July 3, 2006
Systemic Failure or Natural disaster? by
Charity or Justice?
By Chris Rowan
The continually deepening food crisis in Africa is causing the peoples of the first world and those of Africa to continue to examine the problems, realise what the causes are and to search for what the solutions might be. It must be remembered, in this examination, that Africa is a large continent, not a single country, and that the reasons for the food shortages differ from state to state and from region to region. There are countries in conflict, or emerging from conflict and trying to rebuild their capacity, for instance Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There are regions and countries that are frustrated by environmental challenges and compounded by population growth, such as Ethiopia and Somalia. The regions of Eastern and Southern Africa are ravaged by the HIV Aids epidemic that in turn affects the agricultural work force and cuts farm productivity. Internationally, trade barriers are having a damaging effect on agricultural production especially in areas already anxious and strained by the structural adjustment imposed during the 1980’s. There is also the issue of weak governance in many of the areas that have suffered and are continuing to suffer food shortages.
The suggestion that African food problems are the result of natural disasters can be illustrated by the current situation related to the failure of the rains in and around the Horn of Africa. According to the BBC news site of March 31, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said in January that more than 30 million people are going hungry across Africa.
The Horn of Africa is especially badly hit with Somalia, north-eastern Kenya and Ethiopia suffering and around 11 million people in need of food aid after poor rains. At least half of the 11 million are on the brink of starvation and in dire need of help. In March the WFP expressed gratitude to the European Commission for donating over 5 million Euros in cash to provide food aid and on their website noted that this was the quick, flexible response needed as the drought worsens.
Tesema Negash, the country director for the WFP commented, “I am very glad that the European Commission has stepped forward at this very difficult time of need for Kenya”, and went on to hope that other new donors would also step forward. The WFP says it needs US$225 million to feed 3.5 million people from February 2006 until February 2007. To date, including the EU contribution, the agency has received US$74.6 million, leaving a 66.9 percent shortfall. The WFP list the countries below as having offered help.
- US: US$29 million
- Kenya: US$13.7 million
- UK Dept for International Development: US$19 million
- Australia: US$1.46 million
- Ireland: US$1.45 million
- Denmark: US$1.3 million
- Austria: US$700,000
- Belgium: US$604,595
- Italy: US$606,000
- Luxembourg: US$296,000
- New Zealand: US$274,000
- Turkey: US$200,000
- Private: US$22,600
- Israel: US$17,000
Linked to the problem of poor rains is the problem of soil degradation recognised in a report from the International Centre for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC) which has tracked the health of African Soil, between 1980 and 2004. The report shows that African farm land is quickly becoming barren and noted that over 80% of the farm land in Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from severe degradation.
This obviously causes major problems for an already hungry population and will create a situation that will be exacerbated by population growth. Traditionally farmers cleared land, grew crops but then moved on or cleared new land which left the original land fallow and able to recover. However the increasing pressures of population growth have meant that the same piece of land is used time after time, extracting all the nutrients out of the soil and giving no time for soil recovery.
Other factors such as wind and water erosion of the soil cause the loss of nitrogen and phosphorous; The IFDC notes Guinea, Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda as states with the highest rates of soil depletion This situation is compounded by the fact that very little is put back into the soil as fertiliser use in Africa is the lowest in the world.
The BBC news internet site (31.03.2006) suggests that African fertiliser use is less than 10% of the world average and adds that according to the IFDC report, African farmers are put off by the costs. The report does however call for investment to make mineral and organic fertilisers more available. Whilst in the United States, President Obasanjo of Nigeria drew attention to the problem after the release of the IFDC report and similar stories are carried in the Independent newspaper and the Toronto Star.
The unpredictable rains and the poor condition of the soil have definitely contributed to the current food crisis in Africa and thus natural disaster can be said to be a part of the explanation for the crisis. However, other factors are also involved. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned that 27 sub-Saharan countries need help and that around 200 million people are malnourished.
The FAO highlights such issues as civil strife, refugee movements, wars, and coups and suggests that these issues are responsible for more hunger than natural problems. Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen has said that no democracy has ever suffered from a famine and the political issues in Zimbabwe illustrate this point. Democracy is clearly suffering in Zimbabwe, the seizure of previously productive farms has added to food shortages and the political use of food as a weapon, distributed to government supporters and withheld from opposition areas. contribute further.
The BBC Africa analyst, Martin Plaut, has suggested that there are four critical issues to consider. The first issue contributing to the systemic problem is that of years of underinvestment in rural areas, because these areas have little political clout. African elites, if they respond to political pressure, respond to political pressure from cities and towns and compound this inequality with corruption and mismanagement, or what is currently called ‘lack of good governance’ by aid donors.
A statement from the International Food Policy Research Institute notes, “Poor governance is a major issue in many African countries, and one that has serious repercussions for long-term food security.” Martin Plaut agrees with the FAO and lists wars and political conflict, leading to refugees and instability as a major issue. It is worth noting that in 2004 the chairman of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare reminded an African summit that the continent had suffered from 186 coups and 26 major wars in the past 50 years.
It is also estimated that there are over 16 million refugees and displaced persons in Africa. Plaut goes on to note that HIV/Aids is depriving African societies of lots of their productive labour but despite this he states that the fourth issue to consider is the unchecked population growth. The United Nations Population Fund has said “Sub-Saharan Africa’s population has grown faster than any region over the past 30 years, despite the millions of deaths from the Aids pandemic. Between 1975 and 2005 the population more than doubled going from 335 to 751 million.
The issue of mismanagement and poor governance was also noted by Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem the director of Justice Africa in a debate with Nicholas Crawford of the World Food Programme, when he said, “No African country has ever refused to go to war (many of them unjust ones) because the IMF/World Bank, Western NGO’s or the so-called donors say there is no money.
It is only when it comes to feeding our peoples, educating our children, building roads and hospitals, creating jobs and looking after the welfare of our peoples that our governments plead lack of resources.” Mr Abdul-Raheem believes that empowering the peoples of Africa through the idea of Pan-Africanism will allow Africa to deal with its own problems without relying on the ever-present aid donors and the system of aid that continues to promote attitudes of superiority and inferiority and creates an aid addiction and a situation that lets such states as Ethiopia and Eritrea spend fortunes on border wars but also allows them to rely on outside aid providers such as the World Food Programme, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and other NGO’s to feed the peoples of these countries.
The consequences of the natural disasters or the mismanagement is that a continent that was more than self sufficient in food 50 years ago, around the time of independence for many African states, is now a massive importer of food. The book, ‘The African Food Crisis’ says that in 1966-70 net exports were about 1.3 million tons of food a year but that by the mid 1980’s imports of food were around 10 million tons.
Thus Mr Abdul-Raheem’s dream of a united Pan Africa. He believes that charity from The West or First World is supporting a system that is not allowing Africa people to dream of managing their own affairs and seizing their own destiny and as he says, “Let me spell it out clearly: Africa does not need aid or armies of bleeding heart liberals to feed its people, clothe them, educate them, if we have responsive and responsible leadership.”
He clearly seems to believe that colonialism can no longer be blamed and that if fingers need to pointed they must be pointed endogenously rather than exogenously. All must be engaged from the elites to the ordinary Africans who must hold their politicians to account if needs be. Thus to quote the Justice Africa web site (03/04/2006), “many more individuals, organisations and governments (must) share in our dreams that Africa matters, it matters to Africans and should matter to the rest of humanity.
