ONE Blog
“I am a farmer by accident but I am loving it” – meet the new generation of African farmers
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Our guest blogger today is Vincent Rapeta, a young farmer from South Africa. He is speaking at the African Union Youth Forum in Addis Ababa this week as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations.  Vincent with a crop of tomatoes from his farm. Photo: ONE I’m Vincent and I come from Limpopo Province in South Africa. I’m 28 and a farmer. I grow maize, butternut squash, watermelon, tomato, beetroot and cabbages. I am a farmer by accident but I’m loving it. I was raised by a single parent and we were very poor when I was growing up. I think that my mother earned R5000 a year. In today’s US dollars, that is just over $500. I had dreams of becoming an auditor and fighting corruption but we didn’t have money to send me to university. But I did have an opportunity. I was helping my mother while I was in school on our small plot of two hectares. And after I was done with school, I started helping her full time- that’s how I became a farmer. Our produce started being noticed for its quality and in 2006, the local Department of Agriculture selected me to attend an agriculture training programme where I learned about soil quality, when to plant certain crops and also special knowledge about growing tomatoes, which are higher value crops. I eventually got my own plot and started expanding the amount of produce we could grow, and began to employ some local people to help me manage my plots and harvests. In 2010, I went to school again to learn about the business side of farming and best management practices. I learned about finances, communications, labour and best standards for my produce. In 2011, I won the Best Farmer award in Molemole Municipality. I was so excited. Last year I decided to expand my operation and was able to obtain 20 hectares from the traditional council in my area and another 20 from the municipality. I am now trying to get those plots of land suitable for farming as they are still covered in bush. I’ve had to spend my savings to clear the land and drill boreholes for irrigation, but hope to be up and running by the end of this year.  A field of tomatoes on Vincent’s farm in Limpopo, South Africa. Photo: ONE Farming is hard work. It is very challenging, but so rewarding. I think there are three main challenges for young farmers like me. First, we need access to land and financial services. I have been very lucky – an elderly neighbour allowed me to farm her plot and I also had my mother’s plot to start from. Not all of my fellow young South Africans without work have been so fortunate. South Africa is redistributing its land but it often goes to people who don’t make a living from it. A doctor will get a few hectares where I live, but then wake up and go to his job. Banks require security and collateral for loans. Hail can ruin one season’s harvest. I’ve saved and have been able to use this to expand, but we need insurance and loans to help us move forward. When we take the risk, we need government to meet us half way in managing these costs. Second, we need to challenge the perception that informal sector farmers like myself provide poor quality produce. I was once told by a buyer for a big market that he wouldn’t buy tomatoes from black farmers. And this was a black man telling me this. He would buy spinach and butternut but not tomatoes. So we must try to promote the real quality of food that informal farmers produce. And finally, we need access to fair markets. As we plan our crop we need to be sure that it will not go to waste. In Limpopo I am lucky that the food bank buys my tomatoes and my income is assured, other youth farmers in the rest of the country don’t have the same opportunities. We need policies that support the development of crop markets so that farmers can increase their harvest, earn more income and improve their families’ lives. All I can say is that here is so much opportunity in farming. I think young people all over Africa should look to farming to improve their lives and improve our continent. We’re always crying of not having jobs. Well, we can find land. We’re not disabled. Why can’t we just make our own job? Our governments just need to make it easier by building roads that lead to markets and by providing marketing information and training to farmers. I dream of owning 1000 hectares in ten years where I can have a herd of cattle and provide so many jobs to contribute to poverty alleviation. I know this is possible and with the right policies from government, all of us here will be farming. Find out more about ONE’s work on agriculture, and follow the latest developments from the Africa Union 50th Anniversary celebrations in Addis Ababa on Twitter via @ONEinAfrica
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Why ONE and 36 other African organisations have sent an urgent letter to David Cameron
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In a few weeks, the UK government will host a major international event in London called Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science. Happening just days before the 2013 G8 Summit in Lough Erne, it will bring together governments, businesses, scientists and civil society to examine strategies that could improve the quality and quantity of food available to the world’s poorest people. Back in March I attended a highly energised meeting of African civil society organisations in Ethiopia, who had gathered for Africa’s biggest annual forum on agriculture and where we launched our report A Growing Opportunity. We all agreed an urgent message needed to be sent to the international community before the June summit in the UK. As a result, ONE together with 36 other African organisations have written to UK Prime Minister Cameron asking his government to ensure that African-led agriculture is at the heart of the Nutrition for Growth event, and specifically the existing CAADP plans. CAADP stands for the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program. It has already created momentum to reform agriculture in 40 out of 53 African countries and many more are joining. This makes it the single best existing framework that would support the G8 to deliver excellent results from their food security and nutrition investments on the continent. CAADP will also become the central organising vehicle for the African Union year of Agriculture in 2014. African states have committed themselves become more accountable to their people on accelerated progress in fighting hunger and helping small-holder farmers access better investment, technology and markets to sell their produce. African leadership, political will and investment is critical to realising the poverty reducing potential of African agriculture. The private sector and international community also has a very important supporting role to play in investing in African-led agriculture. Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, has said, “Africa has potential, but it cannot eat potential. More coordinated action is needed”. Rather than re-invent the wheel, the G8 must build on the momentum growing across Africa and fund the agriculture plans already in place. Read our letter to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and share our graphic on Facebook.
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How Grow Africa could be a game changer for African farming and business
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ONE US Policy Manager David Hong and ONE Africa Deputy Director Nachilala Nkombo look at the progress made by Grow Africa in the last year. Today, five African heads of state, four G8 development ministers, and over 100 private sector companies will meet in Cape Town, South Africa at the World Economic Forum on Africa to assess Grow Africa’s work in 2012, the partnership’s first full year in business. First, here’s a little background. Two years ago, the African Union Commission, New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) agency, and the World Economic Forum combined forces to create a new partnership, Grow Africa, which aims to reduce poverty by accelerating private sector investment in African agriculture. The partnership is led by the organisations above, and includes eight member countries and various stakeholders such as host governments, companies involved in investment, civil society, research institutions, and farmer organisations.
Here at ONE, we’re taking this opportunity to weigh in on Grow Africa’s first annual report. Overall, the initiative made significant progress last year, especially given the small size of its team. ONE hopes for further and more robust reporting in the coming years so the partnership can demonstrate its value and defend its model. Annual reporting gives Grow Africa an opportunity to demonstrate lessons learned over the past year and what challenges lay ahead. Here are the headlines:
Obviously, there is a lot to commend here. Thousands of smallholders are being incorporated into commercial food supply chains where they’re growing more food and generating more income for their families. If Grow Africa adds further measures to increase transparency and expand reporting of poverty reduction indicators, the partnership could change the game for farmers and businesses. For more information on Grow Africa’s report and ONE’s analysis, check out this policy brief.
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Africa Progress Panel calls for resources to fuel inclusive growth
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Africa is a continent in transformation. With almost half of its countries now classified as middle-income, it is fast becoming a hub of global growth. It is also contending with an economic slowdown amongst its traditional trading partners, and an upsurge in economic interest from the world’s leading emerging economies. Africa’s extractive resources are central to that interest. Growing demand from emerging markets and robust prices mean that African governments can expect resource revenues to continue growing. Over forty African countries are now involved in exploration for or production of extractive resources. Africa is poised as the new gas frontier: the west coast holds over 32 percent of natural gas reserves and countries across East Africa, from Tanzania to Mozambique, are gearing up to pump and export huge new reserves. In many cases, extractives revenues vastly exceed inflows of aid. In 2010, Africa’s exports of oil and minerals were worth roughly seven times the amount of international aid to the continent. The ongoing global commodity boom offers exciting opportunities for Africa to convert its natural resource wealth into much-needed infrastructure, and to build healthy and educated societies. The extractive industries in Africa are also closely associated with the so-called “resource curse” or paradox of plenty, where countries with an abundance of natural resources tend to have lower economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer resources. Oil, gas and mineral exports have frequently led to distorted exchange rates caused by dependence on a single economic sector. Resource-rich countries have also been plagued by weak governance and corruption. This has led many citizens to view their rich natural resource endowments as sources of conflict and suffering, rather than growth and prosperity. The Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of influential global leaders, has long been calling on the world to do more to tackle these problems. As the APP’s Chair, Kofi Annan, has emphasised how we need action not just from African governments but also from the foreign companies that pay bribes and distort their accounts for profit at the expense of Africa’s people. Combating corruption is a matter of both political and corporate will. 
These issues are at the heart of the APP’s 2013 Africa Progress Report, to be launched this week at the World Economic Forum for Africa. Entitled Equity in Extractives: Stewarding Africa’s Natural Resources for All, the report highlights key challenges plaguing the extractive industries in Africa, and presents a series of policy recommendations geared towards creating a more transparent and equitably managed extractives sector. The report makes clear that transparency is critical. The international community must demand tougher anti-corruption and transparency regulation from its oil, gas, and mining companies. Donors must support civil society with training and capacity-building to monitor government revenues. And companies need to disclose their final beneficial owners, and their payments to governments. Revenues from oil, gas, and mining companies cannot be a state secret. If a country is serious about using resource wealth for the benefit of its population, then its government must be fully transparent about how much money its resources are making. Extractive resource sectors can be managed though systems that favor opaque budget management, corruption and environmental destruction, or they can be managed through open processes that are transparent and equitable. The first way cannot sustain our continent’s growth. The second way can truly transform Africa into a global powerhouse of wealth and wellbeing for all. ONE will be at the World Economic Forum this week – follow @ONEinAfrica on Twitter for all the latest news and views from the event.
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Time travel to Africa 2033
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Mike Drachkovitch, manager of marketing and external relations at ONE, shares his interview with one of the creators of a magazine and brand that is challenging the accepted understanding of Africa. Photos: AITF. Part conceptual magazine, part clothing company, AFRICA IS THE FUTURE, or AITF, is more of an ever-evolving creative project in time travel than anything else.
And that’s exactly what its co-founder and creative director, Nicolas Premiere, had in mind. Nicolas was born in France to a French mother and a Congolese father. He and his business partner Patrick Ayamam launched AITF with an important vision in mind: to change the way you think and talk about Africa. We think he’s done just that. Tell me about how you came to found AITF and the team behind it? A cultural center organizing one of my exhibitions offered to print my t-shirts for the opening. I chose to print [AFRICA IS THE FUTURE] on 30 t-shirts. But it was two years later when AITF was born. There was another exhibition, another opening, where at least ten friends came with the famous t-shirt which led to the audience talking about the slogan, its meaning and Africa.
My friend Patrick and I were pretty surprised by all the discussions that the t-shirts generated.There were new angles, perspectives and ways to talk about Africa. We wanted this to happen again more widely and more often, so we reprinted more t-shirts! In recent years we’ve generated discussion in ways other than the t-shirts-AITF Magazine is the most recent example of this. Let’s talk about your homepage. I’m intrigued by the teaser: everything you want to know about AITF but never dared to ask. Then, clicking through, it says: now you know. What was your reasoning behind this? Now you know means there is no hidden truth or magical secret behind AITF-it’s a creative work that is crucial but surely not sufficient-we are not the solution. We do not pretend to change the world or Africa. You also mention on your homepage how AITF questions how the world is told to us and renews the way Africa is represented. In your view, how is that world told to us and what’s the image of Africa you’re renewing? AITF Magazine, with its fictional content, requires the reader to ask himself questions because everything that normally seems self-evident is reversed. Particularly the traditional image of Africa in the media: poor, sick, plagued by war. By giving Africa the leading role, AITF Magazine places the continent in a position that is nearly the same as the US today. Your conceptual magazine is published 20 years from now in 2033. Why did you pick 2033?
What about the Addis Abeba Panthers?
Your brand utilises some timeless images and design work. Tell us your creative vision behind the look and feel of AITF. How about U.R. Doctors for America – an American child vaccinated in our backyard of Virginia?
What’s your creative process like? One of the statistics I find most exciting about Africa is that 65 percent of Africans are under the age of 35. I couldn’t help but think that AITF is trying to connect with this up-and-coming, change-making generation. Why? Finally, if you could share a message with ONE members young and old, what would it be? Big thanks to Nicolas for sharing his ideas with us. Check out the website and tell us what you think in the comments below.
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Yvonne Chaka Chaka records ‘Hearts on Fire’ in support of malaria
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This World Malaria Day, the incredible Yvonne Chaka Chaka is supporting United Against Malaria and The Princess of Africa Foundation with a special download of the song Hearts on Fire. You might have seen her perform it when she closed out the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations here in Johannesburg back in February. Yvonne has recorded this version with Denis Dowlut, Michael Abdul and Themba Mhinga. World Malaria Day is an important moment to focus global attention on the scourge of malaria. This completely preventable and treatable disease is transmitted by the bites of a specific species of mosquito. Yet as our partners at United Against Malaria note, it continues to kill a child every 60 seconds and causes 655,000 deaths every year—with the vast majority of these occurring across Africa. ONE is fighting this disease through our campaign for the full funding of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which finances medical treatment and prevention measures for malaria all over the world. In addition to funding the fight, it is also essential to educate communities at high risk of exposure to malaria on how they can prevent it and seek treatment immediately if anyone in the family shows symptoms. UAM is working with some of Africa’s biggest football stars to raise awareness about malaria, as well as celebrated artists like Yvonne Chaka Chaka to carry the message through music. Show your support by buying Hearts on Fire on iTunes or Amazon. And take one minute to sign our petition calling for world leaders to scale up their support for the Global Fund.
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Meet Ghana’s vaccine king
 Dr. K.O. Antwi-Agyei at the Ghana Health Service Disease control unit vaccination cold storage facilities in Accra, Ghana. Photo: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation This is a guest post from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, originally published on their Impatient Optimists blog. Dr. K.O. Antwi-Agyei manages the Expanded Programme on Immunisation in Ghana, where he oversees the day-to-day work to ensure vaccines reach children across the country. Ghana’s health care system has put a lot of its resources into vaccines. Why? Our communities have also been great because they embrace vaccination. They even testify that “Oh, our children used to die from measles. Now with vaccination, we don’t see measles.” And of course, they allow our staff into their homes. There is trust. We can now return to the communities with other vaccination campaigns. It’s marvelous. What impact have vaccines had on the health of Ghana’s population? For example, measles used to be the number two killer of children. Now it’s no longer a cause of death for the past 10 years in Ghana. So a lot has been achieved through immunisations. Last year, you were the first immunisation chief in Africa to simultaneously roll out two vaccines, one protecting children against pneumonia and the other against rotavirus. Why did you decide to do that and, and what was the result? Our desire to reach the Millennium Development Goal to reduce childhood death was a very big motivating factor. Apart from malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea are the two highest killing diseases. So we thought, if there is no vaccine against malaria now, and there are vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhea, then it’s worth fighting. So we decided to fight the two together. We thought it would be difficult, but not an impossibility. And with careful planning, we could succeed. How important are Ghana’s community health workers in delivering the vaccines? How does Ghana use data collection to improve immunisation coverage? What is your long term goal for Ghana’s immunisation program? This week is World Immunisation Week. Find out more about how ONE is supporting access to vaccinations.
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Join our Google+ Hangout on World Malaria Day
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World Malaria Day is on Thursday 25 April, we’re marking it by inviting you to our Google+ Hangout where you can hear first hand from the people who dedicate their lives to fighting malaria around the world. If no have no idea what a Google+ Hangout is and are about to click away, WAIT! It’s a really easy way to get people in different places all talking to each other on your screen. You can interact by posting questions and comments, or just sit back and enjoy. You can watch the conversation live on either Google+ or YouTube. Still with us? Good. Together, our guests will cut through the clutter and answer questions like:
We promise there will be no jargon or complicated science—just the truth about this incredible global battle to save lives and how you can contribute to it. Our resident global health expert Erin Hohlfelder will be hosting some special guests and talking about how we can eradicate malaria, the technology that’s available, current on the ground projects, the progress already made and the challenges ahead. If you have a question for any of our guests, leave it as a comment below and we’ll try and answer as many of them as we can during the event. On the day, you can join the hangout on Google+ or YouTube. RSVP and let us know if you can join.
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Africa remembers Chris Hani
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Today marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Chris Hani, the South African Communist Party General Secretary and Chief of Staff for the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe. A hero to most South Africans, the anti-apartheid activist was tragically assassinated on 10th April 1993. It is truly sad that a man who worked so tirelessly in pursuit of seeing a democratic South Africa never got the chance to see the first democratic general election in 1994. It is in this respect that we honour the legacy of Chris Hani today with a heavy heart. Chris Hani’s killer, Clive Derby-Lewis, made headlines two days ago by stating that he wanted to personally apologise for his crime. This request has been met with little sympathy from the public and Hani’s family. Hani’s widow, Limpho Hani, has distanced herself from this and asked for people to respect her privacy on this day. Whether Derby- Lewis’s apology is genuine or not, it has been viewed as ill timed, coming days before the 20th Anniversary of Hani’s death. Many feel that it takes away from the day and sparks and ignites the wrong type of discourse on a very emotional occasion for many. Lindiwe Hani, the daughter of Chris Hani said, “Chris Hani was always my hero, but I did not realise he was the whole country’s hero”. I would like to add to that – he was not only a country’s hero, he was a continent’s hero too. Rest in peace Chris Hani.
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The dilemma facing donors on aid cuts to Uganda
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Earlier this year, government actually refunded some of the money it had lost to donors such as Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, at their insistence, but this has not been enough to appease donors collectively. To do more, it has formed an inter-ministerial High Level Government Financial Management Reform Action Plan. The plan presented to donors includes better financial management, better investigations into corruption cases, indictments of those implicated in scams, and actual prosecution of those culpable. The Bank of Uganda has already closed 165 dormant accounts which were among the avenues through which public funds were channeled to private accounts; accountants are to be rotated so that they do not build the necessary networks through which to steal; the leadership code, under which senior public servants declare their wealth and liabilities every two years, and which for long had not been used to challenge anyone’s wealth, is now being used by the police to match actual wealth with that declared by implicated officers. Special audits have also been conducted where there is suspected illicit activity. So far, over 100 case files have been opened by the police. While quietly donors are pleased with the action and feel that if they stay away much longer they could leverage more and deeper reforms, they are not unaware of the unintended consequences and backlash of their actions. For example, as a result of the suspension of aid, some front line public servants such as teachers and health workers have not been fully paid their already meager salaries. Furthermore, the government has just announced that it will phase out the lowest levels of health outlets (Health centre II) so as to save some money, thereby depriving those who are unable to get to higher centers. So when the government refunded money to donors and it was actually accepted, there was a chorus of condemnation of the donors by the public for inflicting double tragedy on the innocent. They also realise that they might have inadvertently reinforced the accusation that the government is more responsive to donors than its citizens. They also realise that while government has moved, uncharacteristically swiftly, to put quite tough measures in place to reverse the rot, implementation is selective. Already one of the high profile culprits, who was found guilty and sent to jail over the GAVI funds, has already been released on some quaint technicality that confounds even the Inspectorate of Government that pinned him down in the first place. But perhaps the most unexpected consequence has been the introduction of the Internal Security Organization (ISO), a spy arm of government, into schools to undertake head count of pupils and teachers to unearth ‘ghost pupils and teachers’, all in the guise of pleasing donors. This ‘trust creep’ could lead to the militarisation of civil service and in future spell enduring disaster on the strength of our institutions. President Museveni is an interesting man. Those who have studied him carefully will tell you that you can tell who is and who isn’t in his good stead from the way he shakes hands when he arrives to a waiting line of important officials. Those he greets almost in passing when his focus is already on the next person will know they are not that important to him. It would seem that even in this case, he is ‘greeting the donors’ with his face looking at China and the emerging partners. In particular he is looking to China’s sovereign funds to fund important infrastructural projects. He has also developed a strategy to creatively leverage the future on oil reserves, in which partners like China will be more than willing partakers, has according to The EastAfrican, created “a unique moment in the country’s relations with its traditional donors”. How will traditional donors position themselves on withheld aid? We shall soon know.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: African Union, Agriculture, ONE, South Africa, Young people