Feeding the hungry poor good or bad idea?

In response to the article written by Benjamin Kwame Tawiah published on the 23 /01/2008 regarding the feeding of the Million Hungry Children & Families one would like to challenge such decision to the created crisis? Is this approach the best way forward?

Is this approach part of a short-term measure followed by a long-term plan for the next 20 years for children and families, or what? This programme is all very well but then it appears to be purely a short-term measure. Feed all these people for one month but stop feeding them one week everything is exactly the same as before. So what long-term benefits are there for the poor and vulnerable.

In Ghana and the rest of Africa we need programmes that reward people for helping themselves and their community, not hand outs.

Why are we crying wolf when we live in a world of plenty, with 24/7 sunshine, enviable beaches, genuine friendship, and yet due to lack of strategic thinking for our youth's future. We have no clear 20-year strategic objectives, which provides a plan to be followed by any ruling government that takes over?

Why should the EU be investing in nurses and teacher-training colleges, toilets, classrooms etc. when our priorities seem to be to build structures like our new stadiums, proposed presidential palace and other prestigious projects. Nice projects we see on the front page of our newspapers, but leave substantial parts of our towns and cities as stinking slums without basic services? We can be proud of our new buildings, but then we try to forget what surrounds them! On the other hand, lets see what someone can achieve with a real vision.

Achievements of Mayor of Curitiba, Brazil
In 1988, Jaime Lerner was elected as the Mayor of Curitiba and within 20 years he was able to achieve a transformation of his city by implementing a host of social, ecological, and urban reforms.
Lerner employed unorthodox solutions to Curitiba's geographic challenges for example the floodplain that bothered Curitiba. Comparing the wealthier cities in the United States such as New Orleans and Sacramento, which had chosen to build expensive and expensive-to-maintain levee systems to build on floodplain. Lerner on the other hand did purchased the floodplain and made them into city parks. The city now ranks among the world leaders in Per-capita Park area. Then Curitiba had the problem that due to its status as a third-world city, it was unable to afford the tractors and petroleum to mow these parks.

So the excellent innovative response was to mow the parks was to have "municipal sheep" that keep the parks' vegetation under control and whose wool funds children's programs.

Before Lerner became mayor, Curitiba had some barrios (slums) impossible to service by municipal waste removal. The "streets" were too narrow perhaps just like the streets in our slums in Ghana. Rather than abandon these people, or raze these slums, Lerner instead decided on a program that traded bags of groceries or bus passes for bags of trash. The inhabitants sorted the trash so that it could be recycled and sold on. With this approach the slums got much cleaner and the inhabitant better nourished.

A similar scheme let fishermen be paid for cleaning a Bay of a lake with was being used as a dump and would be extremely costly to clean up. Thus savings Curitiba millions.

Lerner instituted many innovative social and educational programs. Barrio kids can be apprenticed to city employees if they don't want to go to school. Although his term as mayor is not without controversy, Curitiba does not have the gangs of much more populous cities such as Rio de Janeiro.

Perhaps the crown jewel of Curitiba's achievements is its Bus Rapid Transit system Originally, the city was given Federal money to build a subway (Curitiba is not a small town). Lerner, in contract discovered that "heavy rail" like a subway costs ten times the amount for "light rail" (trolleys), which, in turn, costs ten times a bus system, even with dedicated bus ways. The "light rail" savings usually touted to sway municipal decision-makers occur because even trolleys can have relatively fewer drivers than a 40 - 60 passenger bus. Lerner got Volvo to make 270 Swedish people accordion buses (300 Brazilians, says Lerner) so that the problem of a lower passenger number to driver ratio was no longer an issue. The City built attractive transit stops with the look and feel of train stations -- and all the handicapped access equipment - inducing private firms to purchase and operate the buses. A hierarchy of buses of six sizes feed one other. The city controls the routes and fares, while the private companies hire drivers and maintain equipment. The buses have dedicated lanes so are not caught in traffic jams.

Natural land-use patterns within the city of Curitiba support public transit systems. Buildings along the dedicated bus ways are up to six stories tall, gradually giving way, within a few blocks, to single story homes. This mix of densities ensures sufficient user population within walking distance of bus stops.
This is one of the few transit systems that are not subsidised. It also has increasing usage on the bus even though per-capita auto ownership is rising in Curitiba. People choose to use the bus. Curitaba is now considered to be one of the most desirable places to live in Brazil.

There are a number of ideas above from Curitiba, which could be emulated in Ghana. Perhaps it would pay us to reward people living in the slums to dig basic sewers, improve access roads, and in return plots of land could be surveyed and demarcated to give the residents a proper feeling of ownership of their community.

Another innovative ideas would to provide assistance in form of micro financing for the residents to rebuild basic homes with proper facilitates. Thereby increasing their self-esteem and self worth within our country.
Ghana definitely needs unorthodox solutions as provided by Jaime Lerner as not all solutions we get from the developed world, for example Britain and USA, are sensible in Africa. Ghana and the rest of Africa desperately need basic workable solutions that are cost effective for our limited resources for our nations.

What benefits would be left for these people when the programme stops.

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