Pop goes the Third World

Mick Jagger, Phil Collins, Madonna, Tina Turner, David Bowie, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan, Queen - the biggest names in the music business performed on July 13th, 1985 for famine relief in Africa. Organised by Irish rock musician Bob Geldof, Live Aid took place in London and Philadelphia simultaneously, was watched by 1.5 billion people in 160 countries, and raised $70 million.

During the 1980s many Africans faced starvation. In 1980 more than 10 million people in east Africa were threatened by what Britain's Disaster Emergency Committee described as the world's worst famine. Two years of drought plus local wars led to widespread crop failure and made refugees of two million people. The famine area extended from northern Kenya through Uganda, to Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti. In Somalia 500 people were dying each day in refugee camps. In northern Uganda, between 400 and 500 people, mostly children, were dying daily. In 1984, there was famine in Ethiopia. The continuing failure of the rains transformed once bountiful areas into virtual deserts. As crops failed, families left their homes in search of food. By the end of the year, the UN estimated that up to one million people had died and eight million children were at risk. The West became all too accustomed to images of skeletal black infants with swollen bellies.

Relief efforts were held up due to lack of transport, poor co-ordination, and wars in Tigre and Eritrea. Relations between government and the various aid agencies were strained, especially when $250 million was spent on celebrating the 10th anniversary of Haile Selassie's overthrow. By May 1985, up to 500,000 tons of food had been delivered, and thousands of Ethiopians were relying solely on feeding stations to survive. In 1900 the population of Africa was 138 million. By 1950 that figure had nearly doubled, and by 1990, in spite of the ravages of famine, civil war and AIDS, it was 642 million. Africans have more children per family (five to six) than anyone else. Asian parents have an average of three children, and in the West, it is down to 1.7 babies per household. Mouths to feed, worldwide, have increased in the 20th century more than at any other time in the history of mankind. In 1930 the world population rose above two billion. The current world population is six billion, rising by 80 million a year, and it is estimated it will peak at seven-and-a-half billion in 20 or 30 years.

The unprecedented growth of the world's population during this century is largely due to the spread of public health measures, in the developed world in the early part of the century, and latterly in the Third World. Vaccination, water purification, spraying against mosquitoes and the development of antibiotics have had a profound effect on the average life expectancy and on infant mortality rates. Advances in agronomic science have resulted in higher-yielding seeds, increasing food supplies. However, while the average American can now expect to live to age 75, the average African, Indian or South American is lucky to reach 60.