MALNUTRITION: India, Africa to cooperate for increasing agricultural output

From ANI : Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), May 25:

India and Africa on Wednesday reaffirmed their commitment to cooperate for increasing agricultural output and achieving the millennium development goal of halving the proportion of people, who suffer from hunger and malnutrition by 2015.
The Framework for Enhanced Cooperation between India and Africa said: "Africa and India reaffirm their commitment to cooperate for increasing agricultural output and achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition by 2015."
"They emphasize the importance of harnessing the latest scientific research for raising productivity and for the conservation of land and the environment in order to ensure food security for their people and to bring down the currently rising cost of food prices so as to make food affordable for all. In this respect, they agree to collaborate in the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP)," the statement said.
Recognizing that enhanced trade and economic linkages would further contribute to sustainable growth, the statement said: "Africa values private investment and financial flows on a concessional basis, which have been received from India and wishes to enhance their usage for building its infrastructure and enhancing the capacity of Africa to increase its exports."
"The value addition provided by Indian investment in Africa contributes to Africa's exports to third countries and to the development of intra-Africa trade. Both Africa and India will continue to work together to take these initiatives further," the statement added.
Africa has also welcomed the Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme for Africa's LDCs unilaterally announced by India at the time of the first India - Africa Forum Summit in 2008.
"It has significantly contributed to the ability of African countries to access the growing Indian market and contributed to the creation of complementarity in their export baskets. Africa and India will together endeavour to increase awareness and usage of this Scheme," the statement said.
"Africa and India propose to continue to develop more such initiatives so that the growing young population of Africa finds suitable training and integration into the increasing economic opportunities in Africa," the statement added.
http://www.dailyindia.com/show/441651.php

Olivia Kumwenda Mar 31, 2011
(Additional reporting by Beatrice Gachenge in Nairobi and Elias Biryabarema in Kampala, Editing by Ed Stoddard and Jane Baird)

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - An increasing number of African countries are likely to start growing genetically modified crops, with Kenya leading the way, after the continent for years has lagged in global adoption of the technology.
Africa is under increasing pressure to grow more food as its population increases. Although genetically modified (GM) crops might help boost output, some African countries have banned GM, fearing it could be harmful to humans and animals, hamper exports and hurt small farmers.
South Africa was the continent's sole cultivator of GM maize, cotton and soybeans until 2008, when Egypt began growing GM maize, and Burkina Faso started growing GM cotton.
Now Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mali, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana are conducting research and field trials of GM crops including maize, rice, wheat, sorghum and cotton, which could prove to be the first step toward adoption.
"There is increasing support to test biotech in several African countries," said Diran Makinde, director of the African Biosafety Network of Expertise.
Other countries are keenly watching to see whether Kenya adopts the technology, said Felix Mmboyi, deputy director of Africa Biotechnology. In East Africa's biggest economy, GM imports have been a controversial issue.
Kenya now is looking to conduct open trials of GM crops this year after enacting biosafety regulations, the main hurdle that had been holding them back. Industry officials expect the draft regulations to be published in May.
"Kenya will be open to cultivate GM crops. I can assure you Kenya will be the fourth country to allow GMO," Mmboyi said.
Ephraim Mukisira, a director at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, said: "We should rely on biotechnology to prevent further losses in yields and performance of crops. We need to expedite scientific methods that reduce time needed to develop new crop varieties."

RED TAPE
Beyond the usual debates about GM effects on health and the environment, there have also been concerns the presence of GM crops might reduce export opportunities -- a key reason that Zambia banned them years ago.
Potential legal pitfalls pose another concern.
Makinde said 23 countries in Africa have biosafety laws but with 'strict liability' clauses, which make someone liable for any mishaps, without the need to prove any fault on their part.
"No private sector will invest in a country where they can be sued for the slightest or even imaginary damage. This is a no-go area for the biotech crop developer," said Makinde.
The high costs of GM are another hurdle for Africa's small farmers, who account for 70 percent of the region's population and 60 percent of its agricultural output. GM can add to the difficulties of poor farmers in competing with commercial farms.
"Subjecting (small-scale farmers) to GMs would mean that they will lose control over their seeds and that they have to constantly depend on suppliers for seeds every season. How will they afford this?" asked Josephine Akia, policy and advocacy officer at the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda.
In South Africa, the GM maize area was recorded at 1.878 million hectares in 2009 -- the latest year for which figures are available -- with small-scale farmers cultivating only 19,000 hectares of the total.
"You can't market GM technology as being a way out of poverty for small-scale farmers ... if you do that you are being dishonest," said Mariam Mayet, director of the African Center for Biosafety.

UNTAPPED MARKET
Nevertheless, GM crops have expanded so rapidly in other areas that African countries are not likely to fend them off much longer.
A report issued by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) shows that an 87-fold increase in crop area was recorded globally between 1996 and 2010, making biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture.
The continent's untapped market has caught the attention of big U.S. firms DuPont and Monsanto, which are pushing to sell GM seeds on the continent.
Growing foreign investment in African agriculture is likely to bring a greater interest in GM crops as well.
"Investors' appetite is increasing for investing in African agriculture. The combination of fertile land and the demand for soft commodities in Africa makes it a good case," said Bernd Schanzenbaecher, a partner in EBG Capital, an asset management and advisory boutique.
Meanwhile, countries such as Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa and Zimbabwe have enacted biosafety laws, removing what had been a major hindrance to GM adoption. Most other African governments are also drafting guidelines and regulations.
"Of course we must be alert and responsible in the development of GM crops ... but if we are really serious about food security in Africa, emotional propaganda about these issues will never get us there," South Africa's deputy agriculture minister, Pieter Mulder, said earlier this month.
Researchers say that with food prices expected to be high in 2011, African countries need to work hard to ensure there are enough calories on the continent.
"Biotech is not going to fix all the problems, but it has the potential to make a difference," said Johannesburg scientist Sandy Evans, speaking for biotechnology group AfricaBio.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/31/us-africa-gmo-idUSTRE72U2QA20110331

POVERTY: Four degree rise 'would scupper African farming'

Yojana Sharma: 29 November 2010


  Thornton et al. (2010)/The Royal Society 2010

Average growing period for crops may reduce (grey and black areas) by 20 per cent (black) in Africa over the next 80 years:

A widespread farming catastrophe could hit Africa if global temperatures rose by four degrees Celsius or more, according to a study that calls for urgent planning for a much warmer future and investment in technology to avert disaster.
In most of southern Africa the growing season could shrink by as much as a fifth, according to scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya, who carried out simulation studies based on existing climate change models.
The 'four degrees plus' scenario is increasingly being contemplated as negotiations, which began again in Cancún, Mexico, today (29 November–10 December), have stalled on measures aimed at limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees.
Drastic changes to farming will be needed under such a scenario, said Carlos Seré, director-general of ILRI.
"The general feeling is that the world is not going to move quickly enough on [confining global warming to] two degrees," he told SciDev.Net: "We are not getting traction. "The common thinking has been that there will be enough variability in farming today to allow us to cope, but the reality is that in a four degree world the range of options is very narrow."
According to the models, the growing season may increase modestly in eastern Africa. But cropping seasons are likely to decline more quickly everywhere in the region except central Africa.
Much of southern Africa's rain-fed agriculture could fail every other season by the 2090s, says the study.
"It is not difficult to envisage a situation where the adaptive capacity and resilience of hundreds of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa could simply be overwhelmed by events."
Simply making crops more drought-tolerant or flood-resistant is just tinkering about the edges, said Seré.
"The changes which will be required in the farming system are quite drastic, pushing farmers beyond the limits of their knowledge and experience. They will be overwhelmed by extreme climate events," he told SciDev.Net.
"We are talking about farmers abandoning cropping and migrating out of those regions. But where are farmers who cannot cope with this level of stress in the system to go?
"Where is the alternative livelihood for 60 per cent of the continent where farming is still a very key part of coping with food security? You cannot escape the fact that for decades many people are going to be in the rural sector. It is a moral imperative to give those people a livelihood.
"We need to understand and find much smarter ways to get knowledge out there. Extension services in Africa have largely collapsed in many countries".
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 assumed that regional shortfalls in food production in Sub-Saharan Africa could be plugged with imports from global markets, says the paper, but it adds that the experience of the 2008 food crisis highlighted the difficulties of such an 'adaptation' strategy.
Instead ILRI scientists are calling for better monitoring, in particular 'back to basics', land-based observation and data collection in Africa, which have been in decline for decades. Information on weather, land use, markets and crop and livestock distribution is critical for an effective response to climate change, they said.
"Africa's data-collection systems could be improved with relatively modest additional effort," the study says.
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/four-degree-rise-would-scupper-african-farming-.html

POVERTY: EU money earmarked for African development winds up in tax havens and African banks

  The headquarters of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg Photo: Art Directors & TRIP / Alamy

By Leah Hyslop 01 Dec 2010
EU money earmarked for African development winds up in tax havens and African banks, report claims
A new report alleges that the European Investment Bank’s lending practices in Africa facilitate tax evasion and corruption.
Counter Balance, a coalition of NGOs dedicated to challenging the European Investment Bank (EIB), issued the report, entitled Hit and run development: some things the EIB would rather you didn't know about its lending practices in Africa, and some things that can no longer be covered up last week.
In it, the organisation claims that millions of pounds earmarked by the EIB last year for funding development in Africa ended up in tax havens and African banks, one of whose managing directors was being investigated for fraud at the time.
On its website, the EIB says that its aim in the sub-saharan African, Carribean and Pacific countries is "to support projects that deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental benefits”, particularly “private sector-led initiatives that promote economic growth and have a positive impact on the wider community and region."
Counter Balance claims however that the bank is neglecting its traditional role in financing small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to concentrate on intermediated loans (large loans to private banks, who are then expected to lend to SMEs) and offshore private equity funds.
The group says that these practices not only “prioritise profit maximisation over concerns about sustainable development”, they make it difficult to trace what happens to the money, and can faciliate “sinister practices such as tax evasion, money laundering and personal enrichment".
“When development money is given to unaccountable financial bodies with no development interest or experience, untracked by the EIB and resulting in alleged corruption and money laundering, it is hard to see how the EIB is meeting its legal obligations under its mandate,” the organisation said.
One case study highlighted in the report centred on a €50 million (£42 million) loan to a bank in Nigeria in 2007, when its managing director was under investigation by Nigeria's economic and financial crimes commission.
A spokesman for the EIB said that that the bank had a "zero-tolerance" policy on corruption and that many of the loans to African banks mentioned in the report had been discussed, but never actually made. “When financing projects that contribute to reducing poverty and promoting economic development in Africa the European Investment Bank works closely with fund managers selected for their track record and expertise specialist management skills," he said.
“All projects funded by the EIB and intermediaries are subject to the highest accountability standards, examined and are subject to the Bank's due diligence with this respect both before approval and following signature through the Bank's monitoring process."
Regarding the EIB's use of offshore financial centres, the spokesman added that the EIB "does not do business in blacklisted offshore financial centres, has strict internal rules regarding the use of offshore financial centres and ensures that beneficiaries of EIB funding conform to international standards on the use of offshore financial centres."
Around 10 per cent of the EIB's budget is spent outside of the EU every year. In 2009, this approximated to €10 billion (£8.3 billion) of investment
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/offshorefinance/8168734/EU-money-earmarked-for-African-development-winds-up-in-tax-havens-and-African-banks-report-claims.html

Malaria in Africa: progress and prospects in the decade since the Abuja Declaration

Robert W Snow and Kevin Marsh;
Malaria is a global health problem but more than 70% of the total morbidity is in Africa.1 10 years ago, heads of state from across Africa signed a declaration in Abuja, Nigeria, to “halve the malaria mortality for Africa’s people by 2010”.2 This Viewpoint discusses how far we have come in this effort, what we can expect for the future, and what our priorities should be.
Not long after the launch of the Global Malaria Eradication Programme in 1955, it became apparent that elimination was not yet achievable in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1969, global malaria eradication changed from a time-limited campaign to a long-term goal. The strategy started to focus on control, but in practice this approach relied on treatment of febrile illness and during the 1970s and 1980s, malaria-specific mortality began to rise frighteningly as resistance to chloroquine spread.
By the early 1990s, the failure of national and international institutions to control malaria was increasingly seen as a disaster. A meeting of the world’s health ministers in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1992 aimed to refocus attention on malaria by launching a global declaration on the control of the disease that gave special prominence to Africa and expressed the “urgent need for commitment to malaria control by all governments, all health and development workers, and the world community”.4 In 1995, the UN Secretary-General
launched a special initiative for Africa that included malaria control as one of a limited number of specific goals. In 1998, the Director of WHO launched the Roll Back Malaria movement as a cabinet-level initiative. At the Abuja meeting in April, 2000, African leaders agreed to halve mortality from malaria in Africa by 2010 by implementing the strategies and actions of the Roll Back Malaria programme, ensuring that at least 60% of the continent’s at-risk population was protected or treated with appropriate methods.2 The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was established in 20025 to make large-scale funding
available for health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).6 Roll Back Malaria, leading the resurgence of interest and implementation, had an explicit focus on countries with a high burden of disease, and for the first time Africa was at the centre of international attention for malaria.
Despite a faltering start and substantial criticism, international advocacy has been remarkably successful. In 1998, worldwide spending on malaria control was around US$100 million.7 By the end of 2009, the Global Fund had approved $5·3 billion for 191 malaria grants in 82 countries, almost 75% of all external financing for these countries.8 The new funds have been used to support a fairly consistent set of priority interventions across most African countries, including use of insecticide-treated nets, selective use of indoor residual
house spraying, reduction of maternal and neonatal consequences of infection during pregnancy, replacement of failing drugs with artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), and improvement of diagnostic capacities at the point of care with rapid tests. Most of these interventions were not available during the time of the Global Malaria Eradication Programme and therefore provide a new opportunity for revised objectives for malaria in Africa. The scale of the increased funding for malaria control and prevention has led to an
exponential rise in the importation of bednets and ACTs.9 Policies to support free massdistribution
of insecticide-treated nets have been established in an increasing number of African countries,10 supported by WHO. More countries are adopting indoor residual spraying9 to augment use of insecticide-treated nets. In 2003, only four countries in Africa had adopted ACTs as first-line treatment; by 2010 ACTs were first-line treatment in every malaria-endemic country in Africa.
Against general long-term trends of changing epidemiology, economic development, and population growth and mobility, more recent changes have included substantial reductions in malaria transmission and incidence of clinical malaria, reported from different locations across Africa.11-15 In some of these situations the changes have been striking. In our own experience on the coast of Kenya, we have seen the incidence of severe malaria fall by more than 90% in 5 years, changing it from a major cause of childhood illness and death to a relatively minor problem.14,15 Two points are important here. First, this reduction should not be assumed to be occurring everywhere in Africa; some areas even within a country show no change or continued increases in disease risks.14 Second, although these changes could be attributed to enhanced prevention and control activities, the truth is probably much more complex. Certainly, on the Kenyan coast there is evidence of a long-term reduction in malaria transmission going back over 15 years, with recent falls in clinical disease the result of a much longer-term process that is not well understood.15
The first effect that good malaria control might be expected to have is a reduction in causespecific malaria morbidity and mortality. Because malaria accounts for a large proportion of attendances at clinics and admissions to hospital, this reduction would be of major public health importance. However, many experts have argued that malaria has a major, although poorly defined, effect on increasing propensity to other diseases, particularly invasive bacterial disease.16 With the decline in malaria transmission on the Kenyan coast, we have seen a remarkable reduction in admissions to hospital for children with life-threatening
invasive bacterial diseases, particularly those caused by gram-negative organisms. This trend has been paralleled by a halving in all-cause child mortality over 20 years.
Changes in malaria, invasive bacterial disease, and all-cause mortality occurring in parallel over many years might simply suggest broader changes in society and access to health care. The experience of the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea, is therefore important. In 2003, a programme of integrated malaria control began on the island. An assessment of progress over the first 4 years showed major reductions in entomological indices of transmission and encouraging declines in rates of parasitaemia and anaemia. By far the most important result was a two-thirds reduction in mortality in children under 5 years of age.13 Even more astonishing was the fact that this change took place over a short period, corresponding to the year in which malaria transmission was substantially reduced by an indoor residual spraying campaign. In effect, Bioko achieved its MDG for childhood mortality in a single year by a single intervention. Although Bioko has a fairly small population, why shouldn’t the same sort of effect on childhood mortality be achievable in larger populations and in all malariaendemic countries?
Such successes have brought a sense of optimism to the malaria community. In October, 2007, a meeting was held in Seattle, WA, USA, that transformed the framework of global malaria control. Unexpectedly, the central idea was that malaria eradication was not only possible, but should be the only goal.17 Many articles flooded the scientific and popular press and previously cautious malariologists, released from a 40-year collective depression after the perceived failure of the global eradication campaign, have been invigorated by the notion of elimination. Roll Back Malaria and WHO’s targets moved quickly from carefully designed plans to support the MDGs to supporting a “universal roadmap to ensure nationwide malaria control, elimination, and eventual eradication”.18 Several African ministries of health announced plans for eliminating malaria within the next 7–10 years.
Increased advocacy and international funding have had an effect on disease in some areas of Africa and this success must be applauded. However, progress has been, on a continental scale, modest at best. Even though the public health effects of insecticide-treated nets had been reported for more than 15 years, in 2002 the proportion of African children sleeping under insecticide-treated nets was only 1·8%. With the rise in funding and changing methods of delivery, this proportion rose to 18·5% by 2007.10 Although this increase is encouraging, tens of millions of children remain unprotected9,10 and 33 countries had coverage of less
than 40% in 2007.9,10,15 Treatment of all clinical cases of malaria with an ACT has so far proven to be the most challenging target to meet. Despite the overwhelming evidence that ACTs are preferable to existing monotherapies, and the substantial and important investment in discovering new products, these drugs still reach only a small proportion of people who need them.9 Poor planning, tendering, and drug supply continue to result in shortages of new effective medicines to treat malaria in the public sector. When ACTs are available they are often dispensed presumptively, without accurate diagnosis.
There has been an unprecedented increase in international funding for malaria control. However, in 2007 only three countries had more than $4 per head at risk to undertake an integrated package of control: Djibouti, Sao Tome and Principe, and Equatorial Guinea.
Average funding per head for 20 countries in Africa was less than $1.19 There remains a substantial funding gap. Full, effective coverage of an effcacious intervention strategy consisting of prevention, disease management, and health promotion has been estimated to cost $4·46 per person in Africa per year,20 or $2·9 billion for populations living under conditions of stable Plasmodium falciparum risk in Africa in 2007.19 Although this cost is high, the experience of the past 10 years has shown that it is not an inconceivable target;
indeed, continued pressure on donors is needed to reach and maintain this level of funding.
There is an obvious euphoric sense that elimination might be possible when low levels of transmission have been reached. However, the move from low prevalence to no transmission is not simply a matter of “more of the same” and a final push. A fundamentally different approach is needed, with a completely different set of activities involving surveillance of communities and travellers, and massive investment at a time when the public health consequences of malaria infection are negligible. A recent analysis of the feasibility of
malaria elimination in Zanzibar, an island that has reached a position of low parasite prevalence and subsequent substantial declines in disease incidence,11 suggests that active detection of all new cases would be diffcult and would not be cost effective over the next 25 years; overall elimination would be 65% more expensive than maintaining sustained control.
The problem of maintaining investment in control once the disease is of minor importance is often emphasised. However, this is not fundamentally different from the case with control of childhood diseases by vaccines in the Expanded Programme on Immunization and no one is seriously suggesting that we should stop funding measles vaccination. Nonetheless, the consequences of donor fatigue are very real and the effects could be worse than simply losing ground and slowly migrating backwards up the mortality curve—rebound is something potentially far more devastating. Reducing present amounts of malaria funding that are providing effective intervention coverage in some countries would be disastrous.
Some of the Abuja targets for 2010 can be reached for some but not all countries in Africa, and we need to focus on a bigger picture of funding universal coverage at a continental scale if we are to reproduce the successes of areas where scaled intervention and effect has been reported. Eradication is the dream of all public health professionals, whether they work on tuberculosis, measles, or malaria. However, in the short to medium term, by which we mean 10–20 years, emphasis on elimination or eradication in strategic plans for most African countries is at best irrelevant and at worst counterproductive if it results in a deviation of resources from previously set goals and raises expectations that cannot be met.
We believe the priorities are clear. We have made substantial progress in international and national advocacy and investment in malaria control. There is convincing evidence that, with currently available methods, malaria can be reduced from a major public health priority to a fairly minor burden on already stretched health systems. Additionally, the secondary benefits of good malaria control are so great that many countries could go a long way to achieving their MDGs for reducing childhood mortality by immediately focusing and
intensifying their effort on malaria control. The situation that will deliver this success can be characterised as low endemic control. This goal is admittedly less attractive than elimination or eradication, but it is achievable, its financing requirements are predictable, and its effects are measurable. Achieving this public health benefit across Africa within the next 10–20 years would leave a legacy that the global community could be proud of in 2030.
http://www.blogger.com/goog_785726779

POVERTY: Africa’s Future and the World Bank’s Role in it

Introduction
For at least four reasons, Africa in 2010 has an unprecedented opportunity for transformation and sustained growth. First, until the onset of the global economic crisis, economic growth was averaging 5 percent a year for a decade, accelerating to 6 percent for 2006-8. Growth was widespread: some 22 non-oil exporters had 4 percent or higher growth from 1998-2008. While Africa was badly hit by the global crisis, thanks to prudent macroeconomic policies and financial support from multilateral agencies, the continent avoided an even worse growth shortfall in 2009, and has rebounded in 2010.
Second, alongside the acceleration in growth, progress on the MDGs has been sufficiently rapid that many countries (such as Malawi, Ghana and Ethiopia) are likely to reach most of the goals, if not by 2015 then soon thereafter. Africa’s poverty rate was falling at one percentage point a year, from 59 percent in 1995 to 50 percent in 20051. Child mortality rates are declining; HIV/AIDS is stabilizing; and primary completion rates are rising faster in Africa than anywhere else.
Third, Africa’s private sector is increasingly attracting investment, with much of the funding coming from domestic banks and investors. Returns to investment in Africa are among the highest in the world2. Success of ICT, especially mobile phone penetration, shows how rapidly a sector can grow. Private capital flows are higher than official development assistance (and FDI is higher than in India). China, India and others are investing large sums in Africa.
Fourth, the climate for market-oriented, pro-poor reforms is proving robust. Although the payoffs to economic reforms fell during the global crisis, policymakers continued with prudent economic policies, even in the face of contradictory policies elsewhere—because the public demanded them. The voice of civil society is increasing, as evidenced by Uwezo on education in Kenya, citizen report cards in Ghana, and the various groups demanding accountability for resource revenues.
Putting all these factors together, we conclude that Africa could be on the brink of an economic takeoff, much like China was 30 years ago, and India 20 years ago.
To be sure, African countries still have to tackle persistent, long-term development challenges, such as undiversified production structure, low levels of human capital, poor service delivery, and weak governance, including corruption. Furthermore, in the last five years, more challenges have come into sharper focus:
 Growth has not been accompanied by sufficient increase in productive employment, especially for the 7-10 million young Africans who enter the labor force every year.
 Even redistributed growth and productive employment may not be enough for the chronically poor, who suffer from food insecurity and under-nourishment.
 African women—who are both contributors to and beneficiaries from development—still lack legal and property rights, and access to finance and modern business practices. They also risk dying from childbirth at alarming rates.
 Climate change, through its effects on water, will threaten Africa’s agriculture.
 The large number and persistence of fragile states indicates that these countries may be stuck in a low-level equilibrium “trap,” for which non-traditional solutions must be found.
 The co-existence of a massive infrastructure deficit and the large number of small countries in Africa signals the need for regional solutions.
 Fiscal austerity in developed countries, as well as criticism and political backlash against foreign aid, means that official development assistance may be constrained.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/Africa_s_Future_and_the_World_Bank_s_Role_in_it.pdf

POVERTY: Poverty and Lack of Research Block Path to a Well-Fed World

I’m catching up with a great package of reports, commentary and analysis in the July 28th edition of the journal Nature on the challenging, but entirely doable, task of feeding roughly 9 billion people by midcentury (and doing so without using up the last patches of arable land). One of the best things about the package is that most of the content is freely accessible, as was the case with an important paper on feeding the world in the competing journal Science in February.
The Nature reports explore the vital role of advancing and disseminating useful agricultural practices and technologies, including but hardly limited to genetically modified crops, but also the simple reality that poverty is the main source of hunger now, not a lack of food. A central theme is efficiency, getting higher yields on small plots with fewer inputs of water and fertilizer. There’s a nice downloadable summary poster of some of the main findings.
The journal also points out the glaring lack of government investment in basic research and development on agriculture, a remarkable parallel to the other area of science that sees scant government investment despite its importance in the next few decades — energy. This Nature graph says it all (graphic by Nik Spencer, data compiled by Declan Butler):

Here are just a few of the bullet points:
1. Where the hungry people are
In 2009, more than 1 billion people went undernourished — their food intake regularly providing less than minimum energy requirements — not because there isn’t enough food, but because people are too poor to buy it. At least 30 percent of food goes to waste. Although the highest rates of hunger are in sub-Saharan Africa — tracking closely with poverty — most of the world’s undernourished people are in Asia.
2. Hunger isn’t going away
The percentage of hungry people in the developing world had been dropping for decades even though the number of hungry worldwide barely dipped. But the food price crisis in 2008 reversed these decades of gains.
3. It’s not about the bomb
Scientists long feared a great population boom that would stress food production, but population growth is slowing and should plateau by 2050 as family size in almost all poorer countries falls to roughly 2.2 children per family. Even as population has risen, the overall availability of calories per person has increased, not decreased. Producing enough food in the future is possible, but doing so without drastically sapping other resources, particularly water, will be difficult.
4. And it’s not about land
An outlook published in 2009 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (http://go.nature.com/DdNYvk) says that current cropland could be more than doubled by adding 1.6 billion hectares — mostly from Latin America and Africa — without impinging on land needed for forests, protected areas or urbanization. But Britain’s Royal Society has advised against substantially increasing cultivated land, arguing that this would damage ecosystems and biodiversity (http://go.nature.com/YJ2jsB). Instead, it backs “sustainable intensification,” which has become the priority of many agricultural research agencies.
There are pieces focused on sustaining the Amazon rain forest as pressures for farmland rise, the importance of root research, gauging whether today’s big agricultural corporations are up to the task, assessing restrictions on genetically modified crops and much more. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/poverty-and-lack-of-research-block-path-to-a-well-fed-world/

POVERTY: Microloan Foundation spreads the wealth in rural Africa

August 16, 2010
Peter Ryan explains to David Woodward of Director magazine, why his Microloan Foundation is enabling inexperienced entrepreneurs to kickstart enterprise in sub-Saharan Africa

Enterprise can be an effective solution to poverty in rural Africa. But when the average villager gets by on only a few pennies a day, how does a business idea attract the capital it needs to get started? Without collateral, a leap of faith is required. It's Peter Ryan's job to supply that faith. Ryan runs the Microloan Foundation, a social enterprise that provides small loans and business mentoring to women in rural Malawi, Zambia and northern Namibia.

Ryan's entrepreneurial customers are inexperienced and often uneducated. To a conventional bank manager, they look a risky prospect. But out of the 50,000 sub-Saharan loans the Microloan Foundation will make this year, 99 per cent of the capital will be returned, plus interest.

The secret to Ryan's model is peer lending. The Foundation's loan managers gather small groups of like-minded women, providing microloans of around £70 to each member to start a business. The loans are "cross-guaranteed" by all the group members, who provide peer support should any of the women fall behind.

Like Grameen Bank, run by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the Microloan Foundation doesn't provide any loans to men. "It's the women who manage the purse strings," explains Ryan. "They are the ones who have to put food on the table." It might seem strange to a European, adds Ryan, but gender-specific banking hasn't proved divisive. "The men are very happy that the women are being encouraged to go and earn money to support them," he says.

Ryan's aim is to kickstart rural economies. The Foundation's expansion into new regions is achieved through local loan managers, who develop relationships with village headmen before a Microloan branch is established. Groups of female entrepreneurs emerge naturally, says Ryan. Each group nominates a chairperson, a treasurer and a secretary. They are then taught the basics of accounting, finance and peer support and given bank accounts, before receiving their loans.

Interest is charged for two main reasons, explains Ryan. The first is to ensure that borrowers understand the price of money. Ryan's ultimate goal is to move his customers away from dependence on social enterprise and into the formal banking system. The second reason is to make the Microloan Foundation both sustainable and profitable. Profits are used to pay administrative staff at the Foundation's 20 branches and for expansion of the organisation. "We want to make a million loans a year across sub-Saharan Africa", he says.

Exporting capitalism to third-world communities requires sensitivity, no matter how good your intentions. Although the Foundation's record of repayment is good, there are other, more important measures of success to consider. "What you have to do is get your social mission right," says Ryan. "It's easy to say we get 99 per cent repayment, but if you're leaving a community in a worse state than they were before then that's not success. You don't want to drive people into the ground by eradicating the weak, you want to support the weak so that if it doesn't work for them they don't come out of the process slaughtered."

Ryan takes care to measure the social impact of the Foundation's work, tracking and monitoring the ways in which poverty is alleviated through enterprise. "You might call it TQM, but with a social mission," he says. But assessing progress can be a challenge when borrowers only deal in good news. "It's about communication. If you ask an African a question you'll get an answer. But is that really the true answer? It's a continual process of pealing away the onionskin," he says.

Ryan's success in Africa seems ripe for duplication in the UK. With an estimated 250 graduates chasing every available job, many are seeking start-up capital to fund their own ventures. But despite governmental pressure on banks to make more loans, many applications are unsuccessful. Ryan says microloans, backed by his Foundation's peer lending model, would reduce risk for lenders and help stimulate enterprise. "If people are brought together they can form a community of self-support," says Ryan. "Two to three hundred pounds is not a lot of money, but that would enable someone to get into painting and decorating, garden maintenance, something quite simple."

Simplicity is also the key to success in Africa, says Ryan. Most entrepreneurs start trading in areas they know well, "buying rice and beans and fish to sell at market." Some progress by opening teahouses at the side of the road, starting knitting and sewing businesses, buying livestock, or even setting up poultry operations.

The profits pay for secondary education, which in sub-Saharan Africa costs around £5 a term, much-needed medicine, home repairs and extra food. "Before these loans they might have one meal a day, afterwards they can have two to three meals a day," he says. "It's about improving quality of life."

http://wp.me/pQ0qm-3a

POVERTY: Poverty levels in South Asia

(July 15 2010): The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative in conjunction with the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme have developed a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) that disturbingly found that half of the world's poorest live in South Asia and, and contrary to popular belief, only a quarter live in Africa.The index notes that 421 million MPI poor reside in six Indian states namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and West Bengal - this number vying with 26 of the poorest African countries. The responsible factor is evidently unchecked population growth rates in these six states, with a growth rate higher than the Indian national average, and poor literacy rates as a consequence of small outlay by these six states on education.Statistics on poverty are critical in determining a government's expenditure priorities by focusing public attention on those areas that are sadly deficient. In Pakistan under the Benazir Income Support Programme, designed to provide Rs 1000 per month to 2.7 million poorest households, the government was compelled to abandon its earlier methodology of inviting parliamentarians across the political divide to identify a limited number of poor in their constituencies and, at the World Bank's insistence, began to develop a poverty scorecard.This scorecard is essentially a 13 indicator instrument which identifies the poor and requires information that includes household size, composition, education, employment, and certain household assets. Ignored by this scorecard are other critical information that are used by the MPI to determine poverty namely health, environment and gender dimensions.The scorecard, analysts argue, has other limitations also that include an overwhelming focus on assets, consumption considered a dependent variable and assuming a cardinality of ordinal data and perfect substitutability across dimensions. A paper published in January 2009 titled "Estimation of Multidimensional Poverty in Pakistan" notes that indicators of financial poverty, human poverty, poor housing and lack of physical assets were combined to get a composite index of poverty across multiple deprivations. These income and non-income indicators were developed using Household Income and Expenditure Surveys for the years 2004-05 and 2000-01.The empirical findings "reveal that about 54 percent of the people of Pakistan were in the state of multiple deprivations in the year 2004-05. Rural incidence was about 69 percent, while 21 percent of urban population faced extreme poverty in terms of indicators used in the construction of multidimensional poverty. An important finding of this study is that the magnitudes of equity-sensitive multidimensional poverty aggregates (poverty gap and poverty severity) are quite high as compared with income poverty.This situation indicates high inequality among the poor in terms of non-income poverty dimensions. Inter-temporal consistency of methodology facilitates future monitoring of multidimensional phenomenon of poverty." Many argue that BISP is a start and would eventually include health insurance as well. And given the severe resource constraints the government is unable to invest more in providing social safety nets that are required given our rising poverty levels.That argument is consistent with the state of the economy however where our government continues to show poor performance is in allocating expenditure priorities, a reflection of poor governance, where current expenditure continues to reflect profligacy and development expenditure continues to be slashed to accommodate the rise in current expenditure. That must change.
http://www.pakistantalk.com/forums/social-affairs/7480-poverty-levels-south-asia.html

POVERTY: The cynic's view (noy necessarily bad!)

“It is now widely acknowledged that Africa, as an idea, a concept, has historically served, and continues to serve, as a polemical argument for the West’s desperate desire to assert its difference from the rest of the world,” Cameroonian academic Achille Mbembe wrote in 2001.[1]
Nowhere is this more evident than in representations of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A country the size of Western Europe with less paved roads than Ireland, the DRC has been immortalized as the “dark heart” of the “dark continent” since Joseph Conrad’s timeless 1899 novella. Yet contrary to mainstream perceptions, the countless descriptions of Congo emphasizing its obscurity and poverty against the whiteness and wealth of the West drive home a narrative that is more reflective of its proponents than its sub-Saharan subjects.
Under this monochromatic lens, Congo is seen as a microcosm for Africa in general: it is the “reservoir of atrocities,”[2] and “rapacious, profit-oriented bloodshed,”[3] emblematic of “what many conflicts in Africa have become — circles of violence in the bush, with no end in sight.”[4] This terrible place, the narrative goes, where a young girl can be “regularly tied spread-eagle and gang-raped…sometimes with sticks that [tear] apart her insides and [leave] her dribbling wastes constantly,”[5] persists despite our best efforts to put an end to it. It’s not our fault that “progress-resistant” cultures,[6] poor leaders and patrimonial networks stand in the way of development, says the narrative.
As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof describes, our nominally altruistic roles in these cycles of bloodshed 12,000 miles away have the power to transform us Westerners’ perceptions of ourselves: “Technically, I had a good life before, but I wasn’t very happy,” muses American NGO worker in Congo Lisa Shannon. “Now I feel I have much more of a sense of meaning.”[7] Helping Congolese is, from the Western liberal perspective, a transformative, quasi-religious experience, one that appeases a conscience troubled by a decadent, mindless culture that rewards politicians campaigning on ignorance and hatred of gays and Arabs. It is much easier to help someone you think you have no connection with than people living in dire conditions just next door—rarely do Bono or Bob Geldof talk about ending poverty in Ireland (especially among the growing African population there). Although Nick Kristof does talk about America’s myriad problems, rarely does he wax poetic about the endemic racism in upper-class America or how reporting on some of the poorest people in the world has propelled him to a position of wealth and fame. Asserting the other’s desperation is therapeutic. It validates our own position of wealth, and makes us feel better about ourselves within the systems of inequality that we continue to perpetuate. ‘Yeah,’ we can say, ‘I’ve got problems, but theirs are so much worse.’
To that effect, Congo and its neighbors are, and have long been, living laboratories for Western development, from medical technology to resource extraction to security systems and foreign policies—all of which operate without any third party accountability mechanisms. This is why it comes as no surprise to read contemporary articles praising economist and development guru Jeffrey Sachs’ “control villages” in Kenya, which benefit from intensely monitored financial, medical and educational support for a few months before funding for unsustainable, patronizing projects like these dries up.[8]
It is easy to speak of Congo and its people as a backdrop of darkness for which only the West’s white paint can illuminate. But to speak of Congo (and of Africa in general) in more truthfully would require acknowledging our collective stake in the ‘others’’ lives and, more specifically, in their suffering. To properly analyze the current situations in Bukavu and Goma, we would be forced to reflect on Patrice Lumumba’s contention that “friendship is impossible in a relationship of subjection and subordination.”[9] His words can easily describe the basis for interaction between Westerners and Congolese. For the past 500 years and well into the foreseeable future, power relations in the Congo have heavily favored those with lighter skin, and terribly few acknowledge that they are acting in this imperialist, patriarchal power structure.
To comprehensively report on eastern Congo, we would have to acknowledge that the cell phone, video game consoles, DVD players, cameras and printers we use contain coltan, one of the highly profitable minerals responsible in part for the country’s ongoing violence. In effect, in order to cover the conflict in Congo, one is likely to use coltan, cobalt or tin mined in Congo: the plane engine used to travel to Congo is made with coltan and cobalt, the cell phones used to make logistics calls and interviews, cameras used to photograph the conflict and the laptop computers used to type up the reports and send them out all contain coltan, while the batteries used to power the electronics use cobalt, another ‘conflict mineral’. Tin is found in cans to preserve the food journalists and NGO workers and Congolese eat, and used in the manufacturing of glass windows. By reporting on the conflict, one is indirectly contributing to it.
Moreover, almost all journalists in Congo travel with aid groups unaccountable to anyone but themselves, who then give information about the conflict that suits their business strategies. Therefore, producing reports that stray from generic humanitarian analysis is far from easy. It would involve a constant awareness of how our decisions and actions affect those around us and a willingness to oppose the dominant institutionalized practices of Western societies. It would also require journalists traveling in Congo to treat sources like Médecins Sans Frontières as they would any other—investigating their biases and thinking critically about all the direct and indirect effects of NGO operations.
http://africasacountry.com/2010/07/16/poverty-for-sale/

MALARIA: video on growing artemesin plant in Africa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl_OoY3Pgq0&NR=1

POVERTY: Africa's wealth not spread evenly

NICE , France— In years past, Africa was always the outsiders’ cornucopia, the font of gold and diamonds, slaves and minerals, cotton and rubber and, more latterly, oil.
These days, the continent’s riches draw a new cast of prospectors and predators, but the question is the same: who benefits — the people, or a coterie of political and military elites that has sunk deep roots in Africa’s postcolonial loam, fed and watered by foreign powers and investors?
Consider, for instance, Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe — two lands in the news where, by flukes of geology and geography, rulers have secured what seem to be charmed lives, tapping windfall seams of wealth to perpetuate their rule.
In Equatorial Guinea, oil was discovered in 1996, roughly halfway through President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo’s three decades in power. The country has since become the third largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, after Nigeria and Angola. Its annual wealth has increased 5,000 percent since 2002, but most of the population of around 650,000 lives on less than a dollar a day, according to Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York.
In Zimbabwe, the economy was in a tailspin when, in 2006, huge and potentially fabulous diamond deposits were discovered at Marange, in the east of the country. Yet, Human Rights Watch said, “the diamonds continue to benefit a few senior people in the government and their accomplices rather than the people of Zimbabwe as a whole.”
The people of those countries are not alone in suffering from what has been called the curse of riches.
In Angola, Nigeria, Sudan and Gabon, the powerful have thrived while the poor have gained little, if anything, from the ambiguous blessings of oil. In the postcolonial annals, near-exclusive dependence on a single commodity — copper in Cold War-era Zambia and Zaire, as Congo was then known, or uranium in Niger — entrenched one-party states even as African economies became hostage to the vagaries of remote, international markets.
In Uganda, now, there is talk of huge oil reserves in a land where the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, has been in power since 1986.
Some people have called it the paradox of plenty: across the globe, around 3.5 billion people live in countries rich in oil, gas and minerals, according to an advocacy group called the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, or E.I.T.I. Those people should all benefit, the group said, but “when governance is weak, it may result in poverty, corruption and conflict.”
And it usually does.
True, big companies, governments and advocacy groups have sought to shame or pressure or cajole errant regimes into compliance with higher standards.
“E.I.T.I. isn’t only about show,” said Jonas Moberg, director of the organization, which is based in Oslo and strives to build openness and accountability. “We believe that it can have an impact.”
But such mechanisms have been easy to ignore or circumvent, and both Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe have shown the limits of international efforts to set new standards of probity.
Equatorial Guinea applied to join E.I.T.I., grouping big oil and mining companies with governments and civic groups in the countries in which they operate.
Membership would have given Equatorial Guinea respectability, committing it to a new openness about its oil income. But in April, the country had not met a deadline to fulfill E.I.T.I.’s criteria, and, for the first time, the body turned down a request to extend it. Many other prospective members have also failed to meet those requirements, which include the inclusion of local advocacy groups and the adoption of new accounting methods to track the flow of oil money.
In another setback, Mr. Obiang sought recently to burnish his image by creating a well-endowed prize in his name at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — only to run into strong opposition from member states questioning his human rights record.
For its part, Zimbabwe is a signatory of the United Nations-backed Kimberley Process, also embracing companies, advocacy groups and governments whose role is to exclude so-called conflict diamonds from global trade.
In a critical test of the organization’s ability to police the diamond trade, Zimbabwe is seeking approval to export newly mined stones from the Marange fields in the east of the country, where the Zimbabwean military has been accused of abuses including murder, rape, torture and smuggling.
But, as in Equatorial Guinea, the question is simply this: what is more alluring to unscrupulous officials — an international imprimatur or instant access to clandestine riches?
(That is not the only bond: in 2004, a band of mercenaries planning to topple Mr. Obiang stopped off in Zimbabwe to pick up weapons. Instead of guns, they got arrested, and their leader was later extradited to Equatorial Guinea: call it professional courtesy.)
The Kimberley Process was established a decade ago to stem trade in stones fueling civil wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola, defining them as diamonds “used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments.”
That rubric does not apply in Zimbabwe, where advocacy groups and others have expressed concern, not about civil war against a government, but about the authorities’ own behavior toward their people.
In July the Kimberley Process agreed to permit Zimbabwe to export some diamonds by early September in return for allowing the body to investigate the widely reported abuses in the Marange fields. But the organization is riven by divisions, its consensual deliberations can easily be stalled, and it is struggling to extend its success in stemming blood diamonds a decade ago to the newer and different realities of human rights abuse.
“The problem is that Kimberley has not evolved to deal with the problems of the 21st century,” said Arvind Ganesan, an expert with Human Rights Watch in Washington.
For both the E.I.T.I. and the Kimberley Process, he said, “it is the unwillingness or the inability of governments to comply with the rules they set for themselves that is at the heart of the problems today.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/world/africa/31iht-letter.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

MALARIA: Africa's Children

Although several parasites can cause malaria it is the Plasmodium falciparum species that is responsible for the majority of the malaria deaths in Africa. In the countries at risk, artemisinin-combination therapy (ACT) has become the first-line treatment for the parasite.
However, there is concern that children suffering from a fever are mistakenly being given ACT when they do not actually have malaria.
This better-safe-than-sorry approach arose historically due to an absence of rapid diagnostics for the disease. While understandable, it leads to unnecessary waste of limited and valuable drug stocks, an increased risk of the parasite becoming resistant and the unfortunate consequence that children are being misdiagnosed and treated for the wrong condition.
Now that rapid diagnostic tests for malaria are available, there is a push to see them adopted and used widely. But there is a problem: while we know that ACT is being given to children without malaria, their proportion relative to malaria sufferers is not. This is because the data we have from clinics performing the treatments is either incomplete or unreliable, so it is difficult to accurately estimate how many non-sufferers are wrongly given ACT.
Fortunately, researchers from the Malaria Atlas Project have succeeded in modelling this proportion. Combining their expertise in mapping the infection risk for P. falciparum, together with data on the prevalence of childhood fever, treatment-seeking behaviour and child populations, they estimate that, in 2007, the majority of fevers in African children attending public clinics were not caused by malaria.
Their study, published in PLoS Medicine this week, also indicates that there are striking geographic differences. Children in some areas are much less likely to be suffering a fever due to malaria than in others. In Kenya, for example, approximately 15 per cent of fever sufferers seeking treatment are predicted to have malaria, whereas in Burkina Faso, it is nearer 60 per cent.
This model has implications for the healthcare agencies looking for the most rational and cost-effective way to use rapid diagnostic tests for malaria, and distribute drugs to the areas that need it the most. However, while the model is a step forward, the authors themselves sound a cautionary note:
What these models can never replace is high quality information from public sector services in the form of reliable and complete health information on drug use and patient burdens and whether these patients have peripheral infections.
Unfortunately, inadequacies in national health management information systems across Africa are in part a cause of the present imperfections in essential commodity demand and burden estimation.
http://wellcometrust.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/fever-and-malaria-in-african%c2%a0children/

MALNUTRITION: AFRICA: Help out small farmers,

NAIROBI, 2 July 2010 (IRIN) - Small-holder farmers, who make up almost all of Africa's agriculture sector, need more support to reduce over-dependence on increasingly costly food imports, states a new report.Policymakers should "strengthen the competitiveness of small-holder farmers, thus avoiding a rural exodus that would put pressure on the cities and lead to more food imports", according to the 2010 technology and innovation report [http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/tir2009_en.pdf] by the UN Conference on Trade and Development.Developing countries' net cereal imports rose from 39 million tonnes in the mid-1970s to 103 million in 1997-1999 and are expected to rise to 265 million tonnes by 2030, states the report. Countries also have to pay more for food: the price of Thai export rice almost tripled from US$362 per tonne in December 2007 to $1,000 in April 2008. Meanwhile, per capita food production in least developed countries (among which African countries are over-represented) has declined such that in 2003-2005 it was one-fifth lower than in 1970-1972.Cost barriers"When farmers are paying almost all their money in transaction costs there is no incentive to produce. There is a need to lower the barriers of cost for smallholder farmers," Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, director of the monitoring and research division at UN-HABITAT, the UN Human Settlements Programme, said during the report's launch on 1 July. Lack of organization is also a problem. "A small producer does not suffer due to size but due to isolation. If a hundred of you put your produce together you are much more likely to get a bigger market and better prices," said Oyelaran-Oyeyinka. Ethiopia recently launched a crop commodity exchange market to help farmers negotiate prices. "One of the reasons [African] agriculture has not moved is we don't have the surplus for value addition. We eat all [that] we produce," he said. "We simply just produce the raw material and ship it out to somebody. What remains is about 20 percent of the value."The bulk of the profit is at the end of the chain; the farmers who produce get the least [returns]," he said, adding that farmers require a supportive physical infrastructure, a regulated environment, training and improved farming and soil conditions. "Unless you have all these in place, the farmer will just work for nothing." He called for pro-poor public policy, including price stabilization, modern input availability, a ready credit and market supply and land policies guaranteeing property rights. "Volatility in prices creates uncertainty in the minds of producers. If you are expecting 20,000 shillings [$250] for your harvest [and] suddenly mid-year the harvesting price drops to 5,000 [$62.50] the farmer is crippled," he said. Challenges Land under irrigation remains low yet irrigation increases cropping intensity. "The 885 million hectares of currently available arable land in developing countries is as good as 1,770 million hectares, for instance, if it is used twice a year," notes the report, adding that only one-fifth of such land was under irrigation in 1997-1999, of which 2 percent was in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 40 percent in South Asia."It is a very dangerous thing to [just] depend on nature for your livelihood," Oyelaran-Oyeyinka warned of rainfall dependence.Guaranteed land tenure could be vital to helping farmers access credit and invest in the medium- and long-term productivity of the land, said the report.Among other challenges is the growing switch to biofuels and its effects on food security, diversion of cereals from humans to feeding livestock - conversion of grain to meat - and rural-urban migration. Oyelaran-Oyeyinka said: "There is no silver bullet - no quick fixes. There is a need to create an enabling environment for technology and innovation to decrease imports - through farmer support."Knowledge transfer and sharing is also important, he said. "We need to bring research out of the pilot stages and make it a business adapting it to Africa's conditions.""A country that does not feed its people is in very big danger of losing its sovereignty."

POVERTY: successful agriculture practices

Agricultural research to provide more productive and sustainable technologies to farmers and a policy framework that fosters market incentives for increasing production. These are two key determinants of positive agricultural performance in African agriculture. Steven Haggblade and Peter Hazell of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) come up with these conclusions in their book Successes in African Agriculture.
The authors present case studies of successful agricultural growth in Africa and the processes, practices, and policies needed for development. Case studies include farming of maize in East and Southern Africa, cassava in the middle belt of Africa, and cotton in West Africa.
Details of the book are available at http://www.ifpri.org/publication/successes-african-agriculture-1

MALNUTRITION: African soil needs fertiliser replenishment

Replenishing soil fertility with mineral and organic fertilisers could triple cereal crop yields in tropical Africa and achieve an African green revolution, says Pedro A. Sánchez from the Earth Institute.
Staple crop yields have not risen from one tonne per hectare in most of tropical Africa since the 1960s. The problem, according to Sánchez, is decades of farming without adequate fertiliser that have "stripped the soils of the vital nutrients needed to support plant growth".
The eighty 'Millennium Villages', set up in 2005 across ten African countries to promote community-led development, show the extent to which better soil fertility improves yields. Through mineral fertiliser applications, improved cultivars and the latest agronomic knowledge, maize yields have surpassed three tons per hectare in 78 per cent of village households, says Sánchez.
And at a national level, Malawi's fertiliser subsidy scheme — that gives farmers two-thirds off the market price of mineral fertilisers — has increased maize production from 0.8 tonnes per hectare in 2005 to 2.2 in 2007. The scheme has transformed the country from a receiver of food aid to a food exporter and donor, says Sánchez.
To build on these initial successes, African countries must now focus on adding organic fertilisers to their soils. "Only organic fertilisers add carbon, feed soil microbes and help to retain soil moisture", writes Sánchez. The best way of applying them, he adds, is to grow leguminous trees that capture nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil.
Such 'nitrogen-fixing' trees could capture 50–100 kilogrammes of nitrogen per hectare per year in tropical Africa — similar to the amount added by mineral fertilisers. They have the added benefit of providing fuel wood.
But to establish the nitrogen-fixing system, farmers have to forgo one crop, which makes it unattractive to most farmers in tropical Africa. Governments could overcome the hurdle by subsidising nitrogen-fixing trees, suggests Sánchez.
http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/soil-fertility-key-to-african-green-revolution.html

POVERTY: Africa must diversify economies

18 May 2010 – High unemployment rates continue to hinder poverty reduction efforts in Africa, the United Nations says in a new report released today, stressing that African countries must give priority to diversifying their economies to create decent jobs to boost social development.
“Africa’s long-term growth prospects and ability to sustain high rates of employment generation and broader social development depend on success in economic diversification,” according to the Economic Report on Africa 2010, published by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union Commission.
The current global economic crisis offers African countries an opportunity to lay the foundation for sustainable, employment-intensive economic growth, says the report.
“The recession should work as a wake-up call for Africa to deal with its vulnerabilities and introduce further reforms to promote growth, but more particularly employment creation to promote social development in the region,” said Rob Vos, Director of Development Policy of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), at the launch of the report in New York.
The report – whose theme is “Promoting High-level Sustainable Growth to Reduce Unemployment in Africa” – recommends investment in infrastructure and human capital, renewed efforts to mobilize domestic resources, market reforms, incentives to support private-sector employment and efforts to increase productivity and incomes in the informal sector.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34736&Cr=economic+development&Cr1=

MALARIA: Bed nets go unused

But even as donations roll in and millions of bed nets pile up in warehouses across Africa, aid agencies and non-governmental organizations are quietly grappling with a problem: Data suggest that, at least in some places, nearly half of Africans who have access to the nets refuse to sleep under them.
Why that is gets to the heart of the trouble with our efforts to dislodge the diseases of the very poor. When scientists first developed the treated nets in the late 1990s, they were hailed by international donors and aid agencies as a magic bullet for malaria. Unlike nearly everything else that combats the disease, including better housing and drainage, anti-malarial drugs and insecticidal spray campaigns, the insecticide-doused nets are cheap and easy to use. Equally important, they require little infrastructure on the ground. A single volunteer on a motorcycle can distribute hundreds of nets a day, in even the most remote locales. There is no need for cold storage to keep drugs and vaccines refrigerated, nor for expert clinicians to oversee proper dosage.
To date, millions of dollars from international agencies, NGOs and USAID have been spent to get treated nets into the hands of impoverished, sub-Saharan Africans. The inter-agency Roll Back Malaria Partnership is calling for 730 million more.
But, as even the staunchest advocate will admit, the treated nets were not designed with the cultural preferences of the rural African villager in mind. Among other design flaws, their tight mesh blocks ventilation, a serious problem in the hot, humid places where malaria roosts. Minor discomfort might be tolerable in rural African communities desperate for anti-malarial prevention. But, as medical anthropologists have consistently found, because malaria is so common in much of sub-Saharan Africa, and because the overwhelming majority of cases go away on their own, most rural Africans consider malaria a minor ailment, the way that Westerners might think of the cold or flu. Many rural people also believe that malaria is caused not just by mosquitoes but also by other factors such as mangoes, or hard work.
As a result, while we see the treated nets as a lifesaving gift, they see them as a discomfort that provides only partial protection against a trivial illness. Is it any wonder that many use their nets to catch fish or as wedding veils or room dividers — all documented uses of insecticide-treated bed nets? If that sounds ungrateful, think about what would happen if public health officials, concerned about the 41,000 lives that Americans lose every year due to flu, blanketed the United States with anti-viral face masks to be worn during the winter flu season. Donning masks would be a simple, safe and effective measure that could save thousands of lives. But would people wear them?
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shah-20100502,0,85181.story

India, Under-nutrition

Under-nutrition, as a “silent” emergency, haunts the lives of millions of Indian children. Several facts reveal the magnitude and severity of the nutritional crisis facing the country. Close to two million children below the age of five die in India every year. Of these, over a million deaths can be attributed to under-nutrition and hunger. Available reports place the number of annual child deaths because of under-nutrition in Maharashtra alone – one of India’s most prosperous States – at 45,000. Sadly, only a handful of starvation and nutrition-related deaths get reported by the media. Most of the times, child deaths and suffering because of poor nutrition go unnoticed. That India reports among the highest levels of child under-nutrition has been rightly termed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a “national shame”.
Stunting (deficiency in height for age) affects close to 195 million children under five years of age in the developing world. Of these, around 61 million – the largest number – live in India. Wasting (deficiency in weight for height) affects around 71 million children under five in the developing world. Of these, some 25 million are in India. And an estimated 129 million children under five in the developing world are underweight (that is deficient in weight for age – a composite measure of stunting and wasting). Of these, close to 54 million are children in India. In 2005-06, 43 per cent of Indian children below five years of age were underweight and 48 per cent were stunted. In China, only 7 per cent of similar children are underweight and 11 per cent are stunted. The corresponding levels of child malnutrition are much lower in Africa where 21 per cent of children below five years are underweight and 36 per cent are stunted.
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20100423270800400.htm