Madonna’s recent “charity” trip to Malawi did not disappoint anyone looking for a good “tabloid” cover story. Greeted by a government minister on arrival in her private jet in Blantyre, Madonna immediately generated a media storm but still managed to keep everyone guessing as to the true object of her visit until the eve of her departure. Now the cat is out of the bag. Approaching the closest earthly approximation to the Madonna’s Immaculate Conception, Madonna left Malawi with child. And his name is David.

On a more serious note, I have been puzzled by the fuss generated in Malawi and internationally over David Banda’s adoption by Madonna. According to recent reports, it seems that Madonna too has been disappointed by the controversy that her action has generated. In a recent interview with Oprah Madonna blasted the press for the negative reports;

They have spun a story that is completely false…I understand that gossip and telling negative stories sells newspapers. But … I'm disappointed because it discourages other people from doing the same thing. I feel like the media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa, period, not just Malawi, by turning it into such a negative thing.

Apart from the possibility mentioned in this BBC article that the father had no idea that the child was not going to be returned to him, which Madonna vehemently denied in the Oprah interview, the basic issue that most reporters seem to miss is the reality of adoption and orphanages in Africa. According to a 2003 UNICEF report, Africa’s Orphaned Generations, there are approximately 34 million orphaned children in sub-Saharan Africa alone. The same report goes on to warn that their numbers are expected to increase such that by 2010, orphans will account for 15% to over 25% of all children in 12 sub-Saharan countries, including Malawi.

However the State Department reports that for the fiscal year 2005, 22,728 immigrant visas were issued to orphans coming to the U.S. Of these, the top two from Africa were Ethiopia (441) and Nigeria (65), coming in 7 th and 17 th place respectively. In the recent couple of years, I only know of two celebrities, Angelina Jolie and now Madonna, adopted orphans from Africa under the watchful eye of the media -- yet from the press reports, one can be forgiven for thinking that there has been a sudden stampede of celebrity adoptions in Africa. So in reality, the preoccupation with Madonna’s adoption of this one child hinges on people’s noticing when celebrities do things rather than any real basis for thinking that a celebrity adopting a child from Africa is bad.

An oft-cited argument is that a child would be socially better off if they grew up in the same environment as their parents and immediate relatives. However, this claim has the virtue of being hard to verify, and perhaps needlessly overemphasized -- it seems rather far-fetched to believe that a child’s cultural background is hardwired into them such that being uprooted from it, even at an early age, would have significant repercussions. In addition, if the only available “home” in familiar surroundings is an impoverished orphanage, the argument becomes more tenuous. As the statistics above make clear, the number of African children being adopted in general, let alone by celebrities, is miniscule relative to the number of children that could potentially be adopted. Therefore, in the greater context of millions of orphaned children in Africa alone, there is little gain in getting preoccupied with the details of a single adoption.

I believe that a first-order solution should comprise building the capacity of the local community and extended family to absorb and provide care for the orphaned children. However, it is also clear that the magnitude of the crises is such that, coupled with the AIDS crises and economic challenges that most African countries are facing, there is little hope of any relief in the short term, regardless of what many “NGOs” and civil society might now claim. It is also probably accurate to say that in most societies, orphanages are a last resort only when the immediate and extended family have failed to take (adequate) care of the child. The preface to Africa’s Orphaned Generations has a quote from a Kenyan widow in her late fifties who says:

In the past, people used to care for the orphans and loved them, but these days they are so many, and many people have died who could have assisted them, and therefore orphanhood is a common phenomenon, not strange. The few who are alive cannot support them.

Who then, in the face of such a crisis whose relief is not likely to be fully realized in our lifetime, can really begrudge David Banda’s good fortune? It can only be to his benefit to grow up in a more home-like setting, albeit with guardians who are nothing like his biological parents.

It is quite possible that the media reports give an incomplete picture of Madonna’s exact motivations, or those of the activist groups involved in challenging David’s adoption, especially in light of the recent patronizing upsurge of ‘‘love” for Africa, high profile celebrity “Poverty Ambassadors” and Rockstar economists, which might all be cause for concern. However, I doubt that unqualified suspicion and paranoia are reasonable bases for any gainful action. Nonetheless, I am not advocating for adoption as a solution to the orphan crisis. Instead, at the risk of oversimplifying my own arguments, my observations are similar to noting that while there may be many poor people in this country, and the lottery is not the solution to poverty, it is hardly reasonable to begrudge either the State Lottery or the formerly poor winner of the lottery. Similarly, I doubt that Madonna set out to solve the orphan crisis in Africa. Like any of the 22,728 families that adopted orphans last year, Madonna deserves her privacy and respect.

Further, if celebrities are starting to take an interest in raising children from developing countries, this could be seen as the start of a positive trend in forming global links. Now David Banda’s extended family includes his family in Malawi and Madonna’s, something that would have been impossible without the adoption.