When was the last time you stopped and looked up the figures for income in Africa? I have been looking at them again just now, and they are alarming. Almost half the people in sub-Sahara Africa have to live on less than $1 a day. That is appalling. No wonder Madonna was stirred to adopt little David Banda two years ago. (And it is a relief that the Malawi High Court recently approved that adoption.) Many thousands of people die because of poverty in Africa, and the mortality rate is especially high among needy children — many of them die before the age of five. Can you imagine that? And all this in the context of increasing African poverty, as research says there will be more poor and needy people in the continent in 2015 than there were in 1990.