Wrongheaded Policy:
Population Control and the AIDS Crisis in Africa
By Steven W. Mosher
The AIDS crisis in Africa is putting more and more
children at risk. Either their parents are too
sick to care for them, or they have already been
left orphans. Yet the U.S. Agency for
International Development routinely spends more
money to prevent children from being born through
the aggressive promotion of sterilization, IUDs,
Norplant, Depo-Provera, and the Pill, than to care
for already born children who are orphaned,
homeless, sick or hungry.
--In Tanzania, according to the latest figures
from USAID, only $2.5 million will be spent on
child survival and other health programs in 2001,
and none at all on displaced children and
orphanages. Yet twice that amount, or $5 million,
will be spent on population control.
--In Uganda, only $2.8 million is budgeted for
child survival and other health programs, while a
full $7 million is budgeted for population
control. Orphanages and displaced children will
receive nothing.
--In Nigeria, $6.4 million is budgeted for child
survival and other health programs, while
population control programs will receive $11
million. No funds are budgeted for displaced
children or orphanages.
Given this all-consuming emphasis on population
control, it is perhaps no surprise that little
real development has occurred in Africa, despite
the billions of dollars in aid spent there since
USAID came into existence in 1961.
Indeed, this emphasis on population control has
itself caused problems, notably by undermining the
primary health care system.
Dr. Kevin DeCock, Director of the Kenyan field
office of the Centers for Disease Control,
suggested at an international AIDS conference last
month that, given the poor state of primary health
care in Africa, a "reinvestment in Africa's public
health system and basic infrastructure will be
necessary before efforts to combat AIDS can make a
substantial difference."[1]
Perhaps if, over the past thirty years, African
ministries of health had not been pushed to focus
exclusively on population control, there might be
more health infrastructure in place to cope with
the AIDS crisis.
It is not too late to start.
Steven W. Mosher is President of the Population
Research Institute, a non-profit organization
dedicated to debunking the myth that the world is
overpopulated.
[1] "The AIDS Crisis in Africa," remarks given at
the 8th Congress on Retroviruses and Opportunistic
Infections, Chicago, Illinois, February 4-7, 2001
Population Research Institute
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USA
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