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Famine
and the failure of development? Southern
Africa 2002
ODI
Special Meeting, Wednesday 10th
July 2002, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
The
speakers are experts in their field,
with particular knowledge of the issues
in Southern Africa. The audience was
drawn from the international humanitarian
and development community with special
interest in and understanding of the
region.
Stephen
Devereux, Institute for Development
Studies, spoke on the dimensions
of the current crisis with particular
reference to Malawi.
Ed
Clay, Overseas Development Institute,
and Louise Bohn, University
of East Anglia, spoke on the contribution
of climatic variability to the current
crisis (
24kb).
John
Seaman, Save the Children Fund
(UK), spoke on the functioning
of the humanitarian system.
Jonathan
Kydd, Imperial College at Wye,
spoke on the implications
for longer-term rural development
in the region.
Megan
Vaughan, University of Oxford,
presented the historical context of
the crisis, in particular comparing
the current situation with the 1949
famine in Malawi.
Graham
Stegmann, Department for International
Development, and Richard Dowden,
were discussants.
Simon
Maxwell, Director of ODI, chaired
the meeting.
The
wide-ranging discussion following
the presentations highlighted the
problems caused by failures in the
region's early warning systems; the
conflict between donors', governments'
and NGOs' objectives; the deteriorating
governance and accountability of key
institutions; the failures of agricultural
input and output markets post-liberalisation;
and the underlying vulnerability of
many households as a result of HIV/AIDS.
Further detail on these issues is
given in the topic-based summary below.
This summary cannot reflect the full
breadth and diversity of the discussion,
nor any consensus; rather it highlights
some of the main issues raised.
Key
questions were asked about the failure
to learn from the lessons of past
food security crises in the region
and elsewhere, in terms of establishing
effective early warning systems and
effective food reserve management.
The need to improve the governance
and accountability of all agencies
(government, IFIs, donors, UN institutions,
and private sector actors) was noted,
as was the role that effective civil
society organisations can play in
contributing to this. The absence
of a sound agricultural growth model
for the region was noted, and was
attributed to failures in agricultural
service delivery, the unreliability
of output markets and lack of economic
integration, which have not been addressed
by liberalisation. It was emphasised
that there is an urgent need to address
the mounting vulnerability of the
population in the region, who are
rapidly losing the ability to cope
in the face of HIV/AIDS and market
failures. This is likely to involve
a combination of effective safety
nets (for asset building as well as
immediate consumption) and market
interventions.
It
was questioned why so much relevant
research-based policy analysis exists
relating to all these issues but is
not being used to implement practical
changes. A number of participants
highlighted the value of continuing
the expert informed dialogue over
the coming months. ODI offered to
act as a liaison point for this; contact
Elizabeth Cromwell on e.cromwell@odi.org.uk.
1.
Rural poverty
Key
issues discussed:
livelihoods,
diversification, decentralisation
Recent
research evidence suggests that the
current situation in rural Malawi,
where three quarters of households
corresponded to the poorest households
in Tanzania and Uganda, is due to
an erosion of Malawi's assets over
the last 10 years. (The food shock
of 2001 is relatively small compared
to 1991.) For example, people have
been selling their assets to pay for
caring for and treating HIV/Aids victims.
Livestock are no longer used as a
buffer against bad times because security
at the village level, both personal
and commercial, has dramatically reduced
as a result of economic and political
liberalisation. There has also been
an erosion of common pool assets such
as woodland and wild resources. This
combination of factors means that
rural Malawi finds it difficult to
respond to shocks, more so than before.
It
has been found that those people better
off in rural areas in Malawi (and
other countries touched by the current
crisis) have off farm income sources/diverse
livelihoods. Generally livelihoods
are not built on rural economy alone,
nevertheless agriculture is an important
motor of rural economy. The rural
growth linkage model argues that in
poor rural economies agriculture is
the best, and sometimes only, engine
of growth, but it is difficult to
see how agriculture can grow in countries
like Malawi, given land constraints
and current technologies and ineffective
services, and it is not clear that
sufficient farm-non-farm linkages
exist. More research is needed.
Decentralisation
is being promoted throughout the region.
A side effect of this is that district
authorities are desperate to earn
tax revenue. There have been dramatic
increases in taxes, and these have
serious disincentive effects for local
trade and the growth of rural non-farm
enterprises.
2.
Liberalisation
Key
issues discussed:
Institutions
and food reserves
The
discussion first focussed on strategic
grain reserves. The successful operation
of conventional SGRs is hampered by
short-term considerations relating
to financing, and ideological concerns
regarding non-intervention. Either
these need to be resolved, allowing
a longer-term, more strategic management
perspective (e.g. planning over a
5-10 year horizon rather than 1-2
as at present), or SGRs operations
should be limited to distribution
of immediate food relief, not market
manipulation. The significance of
long-term fluctuations in food supplies
is well known but it appears that
it has been overlooked in the region
in recent years. For example, the
IMF work from a short-term financial
not a medium-term food security perspective
and gave the right advice re: the
Malawi SGR from the former perspective.
If
SGRs continue to be used for longer-term
strategic food stocks management,
then they need to be taken out of
individual governments' regular budgets
and not be expected to be self-financing.
And a regional perspective is needed.
SGRs
could take advantage of the more sophisticated
financing instruments available regionally
these days, e.g. via the SAFEX futures
market, including call options, which
allow rights to maize every year to
be secured. No longer simply a question
of buying and selling grain in real
time. Zambia has been recommended
to have a strategic reserve of dollars
instead of maize, although this has
yet to materialise.
Questions
of accountability were raised. There
is a major role for private players
in the regional grain market, but
SGR operations must be accountable
to and funded by public institutions.
The political nature of decisions
about stock sizes was recognised.
Should reserves be controlled by the
UN/donors?
Better
to split the issue into short and
long run considerations? For example
short run mechanisms to deal with
occasional problems that did not interfere
with longer run management. Would
this disempower national governments?
The issue is do we want to stop bouts
of famine, or look at food reserves
as part of a longer-term development
process?
The
point was made that market liberalisation
in general has undermined accountability.
But how to improve accountability?
A return to the state intervention
of the 1970s and 1980s? What is different
this time, that means increased state
intervention will improve governance
and accountability?
A
note on SGR management in Malawi in
2001-02: it was suggested that the
grain reported to be missing by the
media was in fact used in 2001 (the
first import of maize did not occur
until November 2001). There was no
secrecy: government budgets are published
and donors have to be informed. The
National Food Reserve Authority transferred
the maize to ADMARC, for people in
rural areas to buy as shortages were
already being felt.
3.
Early Warning
Key
issues discussed:
Data,
crop figures, micro/macro level data,
variables used as early warning signals,
performance tables and best practice.
Many
early warning systems do not produce
data that is useful for monitoring
food security:
-
Most
early warning systems look at
maize production or rainfall.
As a result there is not enough
reliable information on crops
other than maize, which can be
very important for food security.
-
Many
early warning systems, such as
FEWS-NET, focus on macro data
and do very little ground-truthing.
People are not getting out into
the villages. Based on available
macro data, Malawi is one of the
top 10 performing economies in
the developing world, but in terms
of livelihoods on the ground this
should be questioned.
-
Early
warning systems may not collect
information on food prices, so
difficult to monitor entitlement
(access) rather than food availability.
The SCF household food economy
approach has much to offer in
this context.
Also,
early warning systems often operate
far below professional best practice.
At present many governments in Southern
African do not have the capacity for
a well-functioning statistics system.
Liberalisation has led to contracts
for data collection and analysis being
put up on a 2/3 years basis, so there
is little institutional learning.
Such turnover is too high to help
Africa. It has been very difficult
to implement minimum standards for
best practice, despite the technical
information existing. Donors are as
much to blame as anyone.
In
addition, there are conflicts of interest.
In one case, funding for the early
warning system came from a donor also
promoting increased production of
food security crops. The early warning
system data showed an increase in
production of these crops that had
not happened on the ground, resulting
in fundamental misinterpretation of
the current food security situation.
NGOs
often have micro level data that is
relevant. But because it is small-scale
and "soft" data, it is not
believed by decision makers. Joint
missions comprised of all stakeholders
may improve ownership and result in
appropriate action.
Early
warning systems are better developed
and maintained in countries with regular
food security problems, e.g. Ethiopia.
4.
Safety nets and social protection
Key
issues discussed:
Attention
to safety nets, types of safety nets,
government intervention and land ownership
Intervention
at which stage in the marketing chain?
The objective should be to make farming
profitable and enable the necessary
transactions (input procurement, output
sales).
In
this context, safety nets should not
just focus on Aids orphans (which
is most prevalent today) but also
on access to inputs, and dealing with
climatic variability.
A
range of safety net options were discussed:
-
Food
subsidies. ADMARC's use of cross-subsidies
in Malawi in the 1970s ensured
adequate food production but rates
of child malnutrition indicated
it did not solve problems of access.
But at what level between import
or export parity? There is a large
literature on different countries
experience, e.g. Indonesia. Price
stability rather than price levels
is the key. In the absence of
reliable food markets, there exists
tension between setting prices
high enough for farmers to invest
and low enough so that farmers
don't believe they will starve
if they don't grow maize - price
setting must be made from both
these points of view.
-
Fair
price shops. In the past, they
only worked where there are the
resources to control them - otherwise
they become a mechanism for targeting
a limited number of (usually privileged)
people. How will it be done differently
if done again? Like school feeding?
The 1994 famine in Bangladesh
proved fair price shops do not
work.
-
Access
to inputs needs to be restored
but not by going back to the old
institutions. Starter packs of
seed and fertiliser have been
tried in Malawi and in two years
of good rains are estimated to
have increased maize production
by 25%. May be more cost-effective
than fertiliser subsidies, especially
in countries with porous borders,
or than importing food, but what
are the longer-term sustainability
issues? Impact on private sector
input suppliers; relevance to
all farmers. Is fertiliser-for-work
a better option?
-
Technology.
There may be potential for improving
food security through technological
changes, for example the proposal
by the CG Centres Future Harvest
programme to promote a "wide
food band" of a range of
drought-tolerant crops (e.g. cassava)
and fertility-enhancing crops
(e.g. legumes).
-
Different
types of safety net are needed
for different farmers. For example,
due to land pressure and other
resource constraints, farmers
in Southern Malawi have very little
potential for increasing yields
in response to any agriculturally-based
incentive. Interventions to support
off-farm activity may be more
appropriate, especially as most
of these farmers are net purchasers
of grain. Existing safety nets
fail to take this into account.
-
Off-farm
options. In one pilot project
in Malawi, farmers were offered
vouchers redeemable against cash
purchases or a starter pack -
all bar one made purchases rather
than taking starter packs. A majority
of these bought soap, which deteriorates
very little over time and can
be used flexibly, either to sell
for cash or for domestic use.
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