The right to public speech
THE National has repeatedly made the point that Papua New Guinea is a secular state. In other words, no particular religion or denomination of a religion has pre-eminence in our society.
But some have chosen to interpret that constitutional fact as a barrier against any spokespersons of any religion or denomination venturing to speak about topics outside the strictly religious.
We have often been told by egotistical politicians that bishops and priests and rectors and pastors should “mind their own business”. Their own business is then defined as matters directly connected with their religious duties.
Such politicians supported by others in the community seek to establish a great divide between the affairs of humanity and the affairs of the spirit. Are these often avowedly Christian politicians familiar with the Bible?
There the matter is the subject of many a passionate verse. Or is it desirable that secular and spiritual matters should be hermetically sealed, one from the other?
In our opinion, to do so would be nonsense, for it would effectively silence some of the most educated and experienced voices in our midst. If they are practised as intended by the great prophets and figures associated with their foundation, all religions seek to influence the behaviour of humanity for the better.
Many would claim that corruption rapidly gains ground where people are increasingly apathetic towards religious beliefs.
Corruption may then be more readily fought within societies in which genuine religious beliefs devoid of fanaticism continue to guide the lives of the majority.
The retired Catholic Archbishop of Port Moresby, Sir
Brian Barnes, is a religious leader who passionately believes in the role of the church as an influence for righteous government and the sound moral and ethical development of the people.
He has been and continues to be a trenchant opponent to personal and institutional corruption regardless of where it is identified and he has not ceased to warn our people that corruption will destroy both them and their country. Having retired from his position as the capital’s Catholic archbishop two weeks ago, Archbishop Barnes remains as vehemently and vocally opposed to corruption as ever.
Describing the present state of PNG society as being at its most corrupt, the archbishop maintains that corruption is a major contributor to declining living standards and an impediment to growth.
He has urged Parliament to approve the creation of an independent anti-corruption body that would perform along similar lines to independent commissions against corruption (ICAC) in countries such as Australia.
ICAC in that country has proved effective at both investigating and prosecuting those found guilty of corruption.
Since its inception, levels of blatant corruption in Australian society have been considerably reduced. Where corruption is identified, those suspected face courts and many have subsequently been jailed, often for significant periods.
The archbishop’s opposition to corruption, unchanged throughout almost 50 years in PNG, puts most of our political leaders to shame.
Verbal attacks on corruption from politicians are never-ending; parliamentary attacks designed to deal with this corrosive phenomenon have been few and far between.
Why the on-going reluctance by successive governments to address this issue in the manner suggested by Archbishop Barnes? The answer is that all PNG governments have had much to fear from the creation and operations of such a body.
In the absence of such an independent council, bodies such as Transparency International PNG, the Ombudsman Commission and the Public Services Commission fight on valiantly in an attempt to control and lessen corruption.
All governments since independence have been riddled with nepotism, deliberate mismanagement, gross fiddling of the books, petty theft and grand larceny.
It is time the whole community listened to men of the stature of Archbishop Barnes. Our leading religious figures have the same rights as our political leaders to comment upon any aspect of our society – and often make a good deal more sense when they do.
There is nothing complicated about the archbishop’s prediction of the outcomes of corruption and nothing complex about his preferred solution.
Finally, we encourage the other shamefully silent religions and denominations in our midst to openly define their practical support for the fight against corruption in our country.
 
The hungry billion
By SUE HORTON and BJORN LOMBORG
HUNGER has slipped from the rich world’s consciousness.
Televised images of Third World children with distended bellies no longer shock viewers.
Polls show that developed nations now believe that the world’s biggest problems are terrorism and climate change.
Yet malnutrition in mothers and their young children will claim 3.5 million lives this year.
Global food stocks are at historic lows.
Food riots have erupted in West Africa and South Asia.
Progress is distressingly slow on the United Nations’ goal of halving the number of hungry people by 2015.
Those suffering the most are the billion people who survive on a dollar or less a day.
Individual tragedy and national hardship go hand in hand.
Shortened lives mean less economic output and income.
Hunger leaves people more susceptible to disease, requiring more health-care spending.
Those who survive the effects of malnutrition are less productive; physical and mental impairment means children benefit less from education.
Eighty per cent of the world’s undernourished children are in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Specific interventions to help these regions’ people would have massive benefits.
Research undertaken by the Copenhagen Consensus shows that an excellent approach would be to devote more money to providing the micronutrients that are lacking in poor communities’ diets.
Rich nations have all but eliminated goiter (swelling of the thyroid) by using iodized salt – a preventive measure lacking in 30% of developing world households, but that costs just US$0.05 a year per person.
Vitamin A capsules, which help avoid problems affecting eyesight and immunity, cost just another US$0.20.
Iron deficiency, one of the most significant micronutrient problems, causes anemia, which makes people weaker and less productive.
The Flour Fortification Initiative aims to fortify 70% of roller mill wheat flour with iron and folic acid by the end of 2008.
The annual cost?
As little as US$0.10 per person.
Scaling up these programmes – and adding folate and zinc supplements – to ensure provision for 80% of South Asians and sub-Saharan Africans would cost about US$347 million per year, but would yield a massive US$5 billion from improved future earnings and reduced healthcare spending.
There are other ways to make a difference quickly and inexpensively.
Intestinal parasites such as hookworm, roundworm and whipworm strip iron from sufferers’ guts, causing disease and intellectual retardation.
Deworming treatments eliminate an impediment to healthy nutrition.
A Kenyan school-based treatment programme was so successful that more teachers had to be hired because schools filled up.
And there are benefits to treating even younger children.
Deworming pre-schoolers will lock in the benefits of motor and language development at an annual cost of US$0.50 per child.
Reaching 53 million children in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa would yield economic benefits six times higher than the astonishingly modest annual cost of US$26.5 million.
Each of these policy options would address only one component of the overall malnutrition problem.
Therefore, developing nation policymakers should consider encouraging households to change their food practices.
One of the most important opportunities to provide educational messages about nutrition comes during pregnancy.
A mother’s diet, breastfeeding choice, and weaning practices are critically important for her child’s well-being.
Programmes to increase breastfeeding can be challenging in poor communities where mothers are typically engaged in agriculture and intensive work.
But promoting breastfeeding at the time of delivery, can be effective.
Weighing the mother-to-be, and weighing and measuring the baby, are important tools with which to frame educational messages, and educational sessions can also be used to provide micronutrient supplements and de-worming intervention.
Community-based, volunteer-managed education campaigns covering 80% of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa would cost US$798 million a year.
The annual benefits would total US$10 billion.
In a world with many challenges and not enough money, we have to make hard choices, and we cannot do it all.
But surely addressing hunger in the most cost-efficient way should be a top global priority.
So, if the world’s poor need educational messages about breastfeeding and nutrition, rich nations require a different kind of education.
We must drive home the message that Third World hunger remains a massive global problem to which we have a moral responsibility to respond.
For a small investment, we could start to make it yesterday’s problem. – Project Syndicate

Note: Sue Horton is vice-president of Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada. Lomborg is the organiser of Copenhagen Consensus, adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and author of Cool It and The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Editorial