Towards the Achievement of Millennium Development Goal One in Africa : The Position of Foreign Aid

Abstract

Every human being has a right to a secured livelihood which includes basic needs like food, shelter, and other necessities of daily life. However, these basic needs are beyond the reach of millions of people in Africa. The long history of imperialism, lack of economic growth, natural disaster and war, coupled with corruption make most of the states in Africa confront extreme poverty and hunger. A World Bank record shows that about half of African population live on less than World Bank $2 a day poverty line. Similarly , a UNICEF report revealed that millions of Africans live without adequate shelter, access to safe water and good health services while about 5,000 people die of hunger and hunger related causes every day, in the continent. The parlous human conditions in Africa was one of the reasons the United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals in year 2000. The first of the eight goals is eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. Since the adoption of the MDGs, the developed nations has increased significantly, the amount of foreign aid they give to African countries, believing that aid would help to eradicate extreme poverty. However, Poverty and hunger are still prevalent in the continent, so much so that many aid donors have become frustrated and doubtful of the effectiveness of their aid programme. Thus, this paper examined why international aid has not succeed in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and also explored alternative solution to this crisis in Africa. The study was based on secondary sources of investigation, data collection and analysis. Hence, the methodology adopted was basically descriptive.