Why we still need to write about African poverty

Sarah – Great article and I understand the need to continue telling these stories to make sure the world doesn’t become insensitive to these issues.

I also remember New Years Eve 2000. Watching the news as major world cities around the world welcomed 2000. “We take you live to Sydney and London and Beijing…”, the reporter says. “The world is celebrating…all except Africa”. Then they pan to faces of poverty we see daily. And he goes on to say something like “Africa is not celebrating because its still devastated by famine, disease,…..”.

There were fireworks and massive celebrations all over the continent even in the smallest communities.

As an African, what I want is absolute balance in the media’s coverage of Africa but that may just be a dream. Africa is a very complex continent – over 3000 unique languages, 50/50 Christian/Muslim, 50% of the world’s natural resources, etc. All of which incite conflicts on various levels. Not until Hurricane Katrina did the US truly expose its own problems with poverty and the world got to see it.

I understand your point and I also understand the diplomat’s point. Its easy to discount the words of someone living a more privileged life when in fact those words may ring true as well. Take Nigeria for example. My country is known worldwide for its volatile oil industry and “419″ corruption, yet its also one of the booming hubs of telecommunication and innovation on the entire continent.

My mother runs a grassroots NGO in Nigeria which focuses on empowering local communities and villages in terms of health education and social responsibility so I’m speaking as someone who understands and volunteers as well.

CLP is doing a fantastic job in its East Africa reporting, and please continue to do so.

Sometimes, its frustrating because the media always reports Africa in a constant state of despair. There are pockets of hope and grassroots successes that need to be highlighted as well.

I was just staring at a world map the other day. It’s funny how, in international media, it’s all just “Africa”. But like Lola pointed out, its a plethora of cultures, conditions, religions and circumstances. I couldn’t believe how many little lines there were all over that land mass.

It seems when people talk about the good, it’s very specific like “Forest Preserves of Kenya!” but when it’s bad, its nice and vague, as in “AIDS in ‘Africa’” or “Conflict on the Horn of Africa”.

It would be nice if we the media let Africans have their own identity more often. Lord knows, I’d be pissed if I was referred to as a “North American”.

Great article, Sarah.

Josh: Loved the Granta piece. Thanks for the link!

Regarding the continent question, here’s another quote from that Granta piece:

“In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.”

Thank you for your article… I, of course, being an African living in Africa, have strong feelings about the way Africa is portrayed in the media, but I am also impressed by the comments here… Making me realise that not everyone buys into that “poor Africa” thing. One other thing- and this may be controversial, but: what model is used to determine what “poverty” is? Yes, yes, clean drinking water, basic shelter, etc- but what about the rest? Do you think that maybe part of the entrenched ideas about African poverty have to do with Western ideals? I confess to liking a Western lifestyle very much- which is part of the reason I am online- but is that what we ALL want?

Just a thought.

It is the problem witrh mainstream journalism here Sateside that, no kidding, allowed over half an hour on the Today show be dedicated to the ugly divorce/child custody battle between Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards. An in depth story on how to provide the basics of Maslow’s pyramid to people all over the world? forget it. I’m still wondering what Bill and Melnda Gates mean in their NPR plug for their foundation. “everyone deserves a healthy, productive life.” Gotta throw in with Ian on this one on reporting successes, no matter how seemingly insignificant. I smell a story here. :Best Projects Improving the Day to Day Lives of the World’s Citizens.”

Great piece, Sarah. I visited Kibera several years ago with two other travelers as well as a Kenyan friend of mine and her brother. We had walked through the richest part of Nairobi earlier that day. What was surprising to me was how many people in Kibera were smiling. Yes, the quality of life was horrific–but people find a way. I certainly felt more welcome as an outsider in Kibera than I did walking outside Mbeki’s wife’s house, where the soldiers waved guns in a not-so-subtle message for us to keep moving.

I also think that no amount of reporting about Africa will enact a shift in mindset about the continent and its complexities unless people also begin to travel there in greater numbers (and I mean really travel, not just hit up the Serengeti, Zanzibar, and the Pyramids). Ninety-five percent of the foreigners I met in Africa were aid workers, whereas in India, Asia and Central America, 95% were travelers. While aid workers and journalists offer valuable insight, I think it’s travelers who can shine light on aspects of Africa that don’t need to secure funding or sell newspapers.

“…people find a way.”

Insightful, Jenny. I’m only beginning my worldly travels, but this observation does ring true – people adapt; some of us grew up in urban middle-class nuclear families and did not spend our lives lamenting the fact that we weren’t born millionaires (well, hopefully not). People around the around the world are born into their reality, their standard on what constitutes “normal”; how long does it take children to discover that there are creatures thousands of miles away with fresh water spewing from a magical fountain, so much food that some “must” be discarded, in a different world entirely…?

Even up to that point, they’re ruled by the same emotions that govern us all: feeling happy when something unexpectedly good happens (yes, which must eventually happen around the world), laughing at the ridiculous, accepting where they are from, and knowing what they are capable of – anything.

This is one reason I get so frustrated when I hear media stories along the lines of “we must save these few kids from this kind of life”… no, we must slowly improve the conditions of the world, to make these areas habitable and comfortable, not suddenly infuse with money that can’t be used over the long term, or have celebrities remove them to “more civilized” areas of the world.

Chimamanda Adichie, in her 2009 speech to TED, warned about “the danger of a single story”. The proverbial negative story that fails to recognise the positives on the continent.

However, it is also important to be wary of the “single” reaction to any write up that boldly calls a spade a spade or does not go through all 53 countries in Africa to make a point of how different levels of this and that there are . There is a danger of seeing the clichéd way that Binyavanga Wainaina writes about when that may not necessarily exist.

By all means, acknowledgement should be made of the different situations that may be prevalent in some African countries but not in others. HIV prevalence rate in South Africa is incredibly high, however, the prevalence rate of HIV in Ghana hovers around the 1.7% mark. That alone should indicate that situations across a number of indicators on the African continent varies enormously. However, it is also important, to recognise that by tarring every article about Africa that relates to Africa wide issues with charges of “stereotyping” not only stifles constructive debate but undermines critical thinking on Pan-African issues.

This is an excerpt of an article on Myweku. The full link is below:
http://www.myweku.com/2010/05/the-pitfalls-of-writing-about-africa/

I think a large part of the problem, where people are “tired” of reading about poverty in Africa, is that people feel helpless to do anything about it. Most of the time, I don’t particularly feel like reading a story about people living in horrible conditions because I get to the end and I feel guilty and angry–uncomfortable. That’s selfish and stupid, I know, but it’s human; I want to alleviate those feelings as efficiently as possible, and the solution then is usually to stop reading. I don’t think people don’t care. I think people care very much, but find that caring comes with feelings of guilt and anger and helplessness that they would rather not deal with.

The best stories I read about poverty are ones which 1) do not ignore, and especially expound upon, the agency of the subjects, 2) provide me with a way to help, and 3) inform me about the factors involved in the continuation of these levels of poverty despite decades of intervention attempts (and whether there’s anything I can do to change them). Note that I don’t say that journalists should “lighten up” their stories with upbeat (often forced-feeling) accounts of the ultimately happy and carefree lifestyles of people living in poverty. I also don’t say that journalists should tone down the realities of what they witness. They shouldn’t.

But in my opinion, these are the two things that could help make people care about these things again, and want to read these articles:

1) I don’t want to read a story about a woman who can’t feed her children. Well, I do, but only if it is more than that. I want to read about what that mother does to get her family through each day. If it’s as simple as “there’s no money for food” then most of her children should probably be dead. I want to read about how she surreptitiously puts dirt into her cooking so that it fills her family’s bellies a little more. I want to read about how she struggles to decide whether to eat, and have strength to continue to care for her family, or not eat, so that her children may have more food. Don’t tell me this mother of four struggles to feed her children each day; tell me about what she does to keep her children alive.

In this case, I’m not looking for a way to alleviate my own feelings of guilt. I just find this a much more compelling way to depict people living in poverty: I want to know what they do about what they don’t have, not just about what they don’t have. I want to feel like I’m reading about a real person rather than about a person the author potentially made up for the story. It’s much harder to pretend not to care about a real person, especially when given the explicit details of their daily struggle.

2) I dislike articles about poverty that end with a paragraph about charities to which one can donate. They sound pretty much like the local homeless man who tells you the saddest story he can think of and then asks for change at the end. Many people no longer feel like donating money to a charity that “provides food and education” really helps anything. In recent years, projects to build a school or well in a specific community have been really successful. Microlending organizations have proven to be successful. I don’t want to give money, I want to give tangible help. I appreciate stories about the successes of the kinds of organizations that are easy to get behind for the average, “tired-of-poverty” individual.

So tell me a story about what life has been like for a community wherein some people got microloans and started businesses. Tell me about how much a gift as small as a goat can really do for a family. And then tell me about how I can give a goat to another family who needs one, or about how to give textbooks and school supplies to a community’s children. Obviously I don’t want to buy a goat and ship it to Africa, and I don’t even necessarily want to be sent photographs and letters from the family to which the goat is given. But I want to be told, “This is what a goat means for a family, and it only costs $XXX. Here’s a reputable organization that allows you to purchase a goat to be given to a family.” Or, “This is the difference that some simple supplies make in the quality of this community’s children’s educations. Here’s an organization which gives you a list of schools in need, the supplies they need, and what they cost: go nuts.”

Combine the approaches and give me a before-and-after look at community, and then give me statistics about how many more communities need the same help. But don’t forget to include statistics about how many communities have already been helped.

Or, just use the second approach to subtly illustrate the former conditions between the lines.

Whichever. I just don’t want to read any more articles where I end up with a sick feeling of “The situation is hopeless, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it. Every attempt fails. Et cetera.”

3) Which places in Africa are doing well for themselves? Why? Are the people you’re writing about living in an area with no farmable land because they’ve been pushed out of their original lands for an animal sanctuary? Are politicians in this country corrupt, or are the corrupt politicians of nearby country to blame? Are Western countries allowing their corporations to get away with destroying local ecosystems without retribution? Is there a local culture of laziness where people mostly just drink instead of trying to help themselves? Are the locals being cheated out of the rewards of their hard work by the government or a company or something else?

This bit speaks for itself. I know people live in poverty. I want to know roughly why. I want to know what needs to change.

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I didn’t intend to write a comment this long. I guess these thoughts have just been sort-of building up in my head, as an individual who (I’m ashamed to admit) frequently finds herself “tired of hearing about poverty.”