The slow response of the international community to help relieve Africa’s food shortages could partly be ascribed to donor fatigue, SA Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Monday.
”Some donors are saying… this problem… is not brought about by ecological and climate changes but by political and economic governance,” he said in Pretoria.
”Clearly, there is an element of donor fatigue in the international community.”
Efforts to bring the extent of the food crisis to the attention of the world had probably also been inadequate. Briefing reporters on President Thabo Mbeki’s trip to Italy to attend the World Food Summit in Rome, Pahad said the latest reports estimated that more than 13-million people in Africa faced famine.
”The donors are not responding adequately to the call for assistance.”
Agencies in southern Africa were now consulting with the World Food Programme and other United Nations agencies in a concerted effort to relieve the crisis.
Making it easier for aid agencies to obtain customs and road toll waivers would also have to be discussed by the Southern African Development Community, Pahad said.
The countries most seriously affected were Zimbabwe (five million people), Malawi (3,2-million), Lesotho (444 000), Zambia (2,3-million), Mozambique (355 000), and Swaziland (144 000).
Pahad said only about seven percent of the overall need had been met so far. ”As bad as the situation is now, it is going to worsen in the second half of the year.”
In his address to the summit on Monday, Mbeki listed the causes of the famine threat in Africa as civil strife, conflict, migration, natural disasters, unfair trade practices and an unfavourable economic climate.
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) provided a framework for putting into effect the plan of action adopted at the first World Food Summit in 1996.
”Nepad identifies agriculture as a priority sector,” Mbeki said. It sought, among others, to improve rural agriculture, to extend reliable water control systems as well as areas under land management.
On the international picture, he said there had been some progress to achieve the targets laid down in the 1996 plan of action.
”The current situation is that we are reducing the number of hungry people by six million against a target of 22-million per annum.”
Mbeki lauded the organisers of the summit, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), for working in partnership with Nepad institutions.
”The premise of this partnership must be an unambiguous commitment to solving problems together in a spirit of joint responsibility among governments, and between them and the private sector and civil society.”
Pahad said the FAO conference in Rome would hopefully give special attention to the situation in Africa.
There was much talk about the liberalisation of world markets, but in reality there was increased measures of protection in developed countries.
”European countries have subsidies of close to $360-billion a year for their farmers, and the United States has just announced subsidies of $160-billion over the next few years for their farmers,” Pahad said.
”Now clearly …it is very difficult to see how our primary producers in Africa can compete.”
This issue would hopefully come up at the Rome summit, he said. – Sapa