarrhoea and pneumonia, and also may result in "sub-optimal intellectual development."

"They're not unintelligent, but if you take the population as a whole, on average the IQs are being lowered because of this chronic under-nutrition, especially in early childhood," Sanders explains.

Adults on this diet are also predisposed to illness, and are likely to become overweight or obese, which puts them at high risk for diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

"Poor South Africans are not able to spend money on a diverse diet, instead the only option to facilitate satiety and alleviate hunger is to feed family members large portions of maize meal porridge that do not address nutritional needs," according to Laura Pereira, author of the Food Lab report.

Sanders adds that "energy dense" foods such as white bread, biscuits and processed meats that are high in calories but low in nutritional value, are cheaper than healthy food. Healthier foods typically cost South Africans between 10 and 60 percent more than less healthy foods. Many South Africans do not have refrigeration or readily available cooking facilities, which makes the storage and preparation of fresh food more difficult. According to Sanders, tackling poverty as well as unemployment and income inequality are among the most important solutions to South Africa's hidden hunger. However he adds there are steps government can take now including taxing unhealthy food and using revenues to subsidise healthy foods.

New York City's former Mayor Michael Bloomberg regulating the cup size of sugary drinks was withdrawn after lobbying by soft drink manufacturers. In 2011, Denmark implemented a tax on all foods with high levels of saturated fat, or so-called "bad fat." The tax was repealed a year later after the food industry mobilised against it. Mexico implemented a tax on sugary drinks last year and became the only country to have successfully implemented a "sin tax" on a foodstuff. Early reports indicate a positive impact on the country's obesity rate.

A growing child is a growing people

 The new Global Nutrition Report is a first-of-its-kind evaluation of food security in 193 countries produced by the International Food Policy Research Institute. More than two billion people around the world still suffer from poor nutrition. The effects of malnourishment during childhood last a lifetime, even if one’s food situation improves in adulthood. No matter how much better our local schools, hospitals and economy become, malnourished children can’t flourish. If a child’s brain isn’t properly fed, he or she can suffer irreversible cognitive challenges. Global investments in nutrition represent only 1 percent of aid spent each year. It’s simply not enough. Dollars directed toward education and healthcare and other critical development initiatives risk being wasted if we don’t create a solid foundation for proper nutrition early in life. The investigation into this problem found that the average adult that suffered from stunting as an infant has a much lower IQ compared to a consistently well-nourished adult, completes about four fewer years of school, and is significantly less likely to be employed in a white collar job. The deficits created by childhood malnutrition can permanently suppress an individual’s long-term earnings potential. The World Bank estimates that early-life food insecurity drops the average person’s lifetime wages by about 10 percent.

In South Africa -- arguably the most economically advanced country on the continent -- one in four children still goes to bed hungry every night. And as the South African economy has stalled, the proportion of kids under five suffering from “stunting” – physical deficiencies caused by chronic malnutrition -- has grown.

The situation is much worse in other African countries. In Madagascar, for example, half of all children under five suffer from stunting. In Congo, Liberia, Burundi and other low-income African countries, malnutrition by itself can compress GDP by up to three percent.

Africa is home to over half of the fastest growing economies in the world. This development is not exclusively a function of natural resources. Smart governments are cultivating high-tech sectors and setting the foundations for sustainable growth. Just look at Africa’s booming telecommunications sector, with more than a half-billion mobile connections on the continent today. Without proper nutrition, children will struggle to contribute creatively to Africa through the 21st century. Simply put, improving nutrition is the key to accelerating Africa’s growth and empowering our people. Effective nutritional support can be simple and inexpensive. Key programs include: fortification of staple foods with micronutrients; the addition of iodine to local salt supplies; and the creation of robust distribution systems for critical supplements like vitamin A and iron.

Hunger - the death sentence for many

More than 12million South Africans will go to bed hungry tonight.  The hungriest people are in Cape Town (80%) and Msunduzi, in KwaZulu-Natal (87%). It found that, in Johannesburg, 43% of the poor faced starvation and malnutrition. Researchers believe the figure could be higher.
A five-year study by the University of Cape Town's African Food Security Unit Network has exposed a food crisis that constitutes a "death sentence" for many

 Dr Jane Battersby-Lennard said the University of Cape Town study explained  the problem was access to adequate nutrition, not the availability of food.

"This is because of poverty. People are simply too poor to buy food."

Food warnings again go unheeded

Charities warn that more than one million children are at risk of severe malnutrition across West Africa, and are urging G8 leaders to step in to save them.

Save the Children announced that it was shifting its work in Niger to "crisis response" level after world leaders had ignored months of warnings about the deteriorating situation there. 80 per cent of harvests have failed. Locusts have destroyed crops. Food prices have tripled. The poorest families have been reduced to eating leaves to survive.

Save the Children's chief executive Justin Forsyth said "The crisis there is reaching a new level of seriousness – children are dying because of hunger, and that is not just shocking but totally unacceptable. We must work immediately to stave off the worst."

It is not just the quantity of food but also the quality that matters. Millions of children are not getting the required vitamins, minerals and nutrients within the first few years of their life, restricting their mental and physical growth. A quarter of the world's children suffer from the stunting produced by chronic malnutrition.

"Children need not just enough to eat, but the right sort of food and nutrition," said Mr Forsyth. "A food security package from the G8 must have nutrition at its core."

wooden chips for dinner

"I am hungry. Everyone is hungry. I am hungry all the time"

Globally, malnutrition is the key cause of the deaths of 2.6 million children each year. On present trends, the bodies and brains of an additional 450 million worldwide will fail to develop properly because of inadequate diet over the next 15 years, according to a report published by Save the Children.

Olinda Novela and her children will dine on tree root soup. This is what they ate for breakfast, and what they will likely eat tomorrow. The soup, made from mashed wood shavings boiled in salty water, has zero nutritional value. It is a thin, brown, evil-looking gruel. But in remote, drought-stricken Mahache village, about five hours' drive north from Mozambique's capital, Maputo, there is simply no other choice.

They are not actually starving – not yet, anyway – but they are chronically malnourished, according to visiting community health workers. They have much in common with many other Mozambican children, with an estimated 44% of under-fives physically or mentally impaired – the technical term is stunted – because of severe malnutrition. Their weakened immune systems increase their susceptibility to malaria, HIV, and other fatal diseases.

Experts predict that in the next decade there will be 4 million chronically malnourished children in Mozambique, which despite recent, rapid economic growth and the discovery of large natural gas deposits remains one of the world's poorest countries.

"Malnutrition is a hidden problem, a hidden killer," said Carina Hassane Ismael of the independent Food Security and Nutrition Association in Maputo. "It's not like a famine. It can be hard to spot because the children are not actually starving."

At the Camp David G-8 meeting beginning Obama will unveil a "new alliance" initiative involving selected African countries and private sector companies. The plan entails a $1bn, 10-year effort to lift 50 million people out of food poverty through increased investment in agricultural development.

"The G8 is always making plans but they don't implement them," said Rafael Uaiene, assistant professor of international development with Michigan State University, who is based in Maputo, and is a former director of Mozambique's National Agricultural Research Institute. "The trouble is, millions of dollars are committed but they never reach the ground in most cases."

G8's L'Aquila summit in 2009, which saw $6bn in new money pledged for food security and agricultural initiatives over three years. By last July, only 22% of the money had been spent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/may/16/g8-malnutrition-hidden-killer-mozambique

Not profitting from farming

If growing up in an agricultural community were the key to health, the children of Kiamwangi would be thriving. While the farms grow fresh fruits and vegetables for export, health centers continue to treat diseases related to nutritional deficiency. Malnourishment causes stunting, a reduced growth rate. Data from the 2009 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey indicate that nationally, 35 percent of children under five are stunted, while 14 percent are severely stunted.

Jane Hunyu, who farms a quarter-acre plot here, says the children in her region are nearly as frail as their grandparents. "Children are malnourished," says Hunyu. "Recently, we are also seeing increasing cases of diabetes." She concludes that the children's families cannot afford the produce they harvest with their own hands. It's a dilemma facing millions of agricultural workers in Africa, and few know any other way of life. Hunyu also noticed that many small-scale farmers had started growing crop varieties like those produced by big commercial farms. "This required us to buy fertilizers, pesticides and other farm inputs to ensure a good harvest," says Hunyu, a mother of two. "But the crops started failing due to erratic rainfall and many farmers were left desperate."

Globally, a recent report from the Save the Children charity estimated that half a billion children could grow up physically and mentally stunted over the next 15 years because of poor diet. Most of these children live in developing countries where key food groups such as meat, milk and vegetables are becoming increasingly unaffordable for the poor.

"Kenyans should start reaching out to traditional staple foods such as finger millet, because our studies show that they are richer in nutrients for both mothers and children," says Clement Kamau, a researcher with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. Researchers are rallying behind this shift for an important reason. They say that historically these varieties have been considered the 'poor man's crops' such as sorghum.


http://allafrica.com/stories/201203270004.html

Africans and Low I.Q.s

"Wealth and the IQ of Nations" by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen insists that the average Sub-Saharan African’s IQ is 30-40 points lower than an East Asian’s IQ? How can that book give Hong Kong an IQ of 106 and Equatorial Guinea a mere 59? A rival study, led by Jelte M. Wicherts of The Netherlands, claimed a considerably higher average IQ for the Sub-Saharan region: 82. But even this lags far behind East Asia and the Western world. Why?

Obviously, Africans have been oppressed by colonialist imperialism, capitalist exploitation, and authoritarian regimes. One way oppression oppresses its victims is by stunting their cognitive abilities, diminishing their ability to be productive and politically engaged. Development economists and the public health community recognize this as an intrinsic part of the gloomy cycle of underdevelopment. Does oppression impact IQ scores? Yes. The Sub-Saharan human brain is severely maimed in gestation and early childhood, due to six post-conception horrors: disease, violence, malnutrition, pollution, poverty and illiteracy. In the Sub-Saharan, a mind-boggling 58% of the population is illiterate. Benin is the worst with 82.4% illiteracy; only 11.9% of its women can read and write. In Nigeria, nine nine million kids don’t go to school, instead they just roam the streets. Barely literate children are at an extreme disadvantage

Decent humans want to believe everyone remains equal in mental ability, no matter how disparate the environments. But it is anti-scientific and counter-productive to view our brains as impervious to outside harm.

POVERTY

The per capita income in Nigeria, for example, is a mere $191 annually. Numerous studies have indicated that growing up poor causes severe damages to one’s ability to achieve full cognitive potential. For example, wealthier parents can provide “better educational resources and spend more time with their children” notes Elliot Tucker Drob, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Another study, by Cornell University child-development researchers Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg, determined that “chronically elevated physiological stress is a plausible model for how poverty could get into the brain and eventually interfere with achievement.” It noted that poor children tended to go to “ill-equipped and ill-taught schools, have fewer resources at home, eat low-nutrition food, and have less access to health care.” The result of the subpar environment was that “hormones produced in response to stress literally wear down the brains…” A specific test carried out with teenagers revealed that those in poverty had a weaker working memory than teens that were well-off. (Working memory is a reliable indicator reading. Language and problem-solving ability)

POLLUTION

Numerous elements and molecular compounds are severely debilitating to human brain development. I’ve listed two dangers below; additional chemicals that cause harm in the Sub-Saharan are cadmium, manganese, petroleum hydrocarbons, mercury, and others. Water pollution and soil contamination are merit attention.

Lead Poisoning is pervasive throughout the Sub-Sahara. Leaded gasoline wasn’t phased out until 2005 with settling fumes caking the soil, and subsequently, the agricultural produce. Illegal mining operations in northern Nigeria recently used lead to refine gold ore, horrendously contaminating both the ground and the water. The NGO “Doctors Without Borders” discovered in 2010 that 90% of the children under 5 in the state of Zamfara, Nigeria (population 3.6 million) had lead poisoning. In Kabwe, Zambia, lead concentrates in children arealso 5-19 times the permissible USA EPA level. Researchers also recently discovered that “96% of the consumer paints available in Nigeria contained higher than the recommended levels of lead.” The effect of lead on IQ varies in research reports, but a 2001 study, from School of Public Health University at Albany Rensselaer (New York) estimated that lead exposure in children caused a “permanent loss of IQ of approximately 5 to 7 IQ points.”

Lagos - with its 12 million residents - has severe air pollution, largely caused by auto fumes and burning garbage. The Nigerian city does not have the worst air in the Sub-Saharan, however, that unfortunate honor goes to Gaberone, Botswana, which was voted 7th Worst in the World in a recent Time magazine survey. Research in Krakow, Poland and New York City claims that air pollution exposure before birth lowers IQ by 4 points, because smog harms the developing brain.

DISEASE/MALNUTRITION

Two recent studies - a 2010 report from the University of New Mexico and 2011 research from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada - have strongly correlated low national IQs with high rates of infectious disease. Their findings mirror what Jared Diamond claimed in his 1997 bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - i.e., endemic diseases thwart human advancement. The study’s lead author Christopher Eppig said that, “Based on our own research… a social policy aimed at elevating IQ would want to focus on reducing the infection rates and durations of the infections that are most costly to the brain, which we predict include malaria, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis, and intestinal worms.”

Every year there are 225 million cases of malaria worldwide, with 90% occurring in the Sub-Saharan region, where 3,000 die everyday of the disease. Nigeria alone accounts for 25% of the planet’s malaria cases, with 30 million of it’s citizens annually contracting the scourge, leaving 300,000 dead. The “brain insult” of malaria is horrendous. One international study defines cerebral malaria “as the presence of coma” leaving victims with neuro-physiological impairment to brain regions associated with planning, decision-making, self-awareness, and social sensitivity. Young Sub-Saharans are alarmingly vulnerable to drastic IQ reduction due to the malarial threat because, as University of New Mexico researchers state, “From an energetic standpoint, a developing human will have difficulty building a brain and fighting off infectious diseases at the same time, as both are very metabolically costly tasks.” It’s crucial to realize here that developing nations, like the entire Sub-Saharan, have a far higher rate of mental retardation. A 2008 Rush University Medical College (Chicago) report observed, “Surveys in high-income countries show 3 to 5 per 1,000 with severe intellectual disability… Estimates from developing countries, however, have found prevalence rates from 5 to as much as 22 per 1,000.” Malaria is listed by the researchers as one of the “major contributing causes” in Third World mental retardation.

The diarrhea rate in Nigeria is 18.8%, with 150,000 children dying annually of the disease. Diarrhea weakens the immune system and can quickly lead the sufferer to malnutrition, pneumonia, and a host of additional plagues. University of New Mexico researchers note that, “if exposed to diarrhoeal diseases during their first five years, individuals may experience lifelong detrimental effects to their brain development, and thus intelligence. Parasites may [also] negatively affect cognitive function in other ways, such as infecting the brain directly…”

Nigeria has the 4th highest TB rate in the world, with more than 400,000 cases per year. Tuberculosis - commonly associated with the lungs - has the potential to attack the brain, causing Tuberculosis Meningitis (TBM). Although this occurs in only 1% of TB cases in developed nations, reports indicate that TB leads to TBM in Nigeria between 7.8-14% of the time. The result? At least 20% of survivors are left with severe brain damage. Tuberculosis also creates a severe toll on the immune system, retarding the cognitive development of young children.

Nigerian schoolchildren are widely at risk of three intestinal parasites: roundworm, whipworm, and hookworm. One study revealed a 54.9% infection rate in urban public schools, 63.5% infection in rural public schools, and 28.4% in private schools. Intestinal worms have been associated with reduced IQ in many studies; one estimate is that “the average IQ loss for children left untreated is 3.75 points per worm infection.”

Prior to the recent focus on infectious disease hampering IQ levels, the prevalent opinion in scholastic circles was that malnutrition was the brain’s primarily oppressor. On the website nextbigfuture, author Brian Wang asserts that “if everyone had optimal levels of micronutrients the IQ of over half the world would be increased by up to 20 IQ points.” The Sub-Saharan would be a primary beneficiary of improved nutrition, especially infants, children, and pregnant women. Below I’ve listed only two dietary ingredients needed for optimal brain development; additional nutrients that also need to be considered are zinc, calcium, folic acid, Vitamin A, and magnesium.

If a pregnant mother’s diet is low in element #53, her child’s IQ can be severely hampered. Cretinism is the worst result of iodine deficiency, with its shocking retardation of physical and mental development. A recent report indicates that every year 900,000 Nigerian children will suffer an IQ loss because their mothers didn’t ingest enough iodine during their pregnancy. How large of an IQ loss? The website micronutrient.org suggests “the loss of intellectual capacity by as much as 10 to 15 percentage points.”

An alarming 75.6% of Nigerian children are anemic, claims micronutrient.org. This lack punishes developing brains. “Various tests of cognitive skills associate lack of iron during infancy and early childhood with significant levels of disadvantage, affecting IQ scores by as much as 5 to 7 points,”

Recent research by Oxford University and Essex University asserts that infants breastfed for just four weeks are granted a 3-point IQ boost. Many specialists advice breastfeeding for at least six months, because the fatty acids in the mother’s milk aids infant brain development. Unfortunately, breastfeeding rates in the Sub-Saharan are among the lowest in the world. UNICEF calculates that only 31% of the region’s mothers breastfeed, a low figure compared to East and South Asia’s 43-44%. Breastfeeding is also more hygienic; bottle-feeding can infect newborns with diseases like diarrhea, especially in areas with contaminated water.

The Sub-Saharan has the highest prevalence in the world in sickle-cell disease, with up to 2% of all children born with the genetic blood disorder. A 2011 Emma Children’s Hospital study at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam discovered that children with sickle-cell disease were at-risk for lower intelligence and executive dysfunction, with possible deficits in visual-spatial working memory, attention, and planning. The impact was significant: “More than one in three children with SDC had a full-scale IQ below 75.”

VIOLENCE

Being subjected to violence, or witnessing violent activity, puts a traumatic burden on children that leads to cognitive decline. How steep is the subtraction? A 2002 study from the Children’s Hospital of Michigan concludes that “a child experiencing both violence exposure and trauma-related distress… would be expected to have a 7.5-point decrement in IQ and a 9.8 decrement in reading achievement.” The Sub-Saharan region is catastrophically violent in numerous categories.

Myriad bloodbaths have soaked the Sub-Saharan in the last thirty years, including recent and current conflicts in The Congo, Ivory Coast, and religious terrorism in Nigeria, plus past nightmares in Rwanda, Burundi, Biafra, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Liberia, Uganda, Central African Republic, and others. Is it accurate to define the entire region as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome? Perhaps. A recent survey of Liberians revealed that 71% of those questioned had witnessed a beating, 47% witnessed a killing, and 33% witnessed the killing of a family member. How does a pervasive atmosphere of violence affect children’s cognition? A Stanford Hospital study suggests that, “children’s risk for learning and behavior problems… rises in correlation to their level of trauma exposure…. children experiencing four types of trauma were 30 times more likely to have behavior and learning problems than those not exposed to trauma.”

A 2011 Harvard Medical report notes that “Witnessing domestic violence is a traumatic childhood experience associated with reduced IQ scores.” Unfortunately, wife beating is all-too-common in Sub-Saharan Africa. A recent Nigerian news report claims that, “More than 50 percent [of wives] say they have experienced domestic violence at the hands of their husbands.” Counter-intuitively,“more educated women (65%) are in this terrible situation as compared to their low income counterparts (55%).” Are the children watching? Another study says that 46% of Nigerian women reported being abused in the presence of their children.

Multiple studies assert that children subjected to sexual abuse suffer parallel damage to their brain development. For example, a Yale University study has linked childhood sexual abuse to “long-term deficits in verbal short-term memory” - a result that resembles the damage observed in “patients with combat-related PTSD.” Is child sexual abuse common in the Sub-Saharan? The Lancet reports reports that 33% of girls and women in Swaziland claimed they were victimized by sexual violence before reaching the age of 18. In Nigeria, rape is reportedly on the increase, particularly child rape. A 2008 news article from Kano, the commercial hub of northern Nigeria, claimed that, “The suspects are usually males between the ages of 45 and 70 while their victims are mostly girls of between three and 11 years.” The article notes that many rapes are never reported because “parents want to save the honor of their daughters and protect their families from embarrassment.”

Although Female Genital Mutilation is a “traditional ritual,” it needs to also be regarded as a violent, traumatic episode that can likely damage the cognitive development of the victims, generally girls aged 4-12. The World Health Organization (WHO) agrees, asserting that FGM has posed a “mental health risk” to 92 million African women. In the Sub-Saharan region, the following rates of FGM prevalence exist in the 15-49 age category, representing tens of millions of women and girls: Ivory Coast (36.4%), Gambia (78.3%), Guinea (95.6%), Liberia (58.2%), Nigeria (29.6%), Sierra Leone (94.0%), Guinea-Bissau (44.5%), and Senegal (28.2%).

Cousin marriage, known as “consanguinity,” is prevalent in many Sub-Saharan groups. In Nigeria it is practiced by the 18 million members of the Hausa tribe, preferentially in marrying patrilateral parallel cousins. The custom is also common among the Yoruba. Cousin marriage increases the risk of birth defects, due to sharing of the genes. The chance of birth defects in a first-time cousin marriage is about 1.7-2.0 times greater than average; if a culture repeats cousin marriage for generation, the odds of genetic mishap increase enormously. In 1993, an Aligarh Muslim University report from India study showed an IQ drop of 11.2 points (from 99.6 to 88.4) in the offspring of cousin marriages.

It isn't about "race" but environmental factors that damage the cognition of all human beings. The staggering loss of brain-power in the world is detrimental to all of us - how many "geniuses" that could contribute enormously to improving the planet are mentally-ruined at by age 5? It is appalling that children's minds are ruined by factors that can be prevented with improved social policies which regardless of all the well meaning intentions capitalism cannot or will not apply.

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pellissier20120307

Niger's Hunger

A national survey of vulnerable households shows that 5.4 million people face food insecurity across Niger. Women have been left in charge of many of the households in the village of Zamkoye-Koïra, in western Niger, as food shortages have driven male family members to leave in search of work elsewhere.

"The men have gone to look for a way to feed the women and children left behind in the village, because there was no harvest at all this year," 40-year-old Bibata Mounkaïla told IPS. "We've eaten only once a day for several months," the mother of eight said, in the midst of making a simple porridge out of sorghum that will have to satisfy her family for the whole day. "The situation also means that our children are no longer going to school - the nearest one is in a neighbouring village, three kilometres from here."

Poor rains resulted in a deficit of more than half a million tonnes of grain and a shortfall of fodder for livestock of more than 10 million tonnes. The vulnerability survey, carried out in December 2011, found that more than a third of the population of 15.7 million are in a position of food insecurity - 1.5 million will face severe food shortages.

According to Eric-Alain Ategbo, the chief nutrition expert for the United Nations Children's Fund office in Niamey, the Nigerien capital. some 330,000 children are facing severe malnutrition presently, and nearly 700,000 more face moderate hunger. "We have seen 20,000 cases of malnourishment across the country, with 5,000 new cases recorded each week (in medical centres)."

ivory coast misery

We read that Ivory Coast , once called the "economic miracle" of Africa, with rapid growth in the first two decades after independence from France in 1960, is one of Africa's major agricultural exporters - around 40% of the world's cocoa, and more rubber and cashew nuts than any other country on the continent. But despite these cash crops, Ivory Coast has large regions suffering from malnutrition.

A third of children nationally suffer from chronic malnutrition. A recent survey showed that malnutrition was now at emergency levels among children under two years old in two regions in the north-west, Bafing and Worodougou. Children with malnutrition do not always get the help they need because of the cost of modern medicine, the lack of the health facilities close by. According to the International Monetary Fund, the poverty rate rose from 38% to 49% between 2002 and 2008.

This is not a country facing a famine, but a series of factors has left large numbers of the population struggling to grow and buy enough food.

"The reason why people are malnourished is mainly not due to a lack of food, but mainly due to accessibility issues due to poverty," says Mr Gerard ,country director for the health charity, Merlin. "The food on the market is expensive..."

Once more its a matter of capitalism's principle law "Can't pay - can't have"

poverty and NGOs

On the day that G20 leaders meet in London, millions of poor children in countries like Kenya are facing hunger and malnutrition. Save the Children estimates that there are up to 100,000 more malnourished children in Kenya today as a result of last year's rise in food prices.

Save the Children's Director of Policy said: "Poor people in the poorest countries were hit hard by the rise in food and fuel prices last year. The financial crisis will hurt them even more, and children are most at risk...What poor people want and deserve is that these promises are delivered on. G20 leaders have said that they will do what is necessary to revive their own economies. With equal urgency they should do whatever it takes to protect the world's poor, including poor children, from a financial crisis that was not of their making"

An estimated 4 million people in Kenya face acute food shortages for the next year as they live in areas hit hardest by the drought and food prices.

Save The Children can appeal as often as they wish to the good will of the world's capitalist class . Viewed from a socialist aspect, such appeals bestows its beneficence upon the capitalist class in addition to the favours that it patronisingly grants to the deprived and destitute. Even if NGOs such as Save The Children were groups genuinely seeking, on humanitarian grounds, to reach out to the needy (as some may honestly do , we readily admit ) they would still not escape being branded blind groups groping in the dark.
The work and assistance programmes of NGOs cannot be anything but a red herring. Having been brought into existence by the exploitative money-oriented system and being completely dependent on the same underhand methods of this unfeeling system for their survival what else can the activities of NGOs be if not messing about in trivialities? The main problem confronting humanity revolves around ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing social wealth. How many NGOs mount platforms to explain this simple truth to their target groups? How many NGOs ever distribute press releases about working people replacing this profit-oriented system with a higher social system based on collective and democratic ownership of the means and instruments of production?

Poverty and want are necessary offshoots of the capitalist socio-economic formation. Trying to get rid of the former whilst leaving the latter intact amounts to putting the cart before the horse. The only genuine assistance the NGO community could lead to the suffering people of this capitalist world is to stop collaborating with the owners of capital and instead, join forces with socialists to get rid of this system based on money. NGOs could use their resources to help usher in a system where production is not for profits' sake but for the satisfaction of needs. Under such a system nobody will have to run around begging for funds in order to help the needy—in fact there wouldn't be any more needy people.