African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines African Ethnomedicines Network ISSN: 0189-6016 Vol. 4, Num. 4, 2007, pp. 382

Editorial

POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA: MORE ACTION IS REQUIRED FROM STAKEHOLDERS

Drug Research and Production Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and *Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa E-Mail: editor@africanethnomedicines.net

Code Number: tc07075

The anatomy and physiology of poverty are very complicated. Also complicated is the therapy of poverty. Many of the problems in Nigeria (including greed, avarice, election rigging, armed robbery, diseases, etc) are associated with poverty. Driving through the cities of many African, parts of Asian and South American countries, one could clearly feel poverty, hunger and poverty-related diseases. Unfortunately, however, the poor people are used to seeing abject poverty face-to-face. This may be because they have resigned themselves to the overwhelming burden of poverty, or because of lack of aggressive actions by governments to reduce poverty. In many developing countries, some of the poverty-alleviating programmes have been seemingly geared towards enriching the pockets of relatives and cronies of some officials of governments and agencies.

AJTCAM, therefore, supports the efforts of the Committee of Science Editors and the World Association of Medical Editors in creating awareness regarding the call for global efforts to reduce, if not eradicate, poverty. Governments should empower their citizens by providing qualitative education and vocational training programmes which would make it easier for the populace to create and find suitable jobs. Governments should also encourage development of good farming systems that would make it possible for poor nations to feed themselves and improve their healthcare delivery system by investing in alternative medicines and training of herbalists. Equitable trading policies should be instituted by the world's richest nations with the less fortunate ones. AJTCAM's solidarity is with these sentiments. The journal is, therefore, devoting its October 2007 Issue to this worthy course , and calling for global support to reduce poverty by publishing some papers in this issue. The journal is particularly happy to accommodate the following papers in this issue: F. E. Ogbimi (2007). Promoting sustainable economic growth and industrialisation: solution to mass unemployment and poverty - Afr. J. Trad. CAM 4(4):541-552; Omotoye Olorode (2007), Biodiversity, globalisation and poverty. -Afr. J. Trad. CAM 4(4):532-540; Dokun Oyeshola (2007), Development and poverty: a symbiotic relationship and its implication in Africa -Afr. J. Trad. CAM 4(4):553-558 and also publication of papers relevant to AJTCAM's focus and scope.

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