United Nations Work in Africa

Abstract

tN recent years the United Nations and the specialised agencies connected 1 with it have devoted a great deal of effort to raising the standards of living in Africa. Through this effort3 new techniques in agriculture, industry and health have been spread and hundreds of technical experts and students have been exchanged. Yet, there is still the growing feeling about the dispanty of levels of economic development between Africa and other parts of the world; a disparity which causes the expectation of life in most parts of Africa to be much below that in North AmeIica and Western Europe. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the World Health Organisation and other international bodies with a wide range of technical competence are fully co-ordinated through the Technical Assistance Board and, as a result of the expanded programme of technical assistance to underdeveloped areas, progress appears to be more rapid and results less doubtful than before. The expanded programme of technical assistance enables the international organisations to provide expert advice, assistance and training facilities in a very wide field, its object being directed towards helping governments to help themselves, for without the initiative of recipient governments no assistance can be rerldered, since assistance is only given in response to requests of governments Countries at present being assisted in Africa include: Bechuanaland, the Belgian Congo, Cameroons, Kenya, I iberia, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigena, Ruanda-Urundi, Tanganyika, Togoland, Tunisia, Uganda, French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa. The requests for assistance for most of these are made through the Commission on Co-operation in Technical Matters in Africa south of the Sahara and through the co-operation of the peoples of the world for the abolition of poverty and hurlger, for the elimination of clisease and for the banishment of ignorance and illiteracy, these specialised agencies carry the fight into the heart of Africa In the case of U.N.I.C.E.F.) its aid in Afnca is for mass health campaigns (malaria} yaws, eprosy and trachoma), the treatment and prevention of acute nutritional leficiencies in children (kwashiorkor) and a whooping cough vaccinatio rogramme (in Mauritius).