The next attempt to solve the ills of the developing world through the tried and tested medium of glamorous international summit will be taking place at Lisbon in December. If the event is not completely derailed by the controversy surrounding the probable attendance of Robert Mugabe, then the leaders of the European and African Union nations will apparently occupy themselves in an attempt to create a new “strategic partnership”. When all the aspirant rhetoric and self-congratulation is said and done, this may well just amount to another of these exercises in specious gesture-politics to which we are becoming so well used.

Then again, it may not. There is cause for hope that we are in the process of undergoing a quantum shift in the way that we in the West relate – collectively and individually- to global issues, specifically poverty and climate change. And interestingly, this change is popularly driven. The Live 8 concerts attracted amazingly impressive line ups and world-wide audiences. This summer, top artists positively scrambled to get involved in Live Earth, the success of which was clearly presaged by the success at the box office of Al Gore’s Oscar Winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. When David Cameron attempted to re-brand his party as progressive and modern, it was no accident that high profile visits to the Arctic and Rwanda were central to his efforts.

Could it be that part of the reason so many people are dying is that too many are being born in the first place?

It would be nonsense to suggest that these are new issues about which no-one bothered before. Equally, though, association with these causes has never quite been de rigueur as now. Take as evidence of this the July issue of Vanity Fair. Guest edited by Bono, every single page was dedicated to Africa. The significance and symbolism of this can’t really be understated. We are talking here about a publication which has a reputation somewhat less for tireless activism than as unapologetic evangelists for an ethic of self-indulgent consumerism. It has even taken as its title the place in A Pilgrim’s Progress which Bunyan used as the symbol of a society wholly in thrall to avarice and moral dissolution. I belabour the point, but the lack of irony with which Vanity Fair: The Africa Edition was produced speaks eloquently to how contemporary and altruistic values can apparently, in this setting at least, not just co-exist but even be synonymous. Somehow and suddenly, it is becoming fashionable to spend time and treasure on making the world a better place.
There is a danger, though, and it is one that is inherent in any popularly driven cause or movement. It is that the very popularity of single issues like AIDS and famine may deflect us from the broader perspective that everyone knows is needed to help effect real change. Take the issue of overpopulation. No-one seems to want to touch it. It isn’t high on the agenda at Lisbon, or anywhere else for that matter. Certainly no televised super-concerts, celebrity appeals or ranges of clothing in GAP. Little mention in the media and little wonder, frankly, when you consider what a dismal and unexciting thing it is to contemplate. It deserves our attention, though, because if UN population researchers are right then Africa is undergoing a population explosion that will lead to its doubling to 1.7 billion by 2050. The effects that this will have on a continent already racked with pandemic, desertification, war and famine are frightening.

When the contemporary narrative has Africa as the site of a catastrophe of total proportions and amazing lethality, it is easy to see how the simplest approach is to measure success by the number of lives you can save, or put another way, the number of deaths you can prevent. This focus neglects, however, to explore the vicious irony of the fact that the more people are wiped out by pestilence and plague, the more the population appears to grow. Shouldn’t it immediately occur to us that this is so outrageously perverse that the only conclusion is that the two facts must be related? Whisper it softly, but could it be that part of the reason so many people are dying is that too many are being born in the first place?

Africa is undergoing a population explosion that will lead to its doubling to 1.7 billion by 2050.

The problem is that engagement with the population problem requires straying into complex and murky moral waters which relatively straightforward issues like malaria do not. The reasons why people in Africa are reproducing so prolifically are complicated and thus more susceptible to patient and thoughtful solutions than grand gesture. So efforts to raise awareness about it might well fail in spite of the likely causal connection with the less controversial causes that enjoy greatly heightened public awareness and engagement.

We have to hope that the cachet which the cause of Africa seems to be acquiring will lead to its being perceived by our politicians as a more rewarding arena to become involved in. If greater muscle can be flexed at the Lisbon meeting and others like it then everybody will celebrate. But as popular campaigns heighten awareness, we have to be on our guard to avoid the vapidity that can accompany fashionable, celebrity-involved causes. Ignoring an issue as complex and risky as overpopulation would be an unfortunate example of this. If a simple message is only successful in galvanising a simplistic search for solutions then its success will have been all in vain.