Outlook 2006: Making the Crucial Connection between Land Deprivation and Extreme Poverty

Small-Scale Agriculture and Food Security

Addressing the food security issue in Africa has remained one of the pernicious central challenges for the agencies working on advocacy. For a long time the Washington Office on Africa has, among other issues, directed its attention towards inequalities that have for many years continued to undermine African economic opportunity in the global economy. It has consistently positioned itself to address policy-makers on the need to accept that food security is a right, not a matter for free trade posturing (Washington Office on Africa Action Alert, November, 1999).

Its basic argument is that:

To require African nations to permit entry of imported food, produced more cheaply than domestically grown food, threatens African agriculture in the name of the "market." Further, the victimization of African nations by "dumping" (such as occurred when European C-grade beef entered the South African market, undermining Namibian beef exports to South Africa) while industrialized nations are "protected" against cheap agricultural products from Africa is unjust.

In the same vein, Mike Davis argues that, "*famine is part of a continuum with the silent violence of malnutrition that precedes and conditions it, and with the morality of debilitation and disease that follows it, famine does not arise spontaneously with failure of harvest. Rather it is an outcome of a system that places greater importance upon market than upon those that are going hungry." (Mike Davis, 2002)

The question that remains is: How serious is hunger in Africa? In sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 316 million people are living in extreme poverty, at less than U.S. $1 per person per day. More than 64 percent of the people affected live in rural areas with limited incomes gained through agricultural activities (World Bank Report, 2001). Even USAID acknowledges that agriculture remains integral to sub-Saharan African economies, representing up to 40 percent of GDP on that continent. Another USAID report confirms that agriculture is the primary source of income for 65 percent of the people in that region of the world (USAID - Making Progress in Africa 2005).

Some economists have argued that while small-scale agricultural producers in Africa account for 90 percent of production for domestic consumption, per capita agricultural production remains at 1990 levels (Jeffrey Sachs, 2004).

This explains the sad, regrettable fact that, unlike the rest of the world, hunger continues to get worse in Africa. Although the majority of the people work on land to feed themselves, estimates show that 204 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, more than 30 percent of the total, do not have sufficient food to meet their daily needs. More than 50 percent of these are women and children. It is critical to address the connection between extreme poverty and land deprivation, as well as the need for improved performance of the agricultural sector if food security and reduction of poverty in Africa is to be realized (U.N. FAO, 2005).

The arguments underscore the fact that small-scale agriculture remains the one option and a sustainable means of livelihood open to the poor in Africa. The same arguments also underscore that large-scale agricultural industry is tied to the development of modern skills, advanced technologies, and high capital inputs. These remain inaccessible and unaffordable by people living in poor communities, especially in Africa.

Yet solutions to obviate hunger have continued to focus on food aid from sources external to Africa, and on employment creation that is based on the growth of industry within Africa. Little consideration about the continent's limited control on the way industry grows and therefore provides employment has been made part of the equation.

There is a myth, yet commonly held, that low agricultural production is the root cause of poverty, food shortage and hunger in Africa. That myth is one of the fundamental reasons why food security has not been placed high enough on the global agenda. It is also the reason for the failure to make the link between access to land and sustaining the livelihoods of the majority of rural communities. The agricultural sector's flawed market-led strategies for improving production fail to resolve the hunger problem.

As Africa's trade partners continue to hammer at market-led policies, the sustainability of food security has been relegated to an artificial solution - food aid. The industrialized world has therefore ignored the nuances of gender development and biodiversity, including crop and animal husbandry. These must be part of the answer to food security in Africa.

Efforts to improve policies to reduce hunger have centered on strengthening African economies through structural adjustment economic programs. The United States, as an industrialized nation, is supposed to provide leadership to correct the pervasive imbalances of those policies. The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture - which allowed rich countries to increase agricultural production - is but one example of a failure to recognize the role of growing economies in providing solutions that are sustainable. The U.S. has chosen to stay with its policy of using excess agricultural production, in the form of aid, to unfairly compete on world markets, while maintaining its position that market-led agricultural production is one of the solutions to ensure global food security. This position added to the reasons why issues were left unresolved during the debates at the recently concluded December 2005, WTO meeting.

At the dawn of the millennium, there were unprecedented new energy levels that gave hope to many people. A global commitment to set up the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eradicate poverty, hunger and food shortage in Africa and other poor parts of the world was realized. But the contradiction in those goals has remained unchanged, underlining that development that is focused on economic support for market-led agricultural advancement, which in turn buttresses production of food excesses that support consumerism and not reduction of hunger among poor nations.

The MDGs sought to address issues of poverty, malnutrition and hunger, HIV/AIDS and malaria that continue to cause pain and death. In the same vein, the industrialized nations' approach to these goals assumes that health and longevity of life are improved only by technological advancement in agriculture, medicine, and a sophisticated military science.

One wonders how this will be a panacea to hunger in Africa. To the contrary, experience has shown that these advancements alone are a source of even more pain and loss of life, diminishing the value and integrity of the global development agenda. Much as technological advancement may produce more food, that food remains inaccessible to the poor. It is imperative to seek ways to transform U.S. policy towards Africa.

by Mhizha Edmund Chifamba

Violence in Darfur

Violence is escalating in Darfur. December began with fresh attacks on villages by the Sudanese government and their proxy militias. While the death toll is not known, upwards of 7,000 people have recently been displaced, joining the ranks of the 2.5 million internally displaced in Darfur. The janjaweed militias have been systematically destroying wells, farmland and crops. Recent reports indicate they are now entering the camps for internally displaced people at night, harassing and shooting unarmed refugees.

The escalating violence has also threatened the personnel of humanitarian agencies, the organizations that have been keeping the internally displaced people alive. These organizations are on the brink of withdrawal, an action that could be a death sentence for the people they serve. There are currently 3.5 million people in need of food in Darfur. Jan Egeland of the U.N. estimates that if humanitarian organizations leave Darfur, as many as 100,000 people could die each month.

The U.S. government will need to take action. What is needed to stop the genocide is a U.N. resolution that will give the African Union troops on the ground a stronger mandate to protect civilians, and to authorize a multinational intervention from the U.N. to stop the violence.

In February the U.S. will be the president of the U.N. Security Council for one month, creating the perfect opportunity for introducing a resolution for an international intervention to stop the genocide. The decision to introduce this resolution will be made by Secretary of State Rice and President Bush. The two other key people at the State Department are Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer and Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.

Debt Relief

The agreement reached by President Bush and other world leaders this summer to cancel the debts of 18 countries (including 14 in Africa) to the IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank represents a precedent-setting step towards addressing the debt crisis faced by impoverished countries. The agreement would allow as many as 38 countries to eventually qualify for debt cancellation. But for any more countries to become eligible for cancellation, they must comply with a series of harmful economic policy reforms mandated by the IMF and World Bank. In the coming year we will need to pay close attention to this process and to conditionalities tied to debt relief that harm rather than help.

While the IMF did announce a 100 percent debt relief for 18 countries, given the recent threats to this debt cancellation agreement, there is concern that additional countries will have to implement further onerous economic conditions to qualify. The G-8 debt agreement will cancel 100 percent of 17 impoverished countries' debts to the IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank in 2006. But the G-8 deal excludes dozens of other impoverished nations and debt to other creditors such as the Inter American Development Bank, does not address odious and illegitimate debt, and preserves economic conditionality.

HIV/AIDS

There are currently more than 25 million people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa - two-thirds of the global total. For these people, and for millions of others living with HIV/AIDS around the world, access to antiretroviral treatment is a matter of life and death.

But the prices charged by drug companies, and the policies pursued by rich countries at their behest, continue to keep lifesaving treatment out of reach for millions of people, especially those most affected in Africa.

The latest UNAIDS report notes an improvement in access to HIV treatment in impoverished countries, and states that as many as 350,000 deaths were averted in 2005 as a result. But this improvement is absolutely minimal in the face of a crisis of this scale.

The situation will not change until the behavior of the big pharmaceutical companies changes. As long as they insist on safeguarding their patents and protecting their exorbitant profits, essential treatment will remain out of the hands of millions of people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa and elsewhere. In the coming year we will need to work for increased funding to fight the disease and also for affordable medication for all that need it.

Humanitarian Crisis in the Congo

Congo is suffering the world's deadliest humanitarian crisis, with 38,000 people dying each month, mostly from easily treatable diseases. During the civil war there (1998-2004), four million people died, as the violence caused the complete collapse of health services. Most deaths reported were due to preventable and treatable diseases like diarrhea, respiratory infections and malnutrition.

The situation remains dire because of continued insecurity, poor access to health care and inadequate international aid. The problems are particularly acute in eastern Congo. Rich nations have failed this country. In the coming year the U.S. government must encourage the international community to send more aid, both military and economic, in order to support the elections in June.

Congo's government, which is backed by 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers, is struggling to re-establish authority across the country. Militiamen still roam huge swaths of the east, formerly controlled by several different rebel groups whose leaders have been allotted top government posts.

— Catherine Gordon