The Race Against Time for southern Africa
16 August 2002
By Amelia Bookstein, Policy Advisor for Oxfam Great Britain
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By: Amelia Bookstein ©Oxfam Great Britain |
In Boyidi, in southern Malawi, Bert Jenson is already very worried about running out of food. He is a Malawian schoolboy, and explains to me that his village usually has food until October or November, but stocks are running out now. People are already foraging for wild grasses; the women try to pound them into something edible, but, more often than not, eating the grass leads to constipation and sickness.
Bert’s family’s fields are cracked and parched. Agriculture has been very difficult this year, as heavy rains came at the wrong time, and washed away seeds that hadn’t yet started to take root.
“The disease that takes away the parents” has left many orphans in the village who have to fend for themselves. There were eleven deaths from hunger in Boyidi last year, almost all children who had been orphaned. Although Bert doesn’t want to speak of it by name, it is clear that HIV/AIDs has made people even more vulnerable to erratic weather, bad agricultural policies and the current food shortages.
Bert is one of the 14 million people in southern Africa who face extreme food shortages between now and the next main harvest in April or May of next year. In Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique, the main causes of the problem are poverty and erratic weather. In Angola, decades of conflict came to a sudden end, but some three million people are still in desperate need.
Across the region, The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have already started distributing humanitarian aid, and are gearing up to deliver as much aid as possible in order to avert a famine. In many places, this is the second or third consecutive year of food shortages. Already in parts of Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe people are employing high-risk strategies to survive, such as eating potentially poisonous wild foods or stealing crops. Other people are trying to cope by reducing meals to just one a day, or resorting to prostitution. However, prostitution is potentially lethal in these countries, where up to one in three people are infected with HIV/AIDS.
Even where food is available, prices are rising due to overall scarcity and difficulties with transporting it to remote areas. A recent Oxfam assessment in Shangombo district in Zambia’s southern province reported maize prices were 400% higher than at the same time last year. In Malawi, prices are up to 350% higher and this rise has been maintained despite the harvest. However, wage prices for casual labor in Malawi have remained constant, leaving people with less purchasing power than ever.
Overshadowing the unfolding tragedy of southern Africa is the specter of HIV/AIDS. In Zimbabwe, the UN estimates prevalence to be 33.7%. In Zambia, the life expectancy has dropped from 52 years in 1980 to 37 years today, mainly due to HIV/AIDS. This is creating an enormous strain on communities, which are increasingly dependent on dwindling numbers of able-bodied and healthy workers. The pandemic places a particular burden on women, as caring for sick family-members falls most often to them, depriving them of opportunities to earn income outside the home.
In Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, it is common for grandparents to be caring for ten or more children, due to AIDS-related deaths. There is also an increase in child-headed households, as there are three million AIDS orphans in these countries. The premature loss of parents means that agricultural skills are often not passed down from one generation to the next; orphans are left to farm on their own with little knowledge of agriculture.
Two main reasons for the levels of vulnerability, however, have nothing to do with climate or disease. Chronic poverty and the long-term failure of agricultural policies in these countries have created an environment where the vast majority struggle to meet day-to-day needs. And these trends are getting worse. In Zambia for example, between 1996 and 2001, the % of the population living below the poverty line rose from 69% to 86%.
Across the region, the IMF and donor countries have pushed economic liberalization practices that have often been damaging and inappropriate. Under the Structural Adjustment Programs of the last 15 years, state marketing agencies have been dismantled and privatized. While reform was needed, the “big bang” transition to deregulated markets had undermined agricultural production and increased vulnerability. All subsidies for fertilizer and other agricultural needs have been removed. Together with exchange rate liberalization, this has led to massive increases in costs, leaving poor farmers unable to purchase vital supplies.
In Malawi, a highly successful British-funded distribution of £20 million worth of free seeds and fertilizers to 2.8 million farmers – designed to improve prospects of long-term sustainable farming -- was scaled back over several years on the advice of donors. This scale-back contributed to a slump in food production.
Numerous studies have shown that these policies have worsened poverty and food insecurity. Market liberalization in Malawi has led to a widening gap between rich and poor, with prices increasingly volatile. An evaluation commissioned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found that in Zambia, between 1991 and 1994, the liberalization of state marketing had contributed to a 30% increase in rural poverty. It is clear that without some form of effective state intervention as a safety net, poor people have become much more vulnerable to shocks such as erratic weather.
While the way forward does not lie in a wholesale return to state intervention and marketing, this food crisis demonstrates clearly that the market alone cannot ensure food security. Poor people are finding it increasingly difficult to afford the current free market price of maize, which has spiralled out of control. There is an urgent need for donors and governments to support pro-poor agriculture policies that promote food security and agricultural growth.
Specific interventions will vary between countries. However, they should all accept an active role of the state both in ensuring food security and in supporting the development of the market. It must be acknowledged, too, that economic reform cannot be undertaken in isolation of governance issues. Flawed government policies can have a devastating impact on the poor. In Malawi, a combination of bad advice on the part of the IMF and unaccountable governance has led to a depletion of the national food reserve. In Zimbabwe, drought coupled with land seizures led to a collapse of food production. Particularly vulnerable are the hundreds of thousands of farm workers who no longer have any way to earn a living.
Of all the afflicted countries of southern Africa, it is war-ravaged Angola that is currently providing the most harrowing images of human suffering. The world’s worst humanitarian crisis has its roots in the 27-year civil war that killed one million people and displaced one-third of the population. Major new humanitarian needs have come to light, previously hidden because of lack of access to areas under UNITA rebel control. It became apparent within weeks of the April cease-fire that hundreds of thousands of people were in a desperate condition. Humanitarian agencies and the UN’s Rapid Assessment of Critical Needs found severe malnutrition in certain pockets to be as high 24%.
Humanitarian agencies estimate that some 3 million people will need assistance in Angola the coming months. Many will need food, but non-food items such as blankets, clothes, medicines, and seeds and tools are also urgently required. If delivered in the next month these supplies could help some people plant before the rainy season, giving them a small degree of food and economic security in the next uncertain phase of Angola’s peace.
Seeds and tools are a matter of survival for many displaced people. I spoke with a woman in Huambo province who had walked for 60km just to find seeds to plant. When asked why, she said plainly, ‘If we do not get our seeds, we die.’
The international community must ensure that people get the humanitarian relief they need right now. In addition, the country’s recovery will require medium- and long-term solutions to start now. For example, the demining of roads and fields must be accelerated, so that people can return in safety and begin to plant, before the rainy season starts at the end of September.
If the Angolan government and the international community do not keep promises, there is a danger of resentment and anger setting the stage for further unrest in the future. Elections are set for 2004. In the next 12 months, before the end of 2003, progress must be made if the Angolan people are going to appreciate real substantial change in their everyday struggle to survive.
The people of Angola, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Mozambique cannot wait any longer for assistance from the international community. In the long-term, the international financial community must put the right to food at the top of their agenda, and support pro-poor policies. In the immediate term, the priority is to get emergency humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable. The UN’s Consolidated Appeals for more than US$600m for southern Africa all have significant shortfalls; Malawi’s appeal is just 21.7% funded, Zimbabwe’s is just 15% filled.
The UK government has been one of the most generous donors in this crisis, but more could be done. For example, the UK could press on close allies who have not yet come forward in response to the crisis. In addition to food, non-food items are desperately needed, including seeds and tools. The United Nations 2002 appeal for Angola is less than half-funded. Timing here is urgent; it is crucial that the peace process and the humanitarian emergency have international support at this critical stage.
The people of southern Africa are survivors, and will continue to struggle to survive despite the trends against them: erratic weather, bad policies, HIV/AIDS, unaccountable governments, food shortages and, in Angola, a long history of conflict. Still, it is a race against time to move humanitarian aid now in these countries, before the rainy season makes roads impassable and the situation more desperate.
