The 2012 Africa Human Development Report argues that sustainable increases in agricultural productivity protect food entitlements—
the ability of people to access food. Furthering human development
requires nutrition policies that unleash the potential of today’s and future generations. Also, communities must be resilient enough to absorb
shocks and have the power to make decisions about their own lives. The Report shows that the basic right to food and the right to life itself is
being violated in sub-Saharan Africa to an intolerable degree. Building
a food secure continent requires transformative change— change that will be most effective if accompanied by a shift of resources, capacities and
decisions to smallholder farmers, poor communities and women. When women and other vulnerable groups gain a voice in the decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods, their capacity to produce,trade and use food is materially enhanced.
Poverty and health
Uganda’s Indigenous Batwa people are among the most vulnerable populations in the world and have limited access to key social determinants of health, including health care, education, clean water, employment and adequate clothing, food, and security. The Batwa people were evicted from their native forests following an environmental policy enacted in 1991 and are now considered conservation refugees undergoing a drastic transition from forest dwellers to agriculturalists. The shift has negatively affected people’s health. The report argues that coordinated action among public and private sectors is required to improve Batwa health through the enforcement of their rights and increased participation in policies and programs affecting their well-being.
Angola has made vast progress since the end of the civil war in 2002 according to this report. Despite being one of Africa’s wealthiest nations in terms of natural resources, particularly oil, and recording impressive gross domestic product growth rates of 7% per year, poverty among the country’s citizens is rampant. Angola has ranked near the bottom of the bottom of the United Nations’ Human Development Index and Angola has high inequality and urban poverty. Government is reported to have made various commitments to address these issues, including investment in jobs and houses, decentralisation of government services and development of the agricultural sector.
This paper argues that many of the world’s extreme poor live in countries where the total cost of ending extreme poverty is not prohibitively high as a percentage of gross domestic product. In the not-too-distant future, the author argues that most of the world’s poor people will live in countries that have the domestic financial scope to end extreme poverty and, in time, moderate poverty. This calls in the authors opinion for a (re)framing of poverty as a matter of national distribution and national social and political contracts between elites, middle classes and poor people.
In this open letter to the United States President, the Oakland Institute and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia announce their submission of a petition signed by over 8,000 supporters of the indigenous and local communities of Gambella, Ethiopia - 70,000 people in all - who are being forcibly relocated to make land available for large-scale agriculture. There are plans to relocate an additional 150,000 people, most of whom are subsistence farmers who have been able, until now, to feed their families without receiving government or foreign aid over the last twenty years. The Oakland Institute's field research in Ethiopia has reported allegations of violence, coercion in and unrealised benefits for relocated communities, confirmed by a Human Rights Watch study earlier in 2012. The Ethiopian government's plans for economic growth are reported to include this large scale land acquisition in Gambella and the Lower Omo Valley, where half a million people are projected to lose their lands. Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of US development aid (more than $1 billion a year since 2007), and the letter points to the food insecurity that will result from these trends.
The East African Community (EAC) has made substantial progress on its regional integration agenda. Within a short period of time, it has been able to attain a common market status and is currently working towards establishing a monetary union by 2012, according to this article. Given that the region is prone to food shortages and drought, promoting regional integration and cooperation around agriculture has the potential to help the EAC address its and food security challenges. The author argues that NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Plan (CAADP) should be used as a regional integration and food security tool. The EAC Secretariat is working towards developing a regional CAADP compact in 2012, adopting a bottom-up approach, building on the existing national compacts and addressing challenges shared among partner states. Most stakeholders within the region agree that a regional CAADP process is the appropriate framework to stimulate improved coordination of regional agricultural initiatives addressing food security. Stakeholders have called for stronger commitment and action from the regional level that allows farmers, especially smallholders, to move beyond subsistence.
A new film from the African Biodiversity Network (ABN) and the Gaia Foundation, narrated by actor Jeremy Irons, addresses pervasive myths about agriculture, development and Africa’s ability to feed herself. Africa is under growing pressure to turn to hybrid seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and genetically modified organisms in an effort to scale up agricultural production. In April 2012, President Obama of the United States launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which will see the combined forces of agribusiness giants Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, DuPont and Yara investing US$3 billion into creating new markets in Africa, amidst claims that this will solve hunger and malnutrition. In the process, the enormous wealth and diversity of locally adapted seeds and farmer knowledge is ignored, undermined and eroded by policy makers. ‘Seeds of Freedom’ shows how powerful corporate interests are destroying the biological diversity of the world’s crops. As the global food supply becomes dependent on just a few seed varieties, owned by a handful of corporations, global food insecurity is set to deepen.
The tensions over huge land purchases and leases by foreign companies and governments in south western Ethiopia illustrate the central importance of access to water in the global land rush, according to this article. Hidden behind the current scramble for land is a world-wide struggle for control over water. Those who have been buying up vast stretches of farmland in recent years understand that the access to water they gain, often included for free and without restriction, may well be worth more over the long-term, than the land deals themselves. In recent years, Saudi Arabian companies have been acquiring millions of hectares of lands in developing countries to produce food to ship back home, as their country lacks water needed for agricultural production. Indian companies are doing the same, as their country’s aquifers have become depleted by decades of unsustainable irrigation. All of the land deals in Africa involve large-scale, industrial agriculture operations that will consume massive amounts of water. These water resources are lifelines for local farmers, pastoralists and other rural communities. These mega-irrigation schemes will not only put the livelihoods of millions of rural communities at risk, they will threaten the freshwater sources of entire regions, says GRAIN.
Exposure to household air pollutants released during cooking has been linked to numerous adverse health outcomes among residents of rural areas in low-income countries. This study describes the roles of local vendors, behaviour change, promotional incentives, and integration of cookstoves with household water treatment interventions to motivate adoption of locally-produced, ceramic cookstoves (upesi jiko) in an impoverished, rural African population. The project was conducted in 60 rural Kenyan villages in 2008 and 2009. During an initial, eight-month assessment period in 10 villages, 159 (75%) of 213 upesi jiko sales occurred in five villages where vendors received behaviour change training. The combined strategy was found to effectively motivate the adoption of cookstoves into a large number of households. The mobilisation and training of local vendors as well as appropriate promotion and pricing incentives created opportunities to reinforce health messages and promote the sale and installation of cookstoves. The authors conclude that additional applications of similar strategies will be needed to determine whether the strategy can be exported equitably and whether reductions in fuel use, household air pollution, and the incidence of respiratory diseases will follow.
Health experts have pointed out that African countries with good maternal health statistics are generally those that have long-term political stability, like Botswana, arguing that this shows that stability is a fundamental basis for development. Generally, maternal health is neglected in public health, as most African countries focus on the eradication of poverty and hunger, according to a spokesperson from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ivory Coast. The UNDP spokesperson added that few governments seem to be aware of the close link between maternal health and poverty. It takes strong leadership at the country level to shift priorities and spend more on maternal and child health, as well as more effectively implement existing policies and international agreements, he added. One example is the right to family planning, which has not yet been included in public health care provision in many African countries.