EN - FR - Yükselen Afrika ve Türkiye / Rising Africa and Turkey 3

188 Yükselen Afrika ve Türkiye / Rising Africa and Turkeyline of a famous 1978 film the “Wild Geese.” In the “Wild Geese” a British multinationalfirms plots to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa and hires a band ofmercenaries. These gentlemen are sent to save the imprisoned virtuous opposition leaderwho is also critically ill and due for execution. The mercenaries organise an excellentrescue but the firm cuts a deal with the vicious dictator and leave mercenaries indifficulty. It is difficult to predict to what extent these large number of mercenary filmsinfluenced Mr. Mann and his colleagues but the outcome of their attempt certainly hasbeen a diplomatic embarrassment and an international scandal for Britain’s Mr. TonyBlair and Spain’s Mr. Mario Aznar.5A note of caution is necessary. Much of the statistical data and its quality is problematic.Nevertheless it is possible to establish some clear trends.6When compared to England and Wales at the turn of the century and Russian Federationsince 1989, sub-Saharan African performance has been superior. In Englandand Wales female life expectancy in the early 20 th century was five years shorter thanthis, 49 in 1901. In the Russian Federation life expectancy at birth fell between 1989 –1995 by 6 years while infant mortality increased significantly.7Sender follows the intuition that a strong correlation exists between the expansionof female secondary school provision with reduction in infant mortality and fertility.8In South Asia 36%, (24% in Pakistan, 26% in Bangladesh, 15% in Afghanistan,14% in Nepal) of women were illiterate by 1995. When initial literacy levels of otherdeveloping countries are taken into account sub-Saharan Africa’s performance in removingilliteracy is also impressive. For instance, female literacy had already reachedmuch higher levels by the early 1950s in the most rapidly industrializing economies.