| Food Security II -African Hunger |
A STRATEGY FOR CUTTING HUNGER IN AFRICA -- Part 2
A STRATEGY FOR CUTTING HUNGER IN AFRICA
(1) PREFACE
(2) The purpose of this paper is to lay out a clear and implementable strategy for cutting hunger in Africa over the next fifteen years. It may be too late to achieve the World Food Summit Goals of cutting hunger in half by 2015, but substantial progress can be made if both the African and international communities attack this problem seriously. This draft strategy is based on a number of ideas that have emerged in the last decade, mostly from African practitioners and policy makers. In particular, this strategy draws on the ideas of African scholars, policymakers and businesspeople in a series of "Agricultural Transformation Workshops" held between 1993 and 1999, as well as work by the African Development Bank, a study jointly conducted by the World Bank, the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Economic Research Consortium and a series of African consultations organized by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).(1)
(3) The current paper is clearly not the end point, but a starting point, a point of departure for a new and intensive discussion between African and American academics, practitioners and political leaders, where the ideas presented here will be reformed and refined. At the end of that discussion we hope to have achieved two major accomplishments - an agreed-upon strategy for cutting hunger in Africa, and a political commitment from both American and African policy makers to implement that strategy. On the African side, this would require major policy shifts, while on the American side it would require a new commitment to open markets further and to mobilize the resources, public and private, financial and intellectual, needed to support the implementation of this strategy.
(4) BACKGROUND
(5) Most Sub-Saharan countries gained their independence, amid high hopes, forty years ago. However, the years since have not been kind to many parts of the continent, which have been plagued with wars, military coups, droughts, famines, economic stagnation and poverty. Over that time, foreign donors have poured in over a trillion dollars of foreign assistance and African governments have borrowed another $200 billion on commercial terms and have invested another $500 billion of their own resources, all with too little impact. Africa remains almost as poor, almost as hungry, and almost as disease-ridden as it was in 1960. So why a new strategy now? What has changed to make us think that there now exists the knowledge to develop a strategy to cut hunger that will work today when all the other attempts have failed in the past?
(6) In the first place, over a broad range of issues, many development practitioners and academics, both within and without Africa, would agree that the problem is not a lack of knowledge, particularly at the technical level. Quite a bit is actually known about the process of development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and it is possible to lay out in broad strokes a strategy that reflects that knowledge. The knowledge exists on how to increase the production of food and the technical solutions to the problem of reducing widespread poverty are broadly agreed upon. The real problem is a political economy one - African governments have, for the most part, not devoted themselves to fighting hunger and poverty, and developed countries have not followed through with their commitments in terms of assistance, debt relief and open markets. The reasons for this are complex, but what is most important is that the context in which the fight against hunger must be conducted has changed radically, offering new opportunities and presenting new difficulties. The strategy presented below offers a real opportunity to cut hunger in Africa in fifteen years.(2) What it takes is the will to do so. But "will" cannot mean lofty words or inspiring rhetoric. It must mean both Africa and its partners making some difficult policy choices. This will has to be translated into real resources and redesigned programs.
(7) THE CHANGING AFRICAN CONTEXT
(8) Politics and Governance
(9) With the ending of the Cold War, Africans began demanding and expecting more accountability from their governments. A second tide of political liberalization has resulted in a pronounced shift away from the authoritarian regimes and military coups of the post-Independence period to various forms of democracy. As measured by Freedom House, the number of "free" countries in Sub-Saharan Africa increased from two to eight between 1990 and 2000, the number of "partly free" countries increased from 15 to 24, while the number of "non-free" countries fell from 26 to 13. It is important to not underestimate or overestimate the impact of this peaceful revolution.
(10) There has been a profound change. Africans now expect democratic modes of behavior, and failure to live up to those modes has led to unrest. Military coups may be successful for a time, but the pressure to return to democratic processes is the norm rather than the exception. Regimes have been changed through the ballot box, and defeated governments have left office. Parliaments and legislatures are acquiring more independence and more authority. There is, in many countries, a free and vibrant press, which includes not only the print media but the broadcast media as well. Many countries are actively pushing political and administrative decentralization. Human rights abuses, in all but the most recalcitrant regimes, are declining.
(11) The new political space, together with erosion of state capabilities in the rural areas, has led to a dramatic increase in the number, strength and diversity of civil society organizations. Government-led and -managed cooperative societies have given way to new producer organizations which are independent and member-controlled. Increasingly these groups are not only replacing the government in input and output marketing but are raising their voices in the policy arena as well. One of the most important pieces of unfinished business that remains in Africa is the political transformation of the continent to a politics based on economic interests, and grass-roots farmer organizations are a critical part of that transformation. This is an area where the U.S. has had great experience and can be very helpful.
(12) There is, of course, another side. There remain a number of weak and failed states, beset by internal violence and external pressures. As of this writing, there remain serious conflicts in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda, and political unrest and violence in a number of other states. Even the more stable democracies are weak, with weak institutions of governance, significant levels of corruption, and ineffective service delivery systems. Politics in many of these countries is largely based on personalities and regional interests and not on economic interests. It continues to remain difficult for farmers or for the poor to organize themselves in such a way as to affect government policy, and, as we shall see, government policy continues to favor urban centers, the wealthy and the powerful.
(13) Nevertheless, the political context is much more favorable today for broad-based development than at any time in the last forty years. Most important is the fact that people now expect their governments to be transparent and responsive to their needs. They expect to have more control at local levels over the issues that are important to them. They expect honesty and despise corruption. They are no longer fooled by theories that blame their poverty on the outside world rather than their own governments.(3) Over time these expectations will lead to more accountability in governments. So, while effective, clean, committed, visionary government won't arise overnight, governments can be expected to become more effective, more honest, more committed and more visionary over the medium term.
(14) Economic Policy
(15) Over the past fifteen years most African states have dramatically reformed their economic policies. This is most evident in the macroeconomic arena, where government deficits have been reduced to sustainable levels, resulting in substantial reductions in inflation (from 13.6% in 1980 to 8.4% in 1997). The median fiscal deficit in SSA (for countries in which there are data for both years) decreased from 4.8% in 1980 to 2.2% in 1997. Equally important, exchange rate regimes have been liberalized and the price of foreign exchange now, in most countries, reflects its scarcity price.
(16) These two policies are critically important for poverty and hunger. Inflation is the cruelest tax on the poor, who have no way of investing their limited financial resources in assets that maintain their value in times of high inflation. Rather, they are forced to hold their assets in cash, the value of which rapidly depreciates. An overvalued exchange rate lowers the prices of tradable and semi-tradable goods such as food and agricultural exports, and thus reduces real incomes of rural producers. Studies have shown that these policies reduce the incomes of the poor(4).
(17) Agricultural policy in Africa has improved as well, although the record remains checkered and many important reforms are being eroded. (This will be discussed more fully below). Traditionally, African countries taxed farmers and subsidized urban consumers, while at the same time under-investing in rural areas. Elimination of government monopolies of agricultural marketing, coupled with real exchange rate devaluation, has meant increases in real prices for African farmers who produce for world markets (despite falling world prices). Thus, farmers in countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania and Mozambique have seen the prices of their export crops increase by as much as 50% since the beginning of the 90s. Policy reform in the food crop arena has been more uneven; many controls and marketing boards have been eliminated. But the record remains quite checkered.(5)
(18) Nevertheless, the economic policy environment, while still far from ideal, is now much more conducive to rural growth and poverty reduction than it ever has been. Markets are generally liberalized, agricultural taxation reduced, and opportunities for private investment more widespread. However, these changes have also raised some important issues:
(19) Government austerity has made it more difficult to increase investment in rural areas and in key areas of public activity essential to long-term growth, such as adaptive agricultural research;
(20) Financial institutions remain in disarray, with limited private-sector alternatives to the now defunct public sector agricultural banks;
(21) Most agricultural research and extension systems are underfunded and incapable of performing their missions;
(22) Government regulation of private investment remains widespread, and governance and political stability issues raise the risks for investors to levels that are often unacceptably high.
(23) Increasing Land Pressure
(24) Population in SSA is still doubling every 25 years, and, in many areas, farmers are moving into lands that are less productive and more fragile; in some countries soil fertility is declining appreciably.(6) For many years agricultural production in Africa has been increasing largely through the movement of populations into new lands. There are still many countries (Nigeria, Mozambique and Uganda, for example) where there remains a very large reservoir of high potential agricultural land; however, many other countries (Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, for example), have reached the extensive limit and are experiencing a reduction in the size of land holdings, increasing landlessness, and increasing soil degradation. For all these countries, the only solution is increased intensification and productivity.
(25) Urbanization
(26) The urban population of SSA has increased from 82 million in 1980 to 193.5 million in 1998, an annual increase of 4.9% per year.(7) Thus, the urban market for food has more than doubled, while the available rural labor force has increased by only 50%. Of course, the market for food is not only determined by the size of the population, but by its income, and with the resurgence of economic growth levels the demand for food, particularly high valued items such as meat and dairy products, will increase as well. Also there has been an increase in the demand for processed food as the opportunity cost of time of urban residents, particularly women, increases. This leads to increased income and employment opportunities in the food marketing and processing system, while at the same time creating new stresses in that system.
(27) HIV/AIDS
(28) There is no doubt that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has not yet crested in Africa. Current rates of HIV prevalence among the adult population range from 35.8% in Botswana to 1.7% in Senegal. Horror stories abound of the affect of AIDS on death rates, on orphans, on the undertaking business, and on the lives of women who, in many African countries, have very little power to avoid risky behavior with their partners. Current estimates are that the HIV/AIDS pandemic in high prevalence countries reduces the economic growth rate from one to two percentage points. While it is still difficult to predict with certainty the multifold impact of this pandemic on economic growth in general and agriculture in particular, the following seems likely:
(29) The number of AIDS deaths will continue to rise for the foreseeable future, and will reach such a level, in some countries, as to actually reverse population increases;
(30) AIDS deaths occur in economically active age groups and thus will increase what is already a high ratio of dependants to active workers in SSA;
(31) For poor households, illness and death from AIDS often results in reduced income for an entire family, and particularly for children who are orphaned;
(32) The economic costs of AIDS at the household level frequently results in fewer resources available for saving and investment;
(33) High levels of HIV incidence among educated people will reduce the stock of education, even as high levels of prevalence make training and education more costly; and
(34) In areas hit hardest by the pandemic, the labor force has fallen sharply and dependency ratios have skyrocketed, as grandparents try to care for large numbers of orphans. This shift in labor availability draws into question the suitability of the agricultural technologies developed for these areas, particularly those that are labor-intensive (such as many of those aimed at soil conservation and heavy reliance on organic fertilizers).
(35) It is uncertain what all this means taken together, except that HIV/AIDS will make the task of fighting hunger in Africa much more difficult than it is already.
1. 0 See Julie Howard et al, "African Perspectives on Progress and Challenges in Transforming Agriculture to Help Cut Hunger and Poverty" at: http://www.aec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/africanhunger/perspectives.pdf
African Development Bank, Agriculture and Rural Development Sector pPolicy, at: http://www.aec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/africanhunger/agripolicy.pdf
SPAAR Secretariat. 1999. SPAAR/FARA Vision of African Agricultural Research and Development,
at: http://www.aec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/africanhunger/visionafrica.pdf
The World Band in Partnership with various African Organizations. 2000. Can Africa Reclaim the Twenty-First Century? at: http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/AFR/afr.nsf/General/9D48D6DCE826CCD0852568F1006DBF2E?OpenDocument
2. 0 The World Food Summit goals call for a reduction in poverty by half by the year 2015; because of lack of progress since that goal was enunciated, it may now be unreachable; nevertheless a significant reduction in hunger by 2015 is still possible.
3. 0 However, Africans still raise concerns, some very legitimate, about the role of external forces in contributing to African poverty, such as high-income countries' trade policies (restricted market access to high-income countries and dumping of OECD agricultural surpluses), as well as the declining commitment in most OECD countries, not the least of which is the U.S., to official development assistance.
4. 0 See David Sahn et al., Structural Adjustment Reconsidered: Economic Policy and Poverty in Africa, Cambridge University Press, 1996; and Economic Reform and the Poor in Africa, Oxford University Press, 1996;
5. 0 See, for example, Jayne, T.S., Mulinge Mukumbu, Munhamo Chisvo, David Tschirley, Michael T. Weber, Ballard Zulu, Robert Johansson, Paula Santos, and David Soroko, 1999. "Successes and Challenges of Food Market Reform: Experiences from Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe," MSU International Development Working Paper 72, East Lansing: The Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University at: http://www.aec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/papers/idwp72.pdf
6. 0 See Clay, D. and T. Reardon. 1996. "Rwanda case study: Dynamic linkages among population, environment, and agriculture in the highlands of East Africa." In Clay, Reardon, and Shaikh, Population, Environment, and Development in Africa: Dynamic Linkages and their Implications for Future Research and Development Programming. East Lansing: Michigan State University. Pp. 39-91.
7. 0 In contrast, the rural population of Africa has been growing at only 2.2% per year.