The UN Secretary-General has warned in a new report that the gains made in reducing extreme poverty are under threat from the rise in global food and fuel prices and global economic slowdown. According to World Bank data, the number of extreme poor has fallen – from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion – between 1990 and 2005, with the biggest gains made in eastern Asia, in particular, China. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States, however, the number of poor has increased in the same period. While these figures confirm that the global poverty rate is likely to be halved by 2015 – achieving the first MDG - the UN report indicates that the worldwide increases in food prices will push another 100 million people into absolute poverty.
Poverty and health
This paper argues that it is necessary to reverse the trends in aid, and provide a much larger share of aid for productive sector development, including development of rural and urban areas, and the development of agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Although urban centres mostly host non-agricultural industries, sustainable urbanisation also strongly depends on what happens in the agricultural sectors. Productive employment opportunities in rural areas are important to combat an unsustainable migration from rural areas to urban centres, and productive employment opportunities in urban centres are essential to absorb the rapidly increasing labour force in the non-agricultural sector. Successful urban development cannot be separated from successful rural development.
Should social protection be universal (provided to everyone) or targeted (restricted to certain groups, like the poor)? Universal programmes reduce the likelihood of excluding those who need them. But programmes such as food subsidies are expensive, and a considerable share of their benefits tends to flow to people who do not need them. Evidence suggests that in terms of reaching the poor, targeted cash transfer programs tend to perform better than untargeted subsidies. But choosing to target requires deciding who should be targeted and how. Ways of doing this include 1) means testing, which has worked reasonably well in South Africa's cash transfer programs; 2) selection by community-based committees, which has worked well on a pilot basis in Zambia and Malawi; 3) targeting categorically by characteristics such as region or age - such as old-age pensions in South Africa that have been shown to improve children's education (increasing attendance by 20-25%) and nutrition (increasing child height-for-age by approximately 1-5 centimeters); and 4) self targeting, where anyone can participate but the poorest tend to self-select, which has worked well in public works programs in many countries. The optimal method depends on the programme objectives, administrative capacity, and social characteristics of communities.
The new edition of the annual Food Aid Flows report provides a comprehensive view of trends in global food aid, which include food aid deliveries by governments, non-governmental organisations and the World Food Programme. It shows that food aid deliveries continued to decline in 2007, reaching the lowest level since 1961. The report argues that there is an urgent need to reverse this trend. In particular, increased resources for food assistance are urgently needed to address the serious negative effects of the higher food prices on hunger and malnutrition across the world. The report provides data of food aid flows in 2007 by category, mode, channel, sale recipient, region and donor. Key trends identified in 2007 include: food aid deliveries reached a record low in 2007, with all three categories of food aid – emergency, project and programme – declining. The share of food aid that was channelled multilaterally continued to increase and reached 55%, the highest share ever. The share of food aid commodities procured in developing countries increased but there was a decline in direct transfers of wheat and maize, which can be partly explained by higher wheat and maize prices. Of 31 main government donors, 24 reduced their food aid donations in 2007 as all regions faced a decline in food aid deliveries in 2007, except Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa remained the largest recipient of food aid. Based on these findings, the report emphasises the need for increased food assistance, particularly in the context of recent food price rises. Given that food prices are expected to remain high during the next decade, it argues that, without additional interventions, higher food prices could jeopardise the prospects for the achievement of Millennium Development Goals and the fight against hunger and malnutrition.
A combination of new and ongoing forces is driving global food prices up. Recent studies in Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania have shown associations between acute food insecurity and unprotected transactional sex among poor women. Sudden increases in food insecurity often lead to ‘distress migration’ as people search for work and food. Mobility is a marker of enhanced risk of HIV exposure and food insecurity at the household level is likely to translate over time into higher rates of adult malnutrition with possible detrimental effects on immune status.
While there has been widespread reporting of the riots that have broken out around the world as a result of the global food crisis, little attention has been paid to the way forward. The solution is a radical shift in power away from the international financial institutions and global development agencies, so that small-scale farmers, still responsible for most food consumed throughout the world, set agricultural policy. Three interrelated issues need to be tackled: land, markets and farming itself.
Current high world food prices serve as a reminder of the vulnerability of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to hunger and undernutrition. Good nutrition status for children and adolescent girls is fundamental to attaining many of the Millennium Development Goals. Despite this, donors and governments underinvest in interventions to improve nutrition. Underinvestment is due to a lack of incentives for donors; few take a strategic approach to investments that have the potential to improve nutrition and they have little idea whether current investments are making a difference. Furthermore, their ‘critical friends’ – research institutes and non-governmental organisations – lack the leadership to engage with donors strategically on this issue. The authors suggest that this desperate cycle can only be broken by a new alliance between donors, governments and critical friends. This will require new leaders to come forward and develop politically aware strategies that raise public consciousness and put human and financial resources, both public and private, to effective use.
This document is the second of a series addressing issues surrounding poverty and poverty reduction. It explains perceptions of poverty of the poor, well off and development practitioners to give a more complete picture of poverty. The briefing emphasises the need for poor people’s involvement in defining and exploring multiple dimensions of poverty. This points out the drawbacks of relying on understanding and interpretations of researchers and development practitioners. Providing examples from previous studies in Tanzania, Ghana, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, the document admits that understanding of poverty varied greatly. Therefore the process of arriving at a shared understanding of poverty can be challenging but important.
Rapid urbanisation is a fact of life even in the least developed countries where the lion’s share of the population presently lives in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. This paper examines the causes, consequences and policy implications of ongoing urbanisation in Africa’s less-developed countries (LDCs). The authors find that the employment opportunities in both the rural or urban sectors are not growing adequately. The emerging trends and patterns of urbanisation in the African LDCs are analysed, with a strong emphasis on rural-urban migration and the informal sectors. The paper argues that it is necessary to reverse the trends in aid and provide a much larger share of aid for productive sector development, including the development of rural and urban areas. Also the development of agricultural and non-agricultural sectors is needed, in line with the perspective of the dual-dual model. Although urban centres mostly host non-agricultural industries, sustainable urbanisation also strongly depends on what happens in the agricultural sectors. Productive employment opportunities in rural areas are important in order to combat an unsustainable migration from rural areas to urban centres, and productive employment opportunities in urban centres are essential to absorb the rapidly increasing labour force in the non-agricultural sector. Authors recommend building up productive capacities to create adequate employment and incomes for the rapidly growing population, particularly in the urban areas.
The high world food prices currently being experienced provide a chilling reminder of the vulnerability of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to hunger and undernutrition. Many children in these regions are vulnerable to poor growth, poor development and death. Topics covered in this paper include: child undernutrition in Africa; nutrition for mothers and children; the cost of hunger; why undernutrition is not a higher priority for donors; and public-private sector partnerships in responding to undernutrition.