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E-discussions: Policies,
Politics Governance and Accountability
There is widespread agreement that production failure in
Southern Africa is not the sole cause of the current food
security crisis. The climatic variability which preceded the
current crisis was less severe than the 1991-92 drought in
the region. Nevertheless, it appears to have caused more widespread
hardship. Why is this? While the current severe crisis would
probably not have occurred without repeated full or partial
rain failures and other climatic shocks, it also would not
have happened without policy and governance failures. The
current food security crisis has peeled the lid off the problem
and forced analysts to take a good look at the many and varied
contributory causes.
Some households that drew down on assets during the 1991-92
drought have had limited opportunity to reaccumulate, leaving
them intensely vulnerable to shocks. This has been coupled
with the deepening impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Households'
ability to produce for own consumption or generate entitlements
through other livelihood activities has been eroded. Traditional
safety nets have been stretched to, often, beyond breaking
point. Damage to vital parts of the public sector has intensified
as AIDS-related attrition continues. The removal of pan-territorial
pricing for food staples and the reduction of national grain
reserves has improved fiscal balances but had negative impacts
on the poor. The unpredictable involvement of the state in
input supply, production, storage, domestic and international
trade and price control has sent confused messages to producers
and private sector traders, muffling price signals to producers
and increasing risk. Poor control over inflation and over-control
of currency markets, coupled with often ineffective agricultural
sector policies and bad governance, have contributed to both
generating and intensifying the effects of food shortages.
This list of contributing factors raises questions about
the dominance of production failure in analysis of the causes
of the crisis. Among its effects is to play down the importance
of domestic politics, bad policies, and bad governance. Is
this in part because domestic elites in the crisis-affected
countries do not welcome a focus on its political or governance-related
causes? Domestic decision making, structured by neo-patrimonialism,
is geared towards the preservation and enrichment of the elite
through maintaining opportunities to benefit their interest
groups and provide vote banks. The poor and the food insecure
appear to be inadequately represented in decision-making circles
by both their elected representatives and other interlocutors.
On the other hand, domestic media and political debates focus
on specific instances of corruption and inter-personal wrangling
and are strangely silent on the food crisis. Limited linkage
is made between politics, poverty and food insecurity, de-politicising
debates, which then focus on technical issues of production
and marketing rather than redistribution and poverty reduction.
The focus on national rather than household food security
by politicians in the region supports this process. Policies
tend to be largely geared to ensuring regular supplies of
cheap food for urban constituencies.
Donors are joint architects of the current crisis, having
guided governments to institute macro and agricultural policies
which, for one reason or another, have failed to increase
household or national food security, reduce poverty, improve
trade policies or diversify agriculture or rural livelihoods.
There are different views on the degree to which recommended
policies were implemented and the degree to which they may
be said to have failed. But either way, should not the donors
be held accountable for their part in what has happened? If
so, how?
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