Dying for a better life

Mobile phones are a sign of the developed world; an aid to commerce and communications. However, for some, the ease of communication can prove deadly.

Migrants who have risked the journey to Malta from Africa contact distant friends and relatives by internet and phone. Water is not the only thing that people will walk miles for in Africa. Owning a mobile phone can mean walking to the nearest market centre and finding an electric outlet to get it charged.

Electricity is still too expensive for many rural areas, yet the range of mobile phone signals has spread rapidly to serve a growing population of users.

Internet and mobile technology is proving to be a boon to African farmers looking for a better deal on their produce. But for many others, a ring tone may turn out to be a death summons when a family member calls from overseas to say they made it across the water to a better life.

Anyone with a fridge, a cooker and a bed to sleep in at night can consider themselves better off than three quarters of the world's population who do not enjoy these basic possessions.

Safe water to drink and bathroom plumbing are still luxuries in the developing world. Basic medicines are often not available in the public sector, with the price inflated along private supply chains.

High agricultural subsidies for farmers in developed countries have kept food prices artificially low, but acted as a negative incentive for agricultural investment in developing countries. With production falling, an increase in droughts due to a changing climate, and the shift toward production of biofuel crops, the world is becoming a hungrier place.

Rising world food prices mean more people are eating less food of lower quality. Recent drops in the price of raw materials have not been enough to make a difference. Children are being taken out of school and girls are prevented from marrying because they are needed to carry water from an ever more distant source.

With farmers being forced to migrate to cities, it is the women who are often left behind to feed and care for their families. Women grow much of the food, yet very few own land or are able to borrow money to buy seeds. Ensuring equality between men and women must be integrated into the way assistance is given.

For those who risk clandestine entry to Europe by sea, our standard of living makes Malta seem like the first port in paradise - something to reach out for, or die trying.

As migrants arrive by the boatload in the hope of finding a job, African countries are being stripped of their workforce. Immigrants take up jobs here in construction, sanitation and agriculture. The Maltese economy absorbs them as consumers of necessities and luxuries. Money they send home is a lifeline.

At a seminar marking the international day for eradication of poverty, world leaders were urged to honour millennium development goals set by world leaders at a United Nations summit in 2000. Targets for improving health and environment in developing countries, as well as putting a stop to extreme poverty and hunger, were to be met by 2015.

A half-term report by the MDG task force notes that important gaps remain in delivering on global commitments in the areas of aid, trade, debt relief, access to new technologies and affordable essential medicines.

While some of the goals have been met in some countries, others are slipping backward. In sub-Saharan Africa, almost half the population are forced to live on less than $1 a day and life expectancy is falling, with one in three children malnourished.

Overloaded, unseaworthy boats bring the third world to our doorstep. Since the first boat of Africans came to Malta in 1988, the influx has grown from a trickle to a flood of 2400 per year and rising.

If government is to devolve responsibility onto non-governmental organisations, then the question of what action is most effective arises. Speaking at the seminar organised by the Maltese platform of non-governmental development organisations (SKOP), anthropology lecturer Paul Clough made the astute observation that if living conditions in detention centres were substantially improved, then the summer wave of boat people would become "a human tsunami." Most African migrants here can connect with their friends and families via mobile phone or the internet. "Many more would risk the Mediterranean crossing", concluded Clough.

Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg admitted that assistance and development aid was underreported, but hinted that more transparency was around the corner.

Borg said that an increase in financing of overseas development aid for micro-projects with clear benefits would feature in next year's Budget. "As long as there is a difference in the standard of living, this migration will continue," added the minister.

Ex-manager of the Marsa Open Centre, Terry Gosden, said that it was a mistake to presume we know what is best for Africa. "It is easier to buy a gun in Somalia than it is to see a doctor or buy food." He referred to the amount of money being spent on the control of piracy, which is hitting multi-national companies, and appealed for a halt to the sale of weapons to the third world.