AIDS-related deaths: How to get to Zero in Africa's rural areas

UNAIDS' latest report is upbeat about the future prospects for a world with zero new HIV infections and zero AIDS-related deaths. Such aspirations also imply 100% access to antiretroviral drug treatment (ART). Although Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 70% of all new HIV infections in 2010, there is said to be a decline in the regional rate of new infections. For example in countries with high exposure, such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, this rate has declined by more than 25% in the past 10 years. Nevertheless, more than 50% of Africans who are already HIV+ are unable to access treatment. Most of these unfortunate people reside in rural areas, where it is many hours’ walk to the nearest clinic. For example, research has shown that a vigorous treatment programme has led to the decline of HIV in Botswana’s urban areas, while prevalence in the rural areas has remained unchanged. It is estimated that the need for ART in Botswana will increase by 60% by 2016.

Men have proven to be the hardest group to reach, as far as providing successful treatment is concerned: Workers in Malawi have shown that men only go for treatment once they are ill. This means that their disease is often too advanced to benefit from successful treatment. And, whereas women, particularly mothers, are motivated to seek voluntary counselling and testing, men are much more reluctant to go, probably because of the stigma that they will attract. To make matters worse men are also more likely to migrate in search of work and this reduces their adherence to treatment, leading to higher mortality from AIDS.

UNAIDS recommends community-based, participatory learning approaches in order to challenge social gender norms that increase vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. 

Hundreds of rural communities, across Africa have already benefitted from ‘Positive Living’ participatory workshops, where women, men and young people learn how to reduce their vulnerability to HIV, ways to ensure a healthy diet and how to prevent diseases associated with poor hygiene and opportunistic infections. The training manual - How to Live Positively, which is used to facilitate these workshops was written by me and Fortunate Nyakanda; it increases treatment preparedness and carries a message of hope that reduces the fear that leads to stigma. The How to Live Positively training manual can be downloaded in English for free here, or obtained in French, Portuguese or English, from CTA.

World Food Day -- not a day to celebrate

FAO has designated the 16th October 'World Food Day'. This year's theme is “Food Prices—From Crisis to Stability”, highlighting the need to stabilise food prices in order to prevent more people from going hungry. According to the World Bank, in 2010-2011 rising food costs pushed nearly 70 million people into extreme poverty. Data compiled by IFPRI shows that the countries that are already suffering the highest levels of food insecurity are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, the most hungry people can be found in Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea.

Many charities and development organisations were hoping that the European Union would play it's part in stabilising world food prices by reducing the amount of money that EU tax-payers give to their big farmers and food processors under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).  Research has shown that these huge EU subsidies are distorting Africa's economies and impoverishing her farmers.  The largest UK recipients of these subsidies include large multinational companies, such as Tate & Lyle, Nestle, Cadbury, Kraft and a host of manufacturers of bulk animal fats, sugars and refined starches.  In effect, these companies and being paid to export their products more cheaply to poorer countries, thereby undercutting local production.  Many of these companies are also destroying the world's remaining rain-forests in order to grow animal feed for factory farms.

Although the European Commission has proposed a 9% cut in these subsidies, €435 bn of tax-payers' money will still be paid to some of the most destructive corporations and richest individuals in Europe over the next 10 years.  Thereby stifling increased productivity by food producers in developing countries and encouraging more environmental damage world-wide.

These proposals are currently being discussed in the European Parliament, please make your voice heard by signing the European Food Declaration or writing to your local MEP.

Climate change is driving involuntary urbanisation in Africa

UN-HABITAT has predicted that half of Africa's population will live in urban areas by 2030. Poor infrastructure, lack of housing and jobs will confine 70% of these people to slums from which they are unlikely to escape.  The African cities which are expected to grow the most are Lagos and Kinshasa, whose populations are each expected to top 15 million by 2025.

Much of this involuntary urbanisation will be driven by climate change because of the increased frequency of El Niňo-Southern Ossilation events and the anticipated 2-4°C temperature rise, which will lengthen dry seasons and cause recurrent droughts and crop failures in Africa.

This year's severe drought in East Africa has already forced more than 1.7 million farmers off their lands, with 180, 000 of them migrating to the Dadaab refugee camp, bringing the population of this camp to 468,000 and making it the third largest city in Kenya.   These refugees will quickly become dependant on handouts, making their vital farming skills redundant.

If there is a 5°C increase throughout Africa, due to uncontrolled climate change, maize yields are predicted to fall by 20% and bean yields by more than 60%.    Crop production will be hopeless where air temperatures exceed 35°C.

Crop	Optimum flowering temperature
Wheat	15°C
Maize	18-22°C
Rice	23-26°C
Sorghum	25°C

USDA SAP 4.4, 2008.

It will be impossible to prevent involuntary migration or sustain Africa's burgeoning urban populations without addressing climate change and its devastating impacts on agriculture.

Let's hope that Brice Lalonde gets his way and agriculture is put firmly on centre stage at the next Rio summit on sustainable development...

Freeing African Trade

David Cameron is calling for a 'free trade area' in Africa to increase GDP across the continent by an estimated $62 billion a year.  He says that this can be achieved primarily by cutting red tape and reducing tariffs in African countries.  I recently did a survey of community-based, income-generating projects in Malawi and discovered that these worthy activities were not benefiting the participants financially because the potential customers were too poor to buy their products.  


Is there a danger that this could happen regionally?

South Africa is currently the only country in sub-Saharan Africa that has a well-developed industrial sector, while all her neighbours depend on agriculture, a sector which is severely under-developed. This is despite the fact that investment in agriculture underpins a developing economy by creating jobs and producing food and raw materials.

A report by the Global Harvest Initiative, entitled Enhancing Private Sector Involvement in Agriculture and Rural Infrastructure Development, estimates the overall agriculture investment gap in developing countries at nearly $90 billion annually.

African producers continue to be constrained by unfair import tariffs that protect producers in Europe and the USA.

Support for a free trade area in Africa should not be a substitute for reforming the Common Agricultural Policy or reviving the Doha Round talks to rebalance world trade in favour of developing countries.

Megacities

I just watched ‘Andrew Marr’s Megacities’.  Mr Marr said that megacities are the future and he obviously found them to be extremely exciting places.  However, he did point out that they have huge food footprints.  For example, London needs to produce food on an area that is equivalent in size to the whole of the UK.  His solution was to grow food indoors, hydroponically – this is probably okay for vegetables but I think it would be difficult to produce wheat and beef (essential for the fast-food burger) with such a system.…

A report commissioned by the Greater London Authority claims that Londoners eat a staggering eight billion meals a year and produce nearly 19 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.


Can this really be our future?  

Global warming puts slum dwellers at risk of extreme weather events and severe water shortages

Despite contributing little or nothing to the world’s Green House Gas emissions, slum dwellers are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change - especially flooding, landslides and infectious diseases due to lack of clean water. 

Almost 1 billion people or 32% of the world’s urban population already lives in slums; this number is expected to rise to 1.8 billion by 2030.

Slums are defined as areas with

• Inadequate access to safe water;

• Inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure;

• Poor structural quality of housing;

• Overcrowding; and

• Insecure residential status

62% of the urban population in sub-Saharan Africa are slum dwellers; ironically, many of these people have been forced off their farm land due to declining rainfall,  resulting from climate change.  All slum dwellers suffer from water shortage, which is defined as having less than 100L per person per day.

Recent computer modelling shows that 150 million people who live in mega cities such as Abidjan, Cotonou, Lagos, Beijing, Delhi, Mexico City and Tehran, currently endure perennial water shortage and by 2050, demographic growth will increase this figure to almost 1 billion people.

Furthermore, 30-50% less water will be available in Africa if there is a 3˚C temperature rise and this will cause water shortage for an additional 100 million urbanites.

According to the World Bank, world-wide demand for water is doubling every 21 years, more in some regions - this means that water supply cannot remotely keep pace with demand, as populations soar and cities explode.

How the scramble to score Millennium Goals has increased hunger and poverty in the rural areas

The world’s major donors are continuing to strive to meet the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.  The ultimate goal is to halve world poverty during this time.  DFID’s recent review confirms that the UK is targeting universal education, maternal health and child mortality in order to achieve Goals 2, 3, 4 and 5. 

Unfortunately none of the MDGs relate directly to the agricultural sector and donors have realised that it is quicker and easier to reach these goals if efforts are focussed in the overcrowded, poverty stricken, urban slums of Africa and India.  Such efforts also have the advantage of contributing to Goal 7, i.e. improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.  This narrow approach has led to the neglect of the rural poor and a massive and accelerating increase in rural to urban migration over the past decade.

It was expected that Goal 1: the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, could be achieved by creating economic growth in urban areas, leading to ‘full and productive employment and decent work for all’.

This expectation has been thwarted by the recent global economic crisis which has caused a massive rise in unemployment in developing countries.  According to the UN ‘more workers have been forced into vulnerable employment and find themselves and their families living in extreme poverty’; ‘rising food prices have meant that progress to end hunger has been stymied in most regions’.  The neglect of the agricultural sector has resulted in ‘children in rural areas being nearly twice as likely to be underweight as those in urban areas’ and almost 1 billion people, worldwide, are still suffering from chronic hunger.  

As a result, DFID has been urged to increase its funding of agricultural research in order to increase smallholder food production.

According to IFAD, global poverty remains a massive and predominantly rural phenomenon – with 70 per cent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people living in rural areas.  Key areas of concern are Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

This means that future Development Goals should address the many factors that perpetuate the marginalisation of rural economies and lead to mass urbanisation:  Rural women, men and youth need to be able to participate in economic growth, and develop ways to better deal with risk.  Greater investment and attention are needed in infrastructure and utilities: particularly roads, electricity, water supply and renewable energy.  Also important are rural services, including education, health care, financial services, communication and information and communication technology services, which will turn rural areas from backwaters into places where the youth of today will want to live and will be able to fulfil their aspiration.

The vicious cycle of low productivity and exposure to price hikes

Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food says that the urbanisation trend can be slowed by implementing a form of sustainable, low input agriculture, known as agroecology, as this would improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and preserve healthy ecosystems for future generations.

"In the short term, lower import tariffs to let in food ensure urban populations are fed, but in the long term it is a disaster because local farmers can't compete," says de Schutter, adding that cheap food imports make the country extremely vulnerable to price hikes in the global markets – such as those we are now seeing in North Africa.

The cycle of poverty that is driving urbanisation

DFID Review defies expert advice and fails to address food security crisis

Despite the looming world food crisis and the fact that one billion people are already undernourished world-wide, DFID’s new funding priorities completely exclude all mention of the need to improve food security or support smallholder agriculture. 

The recent expert report on Food and Farming has lamented DFID’s long neglect of smallholder farmers and urged greater priority be given to rural development and agriculture as a driver of broad-based income growth, and to provide more incentives to the agricultural sector to address malnutrition and gender inequalities.  Amongst their recommendations for low and middle income countries are the revitalisation of the extension services, the facilitation of market access and the strengthening of land rights.  

Last year, a report sponsored by the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development, also criticised DFID for its poor record of funding agriculture, particularly African agriculture, which is just 0.3% of the total DFID budget.  Twenty-nine local and international experts in agriculture and food security expressed concern that DFID is not taking advantage of the considerable agricultural expertise that is present in British institutions to seize upon the opportunity to take the lead in such a vital sector for rural development. 

In his preface to the report, FAO’s goodwill ambassador said that agriculture must be put back at the top of the international development agenda because of the crisis that is stalking the small-scale farms and rural areas of the world, where 70 percent of the world’s hungry live and work. 

In recent times UK’s pubic funds have been channelled through multilateral, mainly UN institutions, such as FAO and UN Habitat, which DFID has simultaneously sought to reform. 

One of DFID’s priorities has been to support UN Habitat’s work in improving the lives of slum-dwellers in an effort to reach the poverty reduction Millennium Goal.  The UK government considers that urbanisation is positive because ‘cities are the engines of economic growth’ in a globalised world.  

This policy is now in disarray following the Coalition Government’s recent review: 

DFID will soon cut the funding of UN Habitat because it has failed to prove that it was delivering significant change on the ground.  There are also threats to cut funds to the FAO, if its performance does not improve. 

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to food said recently:

‘Only by supporting small producers can we help break the vicious cycle that leads from rural poverty to the expansion of urban slums, in which poverty breeds more poverty.’

Reforming the CAP in favour of small-scale farmers

The European Common Agricultural Policy or CAP is one of the big challenges facing farmers in developing countries who want to market their produce.  This is because the CAP subsidises European farmers and allows them to export produce throughout the world at prices that are lower than the cost of production.  At the same time tariffs are imposed on produce exported to the EU, making it uncompetitive.

The European Union is currently debating reform of the CAP – this process is due to be finalised before 2013.  

However, the UK Coalition Government’s contribution to this debate does not sound promising:  According to Defra the government continues to regard food merely as a commodity and wants to drive down prices still further to ensure ‘greater market orientation and agricultural competitiveness’.  They say that this will enable European Food Processing Companies to compete more successfully in the global food market.  UK Environment Minister, Caroline Spelman has also called for the halting of food exports to be made illegal, even at times of national crisis.

These proposed CAP reforms would flood the world with junk food and do nothing to protect vulnerable farming communities from the impact of ‘low cost’ imports. 

Furthermore, preventing countries suffering from food shortages from banning the export of essential food commodities is likely to lead to increased starvation and political unrest.

A more much radical alternative to the UK government’s proposed, conservative reforms for the CAP can be found here .

This alternative European Food Declaration (or Missing Option) is calling for sustainable, family farming to be emphasised in EU food production with movement towards a food sovereignty framework, as well as changes in international trade in agricultural products according to principles of equity, social justice and ecological sustainability.  It stresses the right of all nations and regions to protect themselves from food speculators and low cost imports.

Most importantly, ‘the CAP should not harm other countries’ food and agriculture systems’.

By signing this Declaration you will be providing hope for small-scale farmers and health-conscious consumers the world over!

Can bread subsidies keep pace with urbanisation in Egypt?

Rising bread prices are said to have been a significant cause of the recent unrest in North Africa.  Egypt in particular has to import about 60% of its wheat needs each year, at a cost of $63 million at today’s price of $340 per tonne, making it the world’s largest wheat importer.  

Since one in five of Egypt’s 80 million people currently have a daily income of less than $1, their government has been forced to bear the additional cost of subsidising bread for 14.2 million poor people each day, in order to stave off widespread hunger and starvation.  This subsidy represents almost a quarter of state spending and reduces the amount available for health and education.

Egyptian farmers currently produce 8.5 million tonnes of wheat each year. However, although self-sufficiency in wheat at national level is said to be the government’s urgent goal, successive UNDP reports have criticised the Mubarak regime for neglecting the rural areas, where poverty remains rampant and migration to the city in search of work becomes the only option.

Urbanisation has been dramatic in Egypt, with the capital city, Cairo, growing from 1.5 to 6 million between 1947 and 1986.  Despite the high birth rate in Cairo’s slums, internal migration still accounts for 50% of the population growth, which has now reached 18 million in the greater Cairo region4. Unfortunately all of this urban growth has spilled into areas that are ideal for wheat production.

The deepest poverty is found in the rural areas of Upper Egypt that have a medium to high potential for wheat production:  According to UNDP Upper Egypt accommodates 36% of the country’s population and two-thirds of these people are unable to meet their basic food and non-food needs.  UNDP’s recommendations to address this problem have included:

·        increasing food productivity of small-holder farmers,

·        getting their farm products to markets,

·        empowering farmers’ associations to negotiate with market intermediaries,

·        enhancing rural credit and saving services,

·        encouraging investments in building storage facilities,

·        supporting networks of  agro-dealers,

·        expanding income-generating opportunities for the rural landless.

They have also stressed the need for increasing access to health care as well as primary and secondary education.

With the world wheat price expected to rise still further, Egypt’s new government would do well to take these recommendations much more seriously than did the previous regime. 

Fighting for Farmers' Rights

75, 000 participants representing the world’s social movements from 132 countries, including Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Morocco, Guinea-Bissau, the Gambia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Cameroon, Guinea and Western Sahara met in Dakar, Senegal this week. Here some highlights of their Final Declaration:


“Since 2001, we have also witnessed the eruption of a systemic crisis that has expanded into a food crisis, an environmental crisis, and financial and economic crises, and has led to an increase in migrations and forced displacement, exploitation, debt levels and social inequities.


We fight against transnational corporations because they support the capitalist system, privatize life, public services and common goods such as water, air, land, seeds and mineral resources. Transnational corporations promote wars through their contracts with private corporations and mercenaries; their extractionist practices endanger life and nature, expropriating our land and developing genetically modified seeds and food, taking away the peoples’ right to food and destroying biodiversity.


We demand that all people should enjoy full sovereignty in choosing their way of life. We demand the implementation of policies to protect local production, to give dignity to agricultural work and to protect the ancestral values of life. We denounce neoliberal free-trade treaties and demand freedom of movement for all the human beings.


We fight for climate justice and food sovereignty. Global climate change is a product of the capitalist system of production, distribution and consumption. Transnational corporations, international financial institutions and governments serving them do not want to reduce greenhouse gases. 


We denounce “green capitalism” and refuse false solutions to the climate crisis such as biofuels, genetically modified organisms and mechanisms of the carbon market like REDD, which ensnare impoverished peoples with false promises of progress while privatizing and commodifying the forests and territories where these peoples have been living for thousands of years.


We support sustainable peasant agriculture; it is the true solution to the food and climate crises and includes access to land for all who work on it. Because of this, we call for a mass mobilisation to stop the landgrab and support local peasants’ struggles.”

The loss of countless generations of farming skills…

Smallholder farmers currently produce more than 50% of the world’s food and contribute significantly to national GDP in developing countries by producing commodities such as cotton, sunflower, groundnut, coffee and cocoa.  Unfortunately, these farmers remain poor as they rarely profit from cash cropping.  The main reasons for this are the high costs of inputs, restricted access to markets, limited ability to negotiate fair prices and a lack of understanding of the importance of keeping records to calculate the profitability of their enterprise .  

Subsistence farmers who cannot make a living from the land are forced to re-locate into urban areas, in the search for a better life.  However, they are ill-equipped to compete in the jobs market and are thus likely to end up living in slum conditions.  Already more than half of the world’s population inhabits urban areas and 180, 000 people are moving from rural areas to cities each day - that's 125 per minute.  One billion of these people are stuck in slums – a figure that is expected to double by 2030.  Slum dwellers are subject to on-going poverty, increased disease, drug dependency and violence. Furthermore, each farming family that vacates the land looses their community interdependence, distinct cultural values, essential farming skills that have been passed down over countless generations and changes from being self-reliant in food to being dependent on imported food.