Catherine Langevin-Falcon is a graduate student of journalism of NYU. She has a master's degree in history, also from NYU.

Talk about a photo opportunity: A woman gave birth in a tree and focused world attention on the devastating floods in southern Africa that left hundreds dead and a million homeless. And with five widely reported words, Graca Machel, a former Mozambican first lady now married to Nelson Mandela, criticized the international community's response to the crisis and summed up the problem with humanitarian aid: "It is always too late." The world's rich countries are often accused of having a double standard when it comes to assisting emergencies in Africa. They seem to be far less responsive than they do to crises in Europe and Asia. Why?

Explanations run the gamut from Western countries' need to serve their domestic constituencies, to logisticalconsiderations, to feelings that African countries tend to siphon off donor money or that they use it unwisely. Some chalk the problem up to donor "fatigue" while others say warm weather countries need less money than those in colder climes. But one highly placed U.N. official thinks these reasons miss the real point. "There is just too much evidence to suggest that when a white Western power is calling the shots, the donor bias exists," he said. "The problem is too strongly in place to not suggest that racism is at the root of it."

...>Westerner apathy towards African conflicts

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Graca Machel