I Got an ~A~ on My Academic Response Essay

Below is the Academic Response Essay that I received an A on:

What is the primary point of Kofi A. Annan's "In Africa, AIDS Has a Woman's Face," and what does that mean for the global economy?

AIDS is killing African women. African women are the backbone of African communities. If the the African woman is not preserved, economic growth in Africa will not be possible. Even though the recent United Nations report shows that H.I.V. infection rates in Uganda continue to decline, the U.N. must continue to focus on new ways to assist with famine and prevent AIDS in Africa, before it is too late.

African women are the foundation that hold the African communities up (Kofi A. Annan 124). Before the AIDS crisis, women proved more resilient than men (Kofi A. Annan 125). It is the woman in the African communities that takes care of a sick husband, reducing the time she can devote to planting, harvesting, and marketing crops (Kofi A. Annan 125). When her husband dies, she is often deprived of credit, distribution networks or land rights (Kofi A. Annan 125). When she dies, the household suffers, leaving children to take care of themselves. The older ones, especially girls will be taken out of school to work at home or in the farm. These girls, lacking of education and opportunities, will be even less able to protect themselves against AIDS (Kofi A. Annan 125). Because droughts happened once a decade or so, women who had experienced previous droughts were able to pass on survival techniques to younger women (Kofi A Annan 125). Women are the ones who nurture social networks that can help spread the burden in times of famine (Kofi A. Annan 125).

Africa's economy will suffer if women cease to exist. Because of AIDS, farming skills are being lost, agricultural development efforts are declining, rural livelihoods are disintegrating, productive capacity to work the land is dropping and house hold earning are shrinking-all while the cost of caring for the ill is rising exponentially (Kofi A. Annan 124 and 125). At the same time, H.I.V. infection and AIDS are spreading dramatically and disproportionately among women (Kofi A. Annan 124 and 125). During 2002, an estimated 29,400,000 of South Africa's adults and children were living with AIDS (Kofi A. Annan 127).

The U.N. must find new ways to help Africa fight famine and AIDS. A combination of new approaches to farming with treatment and prevention of H.I.V. and AIDS must be the focus (Kofi A. Annan 125). It will require creating early-warning and analysis systems that monitor both H.I.V. infection rates and famine indicators (Kofi A. Annan 125). It will require new agricultural techniques, appropriate to depleted work force (Kofi A. Annan 125). It will require a renewed effort to wipe out H.I.V.-related stigma and silence (Kofi A. Annan 125).

The recent United Nations report shows that H.I.V. infection rates in Uganda continue to decline (Kofi A. Annan 126). In South Africa, infection rates for women under 20 have started to decrease (Kofi A. Annan 126). In Zambia, H.I.V. rates show signs of dropping among women in urban areas and younger women in rural areas. In Ethiopia, infection levels have fallen among young women in the center of Addis Ababa (Kofi A. Annan 126).

The African woman will become exstinct if the U.N. does not take immediate action to halt the devastating effects of famine and AIDS in Africa.

Works Cited
Annan, Kofi A. "In Africa, AIDS Has a Woman's Face" The New World Reader: Thinking and Writing about the Global Community. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 123-126