Recently, the world’s attention has been focused on the severe food shortages afflicting Niger, the second most impoverished country on this earth, as a result of the confluence of natural disasters of prolonged drought and a locust invasion, amidst the allegations and counter-allegations of the policy bargain by international aid agencies, IMF, World Bank and EU. According to the United Nations, about 2.5 million of Niger’s 12 million (more than one-fifth) people are directly affected by the crisis.
The IMF and the World Bank, and the EU as well, are killing Africans in their thousands in Niger, Mali and throughout the Sahel region of Africa, writes Judith Amanthis in the Global Policy Forum, who lists various IMF policies as being responsible for the food crisis in Niger.
…. Drought and locusts destroyed crops, it's true, but the rains were down only 11% from normal. There is some food in Niger. The problem is that large numbers of people, especially in the rural areas, are just too poor to buy it when their crops fail. Why? First, subsistence farming in Africa doesn't bring in much money, or any money. It has no western financial backers. Second, in March 2005 the Niger government, having secured Highly Indebted Poor Country status for Niger, implemented an IMF condition on further loans: it put a 19% VAT on basic grains whose price had risen by up to 89% over the past five years. Traders naturally sell to the highest bidder. In this case they sold grains to other West African countries. The free market knows no borders, colonial or otherwise…
Judith Amanthis further writes, long term drought and famine can never be normal for any group of human beings. What is normal is people in the west being lied to about the causes of Africans' suffering and what Africans are doing about it.
Western oil and forestry companies who have created climate change are as implicated as well. Western Europe and the US are responsible for 50% of the world's carbon emissions, and forestry multinationals are destroying the earth's 'lungs', including the great Congo River Basin forest, at 26 hectares a minute (37 football pitches). Greater heat and erratic rain in the Sahel region means the Sahara Desert is creeping south. Areas like northern Nigeria and Senegal are drying up as well. In erratic weather, locusts breed more heavily, but since the mid 1980s, the West African regional organisation, OCALAV, which was set up at independence in the early 1960s to control locust swarms and other plagues has been restructured. Its funding has been cut. African governments which have restructured entire economies to make life easier for multinationals can no longer pay for services vital to the people's survival.
However, the recent discussion paper at IFPRI, Long-Term Prospects for Africa's Agricultural Development and Food Security by Rosegrant, et al., is case in point. The paper explores and evaluates the consequences of various policies related to food security in Africa based on projections for the year 2025, focusing on agricultural production. It uses IFPRI’s International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) and IMPACT–WATER to consider how several different policy scenarios are likely to affect the supply of, demand for, and trade of crops. The results of these policy scenarios show that the number of malnourished children, one important indicator of food security, could rise as high as 41.9 million or fall as low as 9.4 million by 2025.
--- The vision scenario attempts to show what type of transformation would be necessary for Africa to reach the MDG target of cutting the proportion of people suffering from hunger in half by 2015. In this scenario national governments and international donors increase investments in education, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, water-harvesting technologies and agricultural extension, female schooling, and clean water access in Africa. Population growth slows, but gross domestic product and crop productivity increase significantly. Under this scenario available kilocalories per capita increase markedly in Sub-Saharan Africa, while the total number of malnourished children is reduced to 9.4 million in 2025. Most notably, the percentage of malnourished children under five years old meets—or comes close to meeting—the proposed MDG target of cutting the percentage of malnourished children in half by 2015 in all African regions.
In fact, many of the challenges facing Africa’s agricultural sector stem from a few root causes, including poor political and economic governance (as noticed and elaborated vociferously by celebrated developmental economist, Amartya Sen in most of his work) in many African countries, inadequate funding for the agricultural sector, poor water resources management, and neglect of research and development. The strategies for addressing these challenges should take into account local, natural, and human resources, as well as the political and economic agenda of each country. The paper lists policy priorities for addressing food and nutrition security in Africa. These priorities include (1) reform of agricultural policies, trade, and tariffs; (2) increased investment in rural infrastructure, education, and social capital; (3) better management of crops, land, water, and inputs; (4) increased agricultural research and extension; and (5) greater investments in women.
The IMF and the World Bank, and the EU as well, are killing Africans in their thousands in Niger, Mali and throughout the Sahel region of Africa, writes Judith Amanthis in the Global Policy Forum, who lists various IMF policies as being responsible for the food crisis in Niger.
…. Drought and locusts destroyed crops, it's true, but the rains were down only 11% from normal. There is some food in Niger. The problem is that large numbers of people, especially in the rural areas, are just too poor to buy it when their crops fail. Why? First, subsistence farming in Africa doesn't bring in much money, or any money. It has no western financial backers. Second, in March 2005 the Niger government, having secured Highly Indebted Poor Country status for Niger, implemented an IMF condition on further loans: it put a 19% VAT on basic grains whose price had risen by up to 89% over the past five years. Traders naturally sell to the highest bidder. In this case they sold grains to other West African countries. The free market knows no borders, colonial or otherwise…
Judith Amanthis further writes, long term drought and famine can never be normal for any group of human beings. What is normal is people in the west being lied to about the causes of Africans' suffering and what Africans are doing about it.
Western oil and forestry companies who have created climate change are as implicated as well. Western Europe and the US are responsible for 50% of the world's carbon emissions, and forestry multinationals are destroying the earth's 'lungs', including the great Congo River Basin forest, at 26 hectares a minute (37 football pitches). Greater heat and erratic rain in the Sahel region means the Sahara Desert is creeping south. Areas like northern Nigeria and Senegal are drying up as well. In erratic weather, locusts breed more heavily, but since the mid 1980s, the West African regional organisation, OCALAV, which was set up at independence in the early 1960s to control locust swarms and other plagues has been restructured. Its funding has been cut. African governments which have restructured entire economies to make life easier for multinationals can no longer pay for services vital to the people's survival.
However, the recent discussion paper at IFPRI, Long-Term Prospects for Africa's Agricultural Development and Food Security by Rosegrant, et al., is case in point. The paper explores and evaluates the consequences of various policies related to food security in Africa based on projections for the year 2025, focusing on agricultural production. It uses IFPRI’s International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) and IMPACT–WATER to consider how several different policy scenarios are likely to affect the supply of, demand for, and trade of crops. The results of these policy scenarios show that the number of malnourished children, one important indicator of food security, could rise as high as 41.9 million or fall as low as 9.4 million by 2025.
--- The vision scenario attempts to show what type of transformation would be necessary for Africa to reach the MDG target of cutting the proportion of people suffering from hunger in half by 2015. In this scenario national governments and international donors increase investments in education, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, water-harvesting technologies and agricultural extension, female schooling, and clean water access in Africa. Population growth slows, but gross domestic product and crop productivity increase significantly. Under this scenario available kilocalories per capita increase markedly in Sub-Saharan Africa, while the total number of malnourished children is reduced to 9.4 million in 2025. Most notably, the percentage of malnourished children under five years old meets—or comes close to meeting—the proposed MDG target of cutting the percentage of malnourished children in half by 2015 in all African regions.
In fact, many of the challenges facing Africa’s agricultural sector stem from a few root causes, including poor political and economic governance (as noticed and elaborated vociferously by celebrated developmental economist, Amartya Sen in most of his work) in many African countries, inadequate funding for the agricultural sector, poor water resources management, and neglect of research and development. The strategies for addressing these challenges should take into account local, natural, and human resources, as well as the political and economic agenda of each country. The paper lists policy priorities for addressing food and nutrition security in Africa. These priorities include (1) reform of agricultural policies, trade, and tariffs; (2) increased investment in rural infrastructure, education, and social capital; (3) better management of crops, land, water, and inputs; (4) increased agricultural research and extension; and (5) greater investments in women.
1 comment:
lot many have compared katerina and mumbai rain, but do u know what jhumri tilaiyans were doing all the while, listening songs on radio.
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