From Africa Recovery, Vol.17 #1 (May 2003), page 1

Africa beyond famine

New strategies needed to combat hunger, disease and rural poverty

By Ernest Harsch

Africa today suffers from a "deadly triad" of interrelated burdens -- food insecurity, HIV/AIDS and a reduced capacity to govern and provide basic services -- says UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Therefore, a "new, integrated response from both the governments of Africa and the international community" is needed, he told the Group of 8 (G-8) industrialized countries in early March. That means taking long-term development measures at the same time as giving immediate relief to people suffering from famine, he said.

At the beginning of the year, some 25 million Africans required emergency food aid, but quick relief shipments have since eased the threat of starvation in most countries of Southern Africa.

To many around the world, the image of famine in Africa is closely linked to drought and, in some countries, war. But even when there is no drought or other acute crisis, about 200 million Africans suffer from chronic hunger, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf noted during a recent visit to Senegal. The reasons are multiple: low farm productivity, grinding poverty, the ravages of HIV/AIDS and unstable domestic and international agricultural markets.

"Food insecurity in Africa has structural causes," Mr. Annan emphasizes. "Most African farmers cultivate small plots of land that do not produce enough to meet the needs of their families. The problem is compounded by the farmers' lack of bargaining power and lack of access to land, finance and technology." Because small-scale farmers and other rural Africans have so few food stocks and little income, a period of drought can quickly trigger famine conditions. This is especially true for rural women, who are among the poorest of the poor and who account for the bulk of food production in Africa.

Some African countries, such as Senegal, are beginning to address the need to "modernize" agriculture (see article "Senegal: to fight hunger, modernize farming"). This means giving poor farmers security, essential infrastructure such as rural roads and greater access to credit, water and appropriate technologies. With improved seeds, fertilizer, irrigation and use of draught animals, the average African farmer can multiply her output many times over.

But the challenges are daunting. HIV/AIDS is seriously debilitating the rural labour force in countries with the highest infection rates, further undermining agricultural production and productivity (see article "Famine and AIDS: a lethal mixture"). Livestock disease is a big obstacle to better integrating the use of draught animals into farming practices (see article "Eradicating tsetse flies from Africa"). In rural Africa, markets often do not function well, tend to marginalize the very poor and can be disrupted by the sudden withdrawal of government support resulting from economic liberalization policies.

External constraints

African governments, often bound by the policy conditions of external financing agencies, have limited scope for devising agricultural policies that benefit poorer food farmers. They also have few financial resources of their own for significant agricultural investment. So increasing such investment, Mr. Annan notes, will require "reversing the alarming decline in development assistance for African agriculture," which fell from an annual average of $4 bn to $2.6 bn during the 1990s.

Photo : ©FAO

In addition, many African producers of export crops are seriously hampered by unfavourable -- and inequitable -- international markets and trading arrangements, issues that have seen very little progress in the current World Trade Organization negotiations (see article "Global agricultural trade talks stall"). Especially debilitating for African agriculture have been the large subsidies that rich countries provide their own farmers, which have the effect of pushing down world market prices for cotton, sugar and other African farm exports (see article "Mounting opposition to Northern farm subsidies"). Therefore, the UN Secretary-General says, increasing resources for agriculture in Africa will require "dismantling the agricultural subsidies from rich countries," which currently total more than $300 bn per year. "Only then will Africa be able to achieve truly sustainable agricultural production."

A comprehensive approach

Since the solutions to Africa's food insecurity and rural poverty do not lie within agriculture alone, Mr. Annan points out, African countries and the international community must take action on a number of different fronts. These include:

-- Doing more to integrate into short-term emergency programmes actions that also address the structural causes of famine. This includes correcting the drastic shortfalls in non-food items in emergency situations, such as seeds and tools, support for orphans, education and HIV services.

-- Strengthening a multi-sectoral approach to combating HIV/AIDS, including by improving efforts to prevent infection and treating those already infected.

-- Ensuring that the 40 million African children who are not receiving an education are able to get into school -- and ensuring that those who are in school, especially girls, are not pulled out when drought or HIV strikes a household.

-- Empowering Africa's small farmers, with a special focus on women, who are both the key food providers and crucial to fighting AIDS.

-- Working with rural communities to develop new labour-saving agricultural and natural resource management technologies, appropriate to a depleted workforce.

-- Reversing the dramatic decline in publicly funded agricultural research and strengthening Africa's scientific institutions, to achieve progress in such areas as soil nutrition, water management and new, higher-yielding crops adapted to African conditions.

-- Focusing on critical physical infrastructure, including transport, support services and irrigation.

-- Building markets that work and respond to the needs of Africa's poor.

To make progress in all these areas, Mr. Annan adds, it will be essential to help African governments strengthen governance, "by rebuilding the capacity of the state to provide essential public services. Where once we spoke of capacity building, today we speak of capacity replenishment."

This broad approach is consistent with the goals of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the long-term development framework adopted by Africa in 2001 and endorsed unanimously the following year by the UN General Assembly. NEPAD also emphasizes addressing agriculture's structural constraints, noting further that improved agricultural performance is not only essential for food security and rural advancement, but also a "prerequisite of economic development," given agriculture's importance in most African economies.

To bear fruit, the UN Secretary-General concludes, a systematic, comprehensive and targeted approach to rural development will need to be sustained for years. And it will require that African countries and the international community, including the richest nations of the G-8, work together. Developing and implementing such an approach, he says, will be a "crucial test" for NEPAD.

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