Fighting the food crisis as the famine time bomb ticks away

Date: 17/10/02

By David Cronin

Starvation and the AIDS virus are rife in southern Africa and both look set to worsen. Koos Richelle, head of the European Commission's directorate-general for development, outlines his department's priorities.

THE data could scarcely be more depressing.

More than 14 million people are at risk of starvation in southern Africa due to a mixture of drought and disastrous economic policies.

The total represents nearly 30 of the population in six states: Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The amount of available food in the continent has plummeted to its lowest levels since 1992, with the crisis predicted to reach its peak between December and March next.

The problems are compounded by the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa; an estimated 4.2 million children are being orphaned in these countries as their parents die from the disease.

Far away from the parched soil of Africa, Koos Richelle is trying to grapple with the food crisis. The Indonesian-born head of the European Commission's directorate-general for development works in a tranquil office on Brussels' Rue de Genève - complete with a panoramic view of the Belgian capital.

Yet he is eager to stress that the EU's executive is acutely aware of the catastrophe taking place several thousand miles away from the heart of Europe. He says the Commission is busily trying to get food to the hungry and prevent a 'time bomb' from exploding.

But figures published by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) suggest otherwise.

In mid-July the WFP appealed for over €510 million in food aid for the affected region. According to details released by the programme last week (7 October), the Commission has granted €9.6 million to so-called bridging operations in the six states but has not actually responded to the July appeal.

Oxfam, the non-governmental organisation, has previously excoriated the Commission for that reason. Richelle isn't fazed by the criticisms. 'We all have a role in life,' he says. 'The NGOs' role is to keep government institutions very sharp.'

More importantly, the Commission argues that the full extent of its contributions to the WFP aren't reflected in the statistics. 'Contracts signed by the Commission and which are now in the WFP's hand for signature have not been taken into account,' said a senior EU development official. 'Otherwise we would have come up with a new figure, which would be €72.5 million or 150,000 metric tonnes [of food].'

Overall, the WFP calculates that the international community has donated just 37 of the cash its appeal sought. The Commssion says it has provided 22.5 of the €510 million target, with EU member states giving 42.

Almost half of the WFP's €510 million target is being provided by the US. Yet there's a controversial flipside to Washington's apparent generosity. Most of the food which the Bush administration wants to donate comprises of genetically modified maize. Yet there is stiff resistance in Africa to importing GM goods. Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was heckled at last month's earth summit in Johannesburg when he dismissed concerns that the maize could be unsafe.

EU bodies have been more sympathetic to African concerns. MEPs recently voted that countries must have the right to prevent imports of GM foods. The deputies feel they have international law on their side - an accord known as the Cartagena Protocol requires exporters to ask importer countries for their blessing before sending GM goods to them.

Richelle, however, repudiates claims that the Union has pressured African states to stay GM-free.

'It's sometimes said we are behind this,' he says. 'That's not true. The EU has made a decision that every country is free to decide whether or not to accept all GM food. It's not the case that we in Europe ban all GM food; we act instead on a case- by-case basis. That's what countries in southern Africa should also do but we have not influenced them in any way.'

Richelle is reluctant to publicly berate Washington, viewing such a strategy as counterproductive.

But there's no doubt there are fundamental differences of approach to food aid on each side of the Atlantic.

The Americans grant their aid in kind, often using it to get rid of surpluses in farm output. The US international aid department USAID also tends to have its logo adorning bags of grain or maize delivered to the hungry in emergency operations.

By contrast, the Commission signs a cheque to the WFP and various aid agencies, leaving it to them to actually distribute the food. Its generosity may be less visible than America's, then, but there's an argument that pragmatism can save far more lives than ego. As one Brussels official recently put it, the Commission does not wish to be dragged into a donors' 'beauty contest'.

'We usually give assistance not in kind but in money,' says Richelle. 'We are very much in favour of local or regional procurement.' Another development aide said: 'We don't insist on having our sacks there, with our flags visible.'

The situation in Zimbabwe is especially desperate. Not long ago the country was regarded as the 'grain store' of Africa. Yet the land reform policies pursued by Robert Mugabe's government, which have involved driving white farmers from the land, have caused a sharp downturn in crop yields. Projections for the 2001-02 season indicate that cereal production could decline by almost 70 and maize production by 77, when compared to 1999-2000.

Richelle readily admits that the possibility of realising an effective hunger prevention scheme for Zimbabwe has been thwarted by the strained relationship between the tyrannical Mugabe and the West. EU foreign ministers have invoked a clause in the Cotonou agreement, which covers relations between the Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc, enabling it slap sanctions on regimes which abuse human rights.

As a result, the EU's official development aid for Zimbabwe has been suspended.

Emergency aid for the country is therefore being funnelled through NGOs, who liaise with the office representing the Commission in Harare. According to Richelle, that office hasn't been hampered in its everyday work but there have been reports of agencies being treated harshly by supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party. 'We face a lot of problems in not having dialogue with this country,' adds Richelle. 'The WFP estimates that Zimbabwe is one of the most affected countries this year. But we don't know if Zimbabwe really takes food security seriously.'

While some media stories have suggested that Zimbabwe's African neighbours have taken a softly softly approach towards Mugabe, Richelle believes they are exerting real pressure on the ageing leader to change his ways.

'The whole issue of peer pressure has come up very strongly in all the discussions about NEPAD [New Partnership for African Development],' he says.

Richelle's political master - Development Commissioner Poul Nielson - has repeatedly stressed that there needs to be 'greater coherence' between the EU's aid activities and those in other fields. This reflects the view that work which is designed to be pro-poor is being undermined by policies on trade, farming and fisheries that can be anti-poor.

One glaring example of the policy inconsistency was provided in a study, published last week by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), about an accord granting European fishermen access to Angolan waters.

Like many other African countries, Angola relies on fish as an important source of protein.

But WWF fears the new accord between the EU and Luanda would allow European vessels to severely deplete important fish stocks - and could, by extension, damage the security of the country's food supplies. While the deal would place a provisional limit of 5,000 tonnes on the amount of shrimp which may be netted, it does not specify catch thresholds for other varieties. As a result, it deems the agreement to be out of sync with sustainable practices.

The EU-Angola accord is one of 15 fisheries agreements the Union has with countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean.

'I would not be in favour of banning all fisheries agreements,' says Richelle. 'They are a source of income for the developing countries as well.

'But we should organise the thing in at least the same responsible way that we do with our own fishing areas. We must have scientific data about stocks. There is room for improvement on this and we must make sure what we do there is done in a sustainable way. The harsh fact is that you don't get coherence for free.'

He underscores how important it is to base the accords on scientific evaluations of the amount of fish which may be caught without putting a stock's long-term survival in jeopardy.

'We are always more powerful than the other partner,' he remarks. 'The fact is sometimes we know as little as they do.'

Yet he dismisses suggestions his counterparts in the Commission's fisheries directorate-general are too close to the European fishing sector and are turning a blind eye to the needs of poor countries. He consults regularly with those officials involved in talks on fisheries agreements. 'I'll be eating dead fish with DG Fish over lunch today,' he jokes.

Writing in European Voice last week, an assertion by seven EU farm ministers that the Common Agricultural Policy doesn't cause hunger in poor countries was described as 'self-serving nonsense' by Julian Filochowski of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).

A recent CAFOD paper strives to debunk the suggestion that the EU's ability to flood markets with cheaper food than that produced locally is beneficial to the countries' populations.

'More than half of the world's poorest people depend mainly on farming or farm labour for their livelihoods,' the paper says. 'So if the market for their produce is destroyed, they will have no income with which to buy imported food, and their overall food security will be damaged.'

Women and children are the primary victims of this vicious circle.

'Agriculture accounts for 62 of women's employment in developing countries,' says CAFOD. 'Women are generally in charge of buying food and feeding their families so reducing their income from agriculture is particularly harmful to family nutrition.'

Richelle concurs with much of this criticism. The rich world spends €360 billion on subsidising its farmers every year, he says - equivalent to 1.4 of income for industrialised countries' club, the Organisation for Economic Cooperational Development. 'If you can take away 10 of subsidies, you could double ODA (official development assistance),' he adds. 'We recognise that what we do right now is not good for developing countries; it works out badly.'

Yet he describes the CAP reform blueprint unveiled earlier this year by Franz Fischler, the agriculture commissioner, as a 'step in the right direction'. The Fischler plan aims to divert much of the subsidies currently allocated to production into environment protection and rural development schemes.

'He [Fischler] is courageous to come out with it, as you can see from the violent reactions he got,' says Richelle.

'I hope he will succeed [in having it implemented].'

On trade, Richelle tries to deflect the criticism which some poor countries have heaped on the remit for the new negotiations between the EU and ACP countries on prising open markets.

Samoa's Trade Minister Hans Joachim Keil, for example, has attacked EU demands for 'reciprocal market opening', contending that the ensuing reduction of tariffs will cause huge revenue losses for poor countries.

Richelle is adamant, though, that the EU is trying its utmost to help cushion the blow for the ACP.

'Our record is not so bad,' he adds. During the past five years, the EU has given €640 million to more than 100 trade-related schemes in the developing world. Among these have been a €45 million project to allow fish exporters to meet international health standards.

Although the growing threat of famine in southern Africa is the most pressing issue at the moment, Richelle is keen the Commission should see nutrition issues not just in terms of a fire brigade-type response to the latest emergency but as part of a long-term strategy.

Efforts to make EU fisheries, trade and agriculture policies more friendly towards the world's poor are essential in this respect.

'Food aid is sometimes necessary,' he explains. 'But it underlies the fact that policies on food security have failed. Sometimes the problems are the work of the Gods. If you have a drought, you cannot influence that. But sometimes you can address the problems on a multiannual level if you have good policies.'

Major feature. Starvation and the AIDS virus are rife in southern Africa and both look set to worsen. Koos Richelle, head of the European Commission's directorate-general for development, outlines his department's priorities. Article is part of a European Voice survey 'Feeding the World'.