What do you do when you’re the President of the most powerful nation on earth and your poll numbers hit 19%? Road trip! You run off to Africa; a continent long neglected and suffering with poverty and AIDs and act like the great white Santa Claus delivering good cheer and fat checks. In an effort to create a legacy and build some good will, it seems the Bushies decided that the best way to build large enthusiastic crowds would be to go to the place with the greatest need. Mr. Bush would have made a greater impact if he had went to some inner-city neighborhoods handing out all of that aid money. It is not that Africa is not worthy or in desperate need of the aid, but it seems odd that the same President that resisted taking action in the Darfur region of Sudan is now interested in Africa?
In a shameful display of irresponsibility, the leaders of key organizations—the U.N., NATO, the EU, and the AU—as well as of major countries like the U.S., France, and Britain have all remarked upon the horrors that have befallen Darfur, but then done nothing to stop the killing. The time for action is now.
If President Bush is serious about ending the genocide, he will have to do more than acquiesce in a role for the ICC. He will have to call these key leaders to Washington, lock them in a room, and not let them out until they have decided on a course of action. Only then will the ICC referral have real meaning.[1]
So the same President who watched the AIDs epidemic sweep across Africa, ruthless dictators murder their own citizens, and genocide now wants to tour Africa like some liberating hero. This liberator who has laid the ground work for a new strategic initiative that could put permanent US bases in Africa to counter Chinese influence and protect our “interests”. Hum, must be some valuable raw materials in need of protection from their native populations. I guess since his legislative agenda is laying around smoldering somewhere maybe it is time to do some of the things he was too busy to do earlier in his Presidency, like try being a statesman and not a war mongering chicken-hawk. Mr. Bush has given a new meaning to the word lame-duck. Whatever happen to all that political capital from 1984?
I can hardly wait to see how the McCain campaign is planning to use a President with a 19% approval rating. Maybe they can have him campaign in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia where I think he still enjoys a high approval rating. I am sure there are small areas in the US where the President enjoys some approval. My guess is that they will need him to shore up McCain’s cred with the social conservatives, he has already gotten a big boost from the recent furor over the NY Times story. However he will need George W. for the general election, despite his low ratings Bush still enjoys surprising support among the social wing of the Party. Will he be able to transfer that support to McCain still remains to be seen.
Unfortunately for W. it is going to take a lot more than a tour of Africa handing out aid checks to rehabilitate his legacy in the world. There have been times in his Presidency when he has been viewed by the world as second only to bin Laden himself as the most dangerous man on earth. Not the list you want the so-called leader of the free world to be on, but when you promote war and wanton destruction what can you expect. Will this trip help the world to forget Iraq? I doubt it, if anything the talk of the Africom project will only go to heighten suspicions.
George Bush is trying to end his Presidency the way it began with his infamous “compassionate conservatism”. There is only one small problem the seven and a half years in between have provided us with a war with no end in sight, a weaker Constitution, and a major recession. No amount of deodorant can get rid of the stench that will be the Bush legacy. The problem with these efforts on the part of the President is that they are seven years too late, maybe if he had been more interested in fighting poverty and disease in the world more than spreading violence he wouldn’t have needed to try to buy a piece of history.
COTONOU, Benin -- President Bush began a five-country journey through Africa on Saturday saying that U.S. aid to the continent comes with "great compassion."
On his trip, Bush is trying to show that the United States has a moral imperative as well as economic, political and national security interests in fighting poverty, disease and corruption across the continent.[2]
[1] http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2005/0405africa_daalder.aspx
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021501271.html
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The African Farewell Tour
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Finally, a President from the impoverished continent of Africa had the courage and the good sense to disregard the advice of the World Bank, which has an atrocious record for helping poor nations end their hunger and economic problems. In an unprecedented move, Bingu Wa Mutharika recently elected President of Malawi decide to go against the dire predictions of the World Bank and other rich agriculture countries and start subsidizing his country’s farmers for fertilizer and seed. I have been quite vocal for years against the policies of the World Bank and other agencies run by the industrialized nations for being unrealistic and in many instances detrimental to the economies and especially the agriculture of the states they are suppose to be helping.
LILONGWE, Malawi — Malawi hovered for years at the brink of famine. After a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, almost five million of its 13 million people needed emergency food aid.
But this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe.
Farmers explain Malawi’s extraordinary turnaround — one with broad implications for hunger-fighting methods across Africa — with one word: fertilizer.
Over the past 20 years, the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi depends on for aid have periodically pressed this small, landlocked country to adhere to free market policies and cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, even as the United States and Europe extensively subsidized their own farmers. But after the 2005 harvest, the worst in a decade, Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president, decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached.[1]
It has long been my contention and now being proven that these policies are designed to keep the impoverished, poor and dependent on the large food subsidies being supplied by these nations. By keeping these poor nations reliant on the agricultural subsidies of the richer nations, it allows these richer nations to continue to subsidize their own agricultural industries. The very thing they tell the poorer nations is wrong and will lead to ruin. Apparently it will only lead to ruin for the poorer nations because the rich nations don’t seem to be having any trouble feeding their people. It works so well they are even able to send out millions of metric tons of excess to the poorer nations.
In what has turned into a viscous cycle of greed the rich nations led by the US, subsidizes its agriculture industries and then sells the excess to aid organizations who gives it to the poorer nations. On the surface this appears to be a good thing, they are after all helping to fight hunger. In the short run it is true, but in the long term growth of a nation it is not good. Instead of supporting the development of the poorer nations own agriculture industries it floods the market with cheap food, depressing their already suffering markets. Because they are not developing their own markets, they are dependent on the donor nation’s good will to feed their people.
There are two problems with this scenario in my opinion. The first is that it allows the donor nations to exercise too much control over the poorer nations, their politics, and their economies. So long as the poorer nations support the policies of the donor nations, everything is cool. However, should the poorer nations decide to exercise their own sovereignty, there could be issues with the donations. The donor nations are able to keep the poorer nations in line through dependency on food subsidies. Should the people elect a leader that is not supportive of the donor countries policies, the aid could and sometimes does evaporate. This was the basis for much of the Cold War strategy.
The second problem with this scenario is that it is short-sighted and smacks of racism. It keeps the poorer nations in a state of begging. This constant state of poverty and begging reduces their national pride and personal growth. Because many of the poorer nations today are brown or black, it prevents these dark skinned people from playing a role on the international stage. This keeps their issues and concerns from coming to the forefront in international circles. The strategy appears to be, “keep them barefoot and hungry”. When your belly is empty, you don’t have time for international concerns. As a result most global policies are being created by and for the rich nations, with little concern for their effects on the poorer nations.
Recent increases [in foreign aid] do not tell the whole truth about rich countries’ generosity, or the lack of it. Measured as a proportion of gross national income (GNI), aid lags far behind the 0.7 percent target the United Nations set 35 years ago. Moreover, development assistance is often of dubious quality. In many cases,
Aid is primarily designed to serve the strategic and economic interests of the donor countries;
Or [aid is primarily designed] to benefit powerful domestic interest groups;
Aid systems based on the interests of donors instead of the needs of recipients’ make development assistance inefficient;
Too little aid reaches countries that most desperately need it; and,
All too often, aid is wasted on overpriced goods and services from donor countries.[2]
Not only has Malawi demonstrated the ability to feed itself using the subsidies, they were able to provide excess to other countries just like the donor countries. So what are we to make of this news? That too often impoverished nations are kept impoverished for economic and political reasons. It is time that the IMF and the WB provide policies that actually aid the impoverished and not the rich nations. Policies that allow the poor nations to provide for their citizens and build for their futures are what is needed. We can no longer continue to subsidize our industries on the backs and the bellies of the hungry and the poor.
It is time for the US and other rich nations to stop being obstacles to the development of these poorer nations for the sake of their own political and economic ends. It is time to support real reforms to how we provide aid and food to developing countries. These nations deserve our help in creating their own markets and development, not our being an impediment to their futures. If we don’t change how we support others, eventually there won’t be enough food for everyone and then what.
Malawi’s determination to heavily subsidize fertilizer and the payoff in increased production are beginning to change the attitudes of donors, say economists who have studied Malawi’s experience.
The Department for International Development in Britain contributed $8 million to the subsidy program last year. Bernabé Sánchez, an economist with the agency in Malawi, estimated the extra corn produced because of the $74 million subsidy was worth $120 million to $140 million.
“It was really a good economic investment,” he said.
The United States, which has shipped $147 million worth of American food to Malawi as emergency relief since 2002, but only $53 million to help Malawi grow its own food, has not provided any financial support for the subsidy program, except for helping pay for the evaluation of it. Over the years, the United States Agency for International Development has focused on promoting the role of the private sector in delivering fertilizer and seed, and saw subsidies as undermining that effort.[3]
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/africa/02malawi.html?em&ex=1196830800&en=8767515f8a8ac086&ei=5087%0A
[2] Pekka Hirvonen, Stingy Samaritans; Why Recent Increases in Development Aid Fail to Help the Poor, Global Policy Forum, August 2005
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/africa/02malawi.html?em&ex=1196830800&en=8767515f8a8ac086&ei=5087%0A
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Africa In The Raw
Africa is a continent known for its vast natural beauty and resources, but also for its abject poverty. For many African countries the journey from colony to full-fledge nation has been a perilous one. Because of its vast size and diversity of cultures, Africa to many is an enigma. How can a continent with so much natural resources and raw materials continue to suffer from crushing poverty and hunger? Africa has suffered and continues to suffer from the same problem that doomed the Native Americans, there is too much tribalism. By the time the Native Americans became a cohesive force the battle was already lost. Africa suffers from a lack of unity.
This is not to say that external forces have not wrecked havoc on Africa. The colonialism of the West has had devastating effects on the African psyche. It has bred a culture of distrust and animosity between those who share a common history and a common future. A future that could be bright for all of its people, if there were more unity. Africa not only needs unity between nations, but just as importantly unity within nations. There are too many civil wars involving tribalism, sects and clans. As long as there is division there can be no progress. A house divided cannot stand. It is time for unity in Africa. Some sort of loose confederation of states united in purpose, with the goal of reducing poverty and increasing opportunity for all Africans.
For Africa to overcome its many problems the West must begin to shift from the current attitude of assistance to one that will allow Africa to begin to compete on a global scale. Currently, the West is providing Africa with its own subsidized agricultural products flooding the local markets with cheap products and driving down prices for local farmers. While keeping the local markets depressed they in turn refuse to allow the African access to their markets, thus perpetuating a cycle of poverty. We must begin to rethink how we provide aid and how we promote prosperity in Africa. By supplying Africa with these surplus products we are not allowing the local people or the countries from developing their own markets or exporting to international markets.
If the world is truly serious about helping Africa develop, then some tough choices have to be made in how they do business. We need to begin to move from just sustaining populations to the process of developing populations. We ship over all this aid, but how are we helping to develop their futures. Are we only postponing the inevitable and actually adding more misery to the people we claim to be trying to help. If the land cannot sustain the people that are there now, why are we creating more people to live on the land? If a land is uninhabitable shipping food in will not solve that problem. It may be a good short-term solution and look good on those charity infomercials, but it is not providing these people with the long-term solutions they need.
The industrialized nations have to stop trying to solve the hunger problem by dumping its subsidized products on the Africans. While this provides a short-term solution and allows them to claim they are helping to fight global hunger, but the reality is they are perpetuating more hunger in the future. These nations must begin to take a more long-term view of developing Africa and the leaders of Africa must begin to create the environment for growth and development. This has to begin with an end to tribalism, tribalism is what allows the rest of the world to camouflage their racism and to continue to treat Africa as a third-class world citizen. Freedom for all African citizens must become a reality for true development to take place.
We must begin to throw off the last vestiges of colonialism, which is being played out in African versus African violence. Ethnic cleansing and tribal devotion has to give way to national and continental development and freedom. Africa has the resources to surpass India or China’s economic development, the question is do they have the will and the leadership. They need for the leadership to unite Africa for the benefit of all Africans, as well as the pride and development of the Africans living abroad. We Africans that were taken into bondage all over the world and those who have chosen to live abroad can never have complete equality and freedom until Africa once again takes it rightful place in the world. As long as Africa remains weak and divided, we will continue to be treated as less than by the rest of the world. Africa must once again regain its educational and economic leadership position in the world for the benefit of all Africans.
It is time to invest not only money in Africa, but talent and knowledge. The current trend appears to be to export the raw materials and manufacture the goods someplace else, but until goods are manufactured in Africa, by Africans the cycle of poverty will never be broken. The development of Africa can only occur when Africans gathering the raw materials begin manufacturing finished products, and exporting those products. The cycle of industrialized development must follow this process. Africa must be given the tools and the capital to develop its markets both in agricultural and manufacturing, without the development of those two key areas we will not have enough surplus food to sustain them.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Teach A Man To Fish
MALELA, Kenya — CARE, one of the world’s biggest charities, is walking away from some $45 million a year in federal financing, saying American food aid is not only plagued with inefficiencies, but also may hurt some of the very poor people it aims to help.
CARE’s decision is focused on the practice of selling tons of often heavily subsidized American farm products in African countries that in some cases, it says, compete with the crops of struggling local farmers.[1]
There is a saying that goes, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” When I read this story I was reminded of this saying, because the saying is not contrasting a good and an evil. The saying is contrasting two goods and the better of those two options. I have always been conflicted by our efforts to feed the starving in foreign countries, not because I don’t believe in feeding starving people or in helping those less fortunate. I, like many of you am just heart broken when I see those images of starving children in those commercials and infomercials.
My reticence comes from a different place altogether, it is based in the science of human reproduction actually. Here is the scenario, the reason most people in these places are starving is because the eco-systems are failing. Usually it is a drought or some other natural phenomenon that has caused the agriculture of these places to not be able to provide food for their populations. The land cannot sustain the people living there. Let’s look at population growth in relation to hunger or the lack of. The more people eat, the more they repopulate, the more they repopulate, the more people there are to feed. So rather than alleviating the problem, using the current methods we are actually creating more people that are going to starve. If the land cannot sustain the number of people that are there now, how will it sustain more people?
The way a lot of these feed the hungry programs work is that we take all of our surplus, subsidized products and give them to the aid organizations in lieu of donations, the aid organizations then sells them on the open market in the starving countries and use the money to fund their programs. Sounds like a win/win situation on the surface. The aid organizations get to feed the hungry and make money to continue their work. The hungry people get to purchase food at a greatly reduced price.
With these programs what we are doing is dumping our surplus agribusiness products onto their local economies further crippling their already fragile agribusiness. The local farmers cannot compete with the sheer enormity of our dumping in the market place. The good news is that the people get food; the bad news is that their agribusiness never gets to flourish and so their economies continue to falter and their agribusiness continues not to be able to sustain the people. It is a catch 22 for the local people.
The Christian charity World Vision and 14 other groups, which call themselves the Alliance for Food Aid, say that CARE is mistaken; they say the system works because it keeps hard currency in poor countries, can help prevent food price spikes in those countries and does not hurt their farmers. Not least, they argue, it also pays for their antipoverty programs.
But some people active in trying to help Africa’s farmers are critical of the practice. Former President Jimmy Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center uses private money to help African farmers be more productive, said in an interview that it was a flawed system that had survived partly because the charities that received money from it defended it.
Agribusiness and shipping interest groups have tremendous political influence, but charitable groups are influential, too, Mr. Carter said, because “they speak from the standpoint of angels.”[2]
Feeding the hungry is a noble thing and a charge from God, so I completely support it in theory. The problem is when the practice will actually cause more suffering in the long run than it alleviates. It seems that instead of helping to make these local people self-sustaining the goal of the aid agencies to keep themselves self-sustaining. I believe that this practice must be discontinued for the sake of those countries long term futures. Is it our goal to keep these countries in the aid/welfare mindset or is it to help them one day to become productive and self-sustaining? The long term interest of these people has to supersede any short term aid solution, no matter how benevolent it may appear. If these people are ever to realize their destiny as free and independent people fully accepting their place in world, they must be allowed to develop their own economies and food sources. A country that can’t feed itself cannot be independent.
CARE’s idea is that a profitable business is more likely than a charitable venture to survive when foreign aid runs out.
“What’s happened to humanitarian organizations over the years is that a lot of us have become contractors on behalf of the government,” said Mr. Odo of CARE. “That’s sad but true. It compromised our ability to speak up when things went wrong.”[3]
So when you are watching those commercials or are getting out the checkbook to donate to these feed the hungry campaigns think about what it is you really want to support. We must make our feelings heard through our donations and elected officials. Let’s help, but let’s help them to become healthy and independent. So, instead of giving them our surplus fish, let’s give them our know how and support to learn to fish on their own. This would be a project well worth our support and dollars.
Read more!Sunday, August 12, 2007
The Tragedy of Zimbabwe
I really hate to have to write this story, it tears at my heart. I have to admit that I have always wanted to believe that good will always triumph over evil and Blacks if given the chance will serve their people. The reason this story is so hard for me is because I am old enough to remember when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, a minority white control state in Africa. Rhodesia was just as much a part of the apartheid system as South Africa, until it gained its independence in 1980.
When Zimbabwe became independent no one was more proud than I, I had great expectations for Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo to create a new nation of unity and prosperity. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, as the following figures show Zimbabwe is on a course of self destruction and it is being led by Mr. Mugabe. Mr. Mugabe has since the beginning of independence has had the full run of the country and the government, so the situation in Zimbabwe is his responsibility. It seems that many do not realize that governance is more difficult than independence. With independence there is one goal, but with governing there are many different goals and all require simultaneous attention.
Food supply and food access are worse now than in 1992, according to a report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Yet, unlike 1992, reservoirs are full of water and there is plenty of grazing for cattle. Why are things worse? Ten years ago, a drought induced by the El Nino weather phenomenon caused the crisis.
"It was strictly a natural disaster," says Judith Lewis, regional director for the World Food Programme (WFP).
Today, a combination of bad governance, economic crisis, widespread poverty and the spread of HIV/AIDS add man-made elements to a natural disaster.
Early warning leading to action can stop a shortage from turning into a famine. In spite of many forecasts of looming crisis, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made denied it until the presidential elections were over in March.
"This food shortage is the accumulation of three years of economic mismanagement," Zimbabwean economist John Robertson told AlertNet by telephone from Harare.
One-third of jobs have been lost since 2000, says Finance Minister Simba Makoni. People's coping mechanisms are stretched to the limit. These include going to live with relatives, taking children out of school and sending them to work -- for example panning for gold or begging -- eating one meal a day instead of two, having more than one job, looking for food in the bush because you there is none to buy.
In the past decade, HIV/AIDS rates have soared to nearly 34 percent, or one in three adults, according to the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).[1]
Zimbabwe has deteriorated into another African nation led by a repressive regime bent on destroying the country in the name of saving it. There is always difficulty going from a minority ruled country to a majority ruled one. You have issues of wealthy redistribution, land reform, and health and educational opportunities that must be dealt with. In order to keep from derailing the economy these issues must be dealt with in a very delicate way. It has to be a gradual process incorporating the pressing needs of the long neglected masses with the economic stability of the past regime. President Mugabe has not been able to negotiate these dangerous waters. He has used repression, violence, and intimidation to keep his grip on power and the people of Zimbabwe have suffered considerably for it.
It is time to open up the political process and allow others to help shape the future of Zimbabwe. It is time for President Mugabe to resign. As with all despots though he will not and his people will continue to suffer. Zimbabwe had the potential to be a shining jewel in Africa, an opportunity to show that Black Africans could govern and prosper. Today this is just a dream that has passed, as it has with so many African nations.
I feel and pray for the people of Zimbabwe and for all African people who are living under oppression. It is sad that oppression today has a new face and it is not white, it is black. One day I hope that we can free Africa from the new oppressors, a day where all Africans can rise up as one with freedom and pride, no longer living in fear. I pray for a united Africa where all African people stand together against internal and external oppression, where unity replaces tribalism. The Africa that Bob Marley use to sing about, the Africa that Nelson Mandela speaks about, the Africa I have always dreamed about.
I have a dream of Africa
Where men are great, proud and dignified
An Africa of Cleopatra, Sheba, Nzinga and Nyamazana
An Africa without genocide, starvation, or disease
An Africa, without dictators!
A free Africa
Lungelo Mbatha
[1] http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/d2fc8ae9db883867852567cb0083a028/bc9a79935b9b94bbc1256c08002fc6cb?OpenDocument
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