FULL-FLEDGED FAMINE
It was pointless to wait until pending famine in Niger turned into a humanitarian catastrophe.
Houston Chronicle
Large-scale starvation was well under way in Niger even as members of the Group of 8 wealthiest countries met in Gleneagles, Scotland, last month to consider lofty new initiatives to eradicate African poverty. While policy-makers were debating furiously where to place blame for the continent’s misery, whether aid should be pegged to anticorruption reforms and what combination of debt relief and direct aid would have the most impact, their governments were all but ignoring desperate pleas to help Niger.
Finally, television images of the dying triggered a global response. There must be a better way.
Officials of nongovernmental food organizations urge the United Nations to create a $1 billion fund that could be quickly tapped to head off disasters. It’s a proposal that deserves urgent consideration at U.N. member states’ Sept. 14 meeting in New York to discuss U.N. reforms.
Stepping in sooner saves lives and money. According to the United Nations, the food crisis could have been solved early on at a cost of $1 per person. Now, $80 per person is required to treat the hordes weakened by malnutrition. The same should not be allowed to happen in Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, where residents also are experiencing food shortages.
How Food Aid Hurts the Hungry
via Grassroots International:
A new report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy shows how the U.S. food system benefits agribusiness, shipping companies and private voluntary organizations while either ignoring or exacerbating the long term causes of food insecurity.
You can read their press release and the full report at:
Grassroots International’s report “Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy: USAID Policies in Haiti” was published a few years ago but it’s sadly still an excellent case study of the damage that the food aid system has done and continues to do to food security and food sovereignty.
Click here to read Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy.
U.S. Food Aid Needs Major Reform, New Report
Current System Not Addressing Long-term Causes of Hunger
U.S. food aid programs are a hot topic at the World Trade Organization (WTO), where other countries criticize the two practices that are largely unique to the U.S. First, the monetization of food aid generates development dollars for PVOs at enormous expense and often to the detriment of local producers and traders in developing countries. Second, taxpayer-funded export credits facilitate food dumping: overseas sales of program food aid for less than the costs of production. A European Union proposal at the WTO would require that all food aid be cash-based and untied from requirements to source commodities in the donor country. Food aid is expected to be a point of contention at the next WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong in December.
U.S. food aid also suffers from administrative confusion, according to the report. Two departments – USAID and the U.S. Department of Agriculture – oversee six separate programs. The U.S. is the world’s largest food aid donor, funding 57 percent of global food aid deliveries in 2004. Yet, the U.S. is the only food aid donor, aside from South Korea, that sells part of its food aid. All other countries donate all their contributions. And, the U.S. provides less food aid when food prices are high and aid is most needed.
The report concludes, “in the name of the poor overseas, very large sums of money are now paid to prop up U.S. shipping firms and to buy food at higher than market prices from U.S. based food processors and other agribusinesses.” The report found that most food aid is self-interested and politicized, rather than focused on the needs of the hungry.
While the world has seen increases in food production, food dependency in many developing countries has grown. Food production per in Africa is 10 percent less than it was in 1960. Sub-Saharan Africa now receives half of total food aid contributions. More than 200 million people in Africa are undernourished and of those, about 40 million in any one year face acute hunger. Countries in parts of Latin America and much of sub-Saharan Africa that once fed themselves and exported food are now net food importers.
“African farmers are capable of producing a lot more food for their communities and nearby regions. But policies of the U.S., the WTO, and the World Bank promote the use of African land and resources for export crops instead, and many African governments neglect agriculture for domestic food needs. This must change, or hunger will increase,” Dr. McAfee explains.
Bush’s U.N. Agenda Is Well Under Way
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Aides to Mr. Bush have outlined six major objectives for what is called reform, and the administration has won support for all of them from Secretary General Kofi Annan and from other countries.
The first, administrative streamlining in Mr. Annan’s office, to avoid a repetition of the corruption and mismanagement in the oil-for-food program, is being overseen by a newly appointed under secretary general for management, Christopher B. Burnham, an American, who previously oversaw budget, administration and security at the State Department.
A second objective, elimination of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, where countries like Libya, Sudan and Cuba have sat and made judgments on other nations’ records, is likely to be achieved in September, though the process of replacing it with another body could take a year, according to United Nations officials.
A third goal, setting up a United Nations Democracy Fund, has generated broad support.
Two other goals are in the offing, including adoption of a new treaty opposing terrorism within countries as well as between them, and establishing a “peace-building commission.”
Finally, the United States is close to achieving a broad statement at the United Nations laying out policies toward alleviation of poverty in developing countries. In recent days, several United Nations officials and diplomats said they did not think the fact that Mr. Bolton would be getting a recess appointment, and therefore serving a short term, would by itself undercut his effectiveness.
Exorcise dissent and push forward economic “reforms” that foster a master/slave relationship. Eliot Cohen on C-Span’s Q&A this weekend offered several criticisms of the administration’s execution of the Iraq war but praised Bush’s “spine” and steadfastness in plowing ahead. George and his crew remind me of those people who face-off at county fair eating contests shovelling one thing after another into their mouths until they vomit.
Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, was on Washington Journal this morning taking questions about the update his agency has issued. He made it very clear that the United States does not intend to “rebuild” Iraq. Of course not. Iraqis will be forced to take out loans to do that and be indentured to the United States for decades as a result.
A caller commenting on Bolton’s recess appointment summarised this attitude perfectly. He said the United States should continue taking its adversaries by the throat and forcing them into compliance. At least he was honest.