Symposium addresses Africa's future

Africa currently struggles with some unfinished business: providing public health care without infringing upon individuals' human rights. As a continuation of last year's Human Rights Workshop, this year Penn's Department of African Studies, along with Consortium partners Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore colleges, sponsored its eighth annual workshop, entitled "Unfinished Business: Africa in the New Millennium." On Friday, inside Irvine Auditorium, an assortment of professors and scholars convened for panel discussions on war and the prospects for peace in Central Africa, health and disease in Africa, the condition of the youth of Africa and a debate with writer and artist Breyten Breytenbach. The roundtable discussion on "Health and Disease in Africa Today" addressed current health problems in Africa, including the resurgence of infectious diseases, the impact of such epidemics as HIV/AIDS and Malaria and the ethics of health research on the continent. Kalala Ngalamulume, a professor of Africana Studies and History at Bryn Mawr College, acknowledged the problems associated with public access to health care and the government's control over a person's individual right to freedom. He cited the rate of maternal death in underdeveloped countries as being eight times that of the U.S. Ngalamulume added that the lack of access to medicine and skilled physicians during birth needs to be addressed. He indicated that about 80 percent of childhood deaths in Kenya occur before children ever see a doctor. Ngalamulume has lost three siblings to AIDS, and he emphasized the lack of medical attention in Africa. "If my brothers were in the United States, would they have survived longer? Of course, the answer is definitely yes." Moreover, Ngalamulume pointed out that the money African countries spend on the military is greater than that spent on health care, with health care comprising less than 2 percent of the GDP in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Community Liaison for the Outreach Coordination Center and graduate student of Public Health at Temple University Alex Otieno affirmed that the increasing spread of the AIDS epidemic to southern Africa has led to the recognition of AIDS by the World Bank, U.S. and other western powers. With countries like Botswana, in which 36 percent of the living adults have HIV, Otieno stated, "You can't have a significant amount of people die in the foreseeable future and not have moral and social consequences." Otieno added that the World Bank and the IMF are contradicting themselves by saying that they will appropriate money for HIV, yet insisting on the sustainability of costs. Asked to provide a solution for the lack of medical access, Otieno said, "I think it has a lot to do with education, both formal education and getting a core of people to act." "We need to train scholars on human rights issues and inform professors on the other side, so that they will have an enhanced ability to talk to the other side," Otieno continued. Sociology Professor Susan Watkins discussed the ethics of international research in sub-Saharan Africa. "[The US government] aims to avoid exploiting participants and subjects, and to protect itself from political flack," she said. College senior Cynthia Wasonga, who attended the workshop for a History of Africa class, stated, "An entire continent was being ignored and now, all of a sudden, the entire world is interested."