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“The Best Way to Break the Back of Poverty is Through Agriculture”
Yesterday I attended a packed event in the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament to hear His Excellency John Kufuor, Former President of Ghana and 2011 World Food Prize Laureate, speak on the progress his country has made on extreme poverty and hunger.
His Excellency John Kufuor won the World Food Prize in 2011 for his international and domestic leadership on promoting the value of agriculture in reducing poverty. Ghana is now recognised as the first developing country to reach the First Millennium Development Goal: Halve Extreme Hunger and Poverty.
His Excellency explained to the crowd how this remarkable progress was no accident. He recognised the role of Ghanaian debt cancellation, prioritising agriculture, putting in place clear and comprehensive plans of action and receiving donor support from the US Millennium Challenge Corporation in allowing Ghana to achieve this. However it was the economic reforms, a national school nutrition programme strengthened and substantially increased public investment in agriculture that took place under his stewardship that resulted in the greatest benefit. It was this public investment in agriculture that was a major factor behind the halving of hunger and poverty and the increase in Ghana’s gross domestic product, which quadrupled from £2.6 billion in 2000 to £11 billion.
However the former president was keen to stress to the crowd that investment alone did not bring about this change but Ghana’s comprehensive “joined up” agriculture plan. His Excellently told the crowd how providing farmers with education and farming tools isn’t enough without access to markets, and how diversification may not be possible without access to credit and micro finance. The Ghanaian plan considered all of these things in a holistic way, but ensured agriculture was the priority.
This agriculture prioritisation is crucial. Two-thirds of Africa, and in particular the poorest Africans, rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, and therefore, His Excellency said “The best way to break the back of poverty is through agriculture”.
His Excellency John Kufuor’s leadership has helped lift millions out of poverty and hunger, but former present also noted leadership is needed at all levels to tackle hunger and poverty around the world. That is why we call on the G8 and the G20 to maintain their commitments to agricultural development and to align their investments with the plans of African countries. Together by fulfilling these pledges and building local knowledge we can ensure agriculture remains a global priority and so help lift millions out of hunger and poverty.
Norman Lamb takes critical anti-corruption role
Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb has today been appointed to a new Ministerial posting in the UK’s Business Department. Among his responsibilities will be leading for the UK on the European-wide negotiations for a strong European extractives transparency law. ONE has been campaigning on this issue along with our partners in the Publish What You Pay coalition, and we are now looking to Lamb to play a critical role in helping millions of African citizens get access to the information they need to hold their governments accountable for revenues received from extractive industries.
Lamb will be the UK representative at a key meeting on the 20th February in Brussels when Ministers from around Europe will meet for the first time to discuss the new law. Next week ONE will be launching a petition to the Ministers attending that meeting asking them to stand firm in the face of heavy industry lobbying and help put an end to the secrecy status quo which is helping to perpetuate the resource curse.
It continues to be a scandal that despite African countries receiving $1.5 trillion from natural resources in the past 5 years, some of the most resource-rich countries continue to suffer from insecurity and high levels of poverty. In Equatorial Guinea, for example, 1 in 12 children die before reaching their first birthday yet by some indicators they are wealthier per capita than France.
We know transparency is not a solution to this problem alone – but it is a vital first step. Norman Lamb has the opportunity to do something great in the next few months, and show he is on the side of some of the poorest people in the world. If he stands firm and refuses to include the legislation wrecking exemptions and watering down of key details that some rogue companies are looking for – he will be a hero to millions. As ONE activists and members we’ll be looking for your support to help make this happen.
P.S. If you have time take a moment to tweet @normanlamb welcoming him to his new post and asking him to play his part in passing a strong European extractive transparency law.
Mo Farah’s next big challenge
Mo Farah’s list of accolades is jaw dropping. Since arriving in the UK from war torn Somalia at the age of 8 he has risen through the ranks to become arguably the greatest long-distance runner in the history of UK athletics. He is currently 5,000m world champion, 10,000m silver medallist and one of the favourites for the pinnacle of athletics success at this summer’s Olympic games in London. He also holds a number of British and European records over those two distances. I’m exhausted just writing about it!
Mo can now add founding the Mo Farah Foundation to his impressive list of achievements. As a Somali native, Mo regularly visits family in the Horn of Africa and is all too aware of the problems that many in the region faces today. As such, his foundation is working to raise funds to provide essential lifelines to those suffering from malnutrition and starvation. In the longer term, they aim to provide and maintain community water wells, crop seeds for agricultural farming and the tools to sustain this essential way of life. Mo’s links to the country mean that this is an issue very close to his heart:
“As someone born in Somalia this is something that is very important to me. I’ve seen the situation out there and I want to help make a difference. There are kids out there right now who are starving and I want the foundation to be able to help them get over this and plan for the future. That’s why the work of organisations like ONE, which campaigns for better funding for solutions to the problems that lead to famine, is so important.”
This long term work is crucial for the development of the region and the importance of the work of groups like Mo’s Foundation cannot be underestimated. Most food crises are preventable and investments in agriculture can actually help people become more resilient to shocks such as drought. Other types of investments in rural roads, proper storage facilities, and access to improved seed varieties can also build tolerance to drought, save grains from previous seasons and help communities access food when drought strikes. But it is not just up to private foundations to tackle the problem. Government’s around the world need to improve their funding of long-term agricultural solutions for drought-stricken regions like the Horn of Africa.
In 2009, the G8 pledged $22 billion for agricultural development in developing countries and committed to principles to guide the quality, effectiveness, and accountability of their aid. Some countries have clarified their commitments, outlining how much is new money and constructing plans that will ensure that the principles are upheld. However our recent report “Agricultural Accountability” revealed that G8 and G20 countries had only delivered on a fifth of the promised amount. This is unacceptable. We need governments to step up and work with partners like the Mo Farah Foundation to ensure that the world doesn’t slide back into another food crisis and, instead, find successful solutions to help ensure that droughts do not inevitably to famine.
To find out more, please visit www.mofarahfoundation.co.uk
2012 – A Year for British Leadership on International Development
Making the case for UK leadership on international development is never straight-forward but foreign policy is even more likely to be overlooked in times of domestic economic pain. All too often the development debate degenerates into reductive arguments for and against aid. This is a shame. The UK leads much of the world in effective development policy, and has maintained the resources needed to deliver long-term results that help some of the poorest people in the world. This leadership should be celebrated, not least because it is also firmly in the national interest.
Somalia is a good example of this. What happens in Somalia affects us in Britain. The issues are deeper than just the moral outrage we felt last summer when famine returned to the country, and when Britons dug deeper than ever before to help the millions of people suffering the effects of a devastating food crisis. We are also impacted when ships are attacked in the Gulf of Aden by pirates, terrorists exploit the vacuum in law enforcement and effective governance, and instability spreads to neighbouring countries. The UK government has correctly identified Somalia as a foreign policy priority for those reasons and will host a conference in February to mobilise support for a Somali-led plan, supported by the international community, to get the country back on track. Central to that should be a coordinated multi-year push on long-term agricultural support to ensure the 2011 famine is the last in human history.
UK leadership is also needed to bolster the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, which remains an essential vehicle for delivering improvements in global health and for driving momentum in the effort to achieve the beginning of the end of AIDS. Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has voiced his support, but for now a significant funding gap has left new programmes on hold until 2014. In 2012 we are looking to the UK to double its annual contribution to the Fund. This could pay for over a million anti-malarial bednets and treat 400,000 malaria and TB patients, while closing the funding gap by a quarter and intensifying pressure on the US and Australia to step up their own commitments. A UK push on family planning later in the year will provide an opportunity to end the tip-toeing around the controversial issue of population, and will further solidify the UK as a global leader on maternal and child health.
However, 2012 will be about far more than securing improved outcomes in health and agriculture. The UK finds itself in a uniquely strong position to push forward reforms that will help developing country governments make the most of their own resources. The UK will co-chair two key international bodies: the Open Government Partnership and the G20 working group on anti-corruption. In both cases the UK needs to win support for coordinated moves to tackle the housing of stolen assets that have been hidden away abroad by corrupt leaders, a clampdown on corporations who don’t pay fair taxes in developing countries, and establishing norms for open and transparent government budget processes.
Central to the vital work to improve transparency is a new European law to force oil, gas, mining and forestry companies to publish the payments they make for every project in every country they operate. This will shine a light on a previously murky business, and empower civil society with the information they need to hold corporations and governments accountable. The UK has supported the European proposals so far, but it needs to play a vocal role in Brussels to counteract fierce lobbying from oil companies determined to maintain secrecy.
If the UK is to carry the weight it needs to make the most of these opportunities for international leverage, it is vital that it continues its principled promise-keeping on overseas aid. Legislation will shortly be introduced in Parliament to fix spending at the UN-agreed target of 0.7% of national income. This will catapult the issue up the political agenda. The short-termists will argue we need the money to close our budget deficit, but recent polls show the majority of Brits support this policy. Even so, we’ll need all who have supported this policy from the days of Make Poverty History and before – businesses, faith leaders, military figures, charity workers and ordinary citizens – to speak out and make it clear that aid remains a sound investment as well as being resolutely the right thing to do. Amongst many other things spending 0.7% of GNI on aid will allow us to put 16 million children in school over the next four years. It will also stabilise fragile states, build markets for British companies and contribute to Briton’s soft power globally.
The reality is that pulling up the drawbridge and abandoning a position of strength on international issues in 2012 would be a poor strategic choice for Britain. A holistic set of policies that are in the common interest of both UK citizens and some of the poorest people in the world are well within our reach. In an Olympic year when the government is encouraging us to consider what is GREAT about Britain, the UK’s contribution to the fight against global poverty should be front and centre.
Special coverage on aid and development in the Observer
Yesterday saw the Observer newspaper in the UK publish a number of great articles about aid and development where ONE’s work was mentioned. We wanted to share our success with you and urge you to get over to their website to check out the coverage for yourself.
The paper’s editor John Mulholland joined Bono and economist Jeffrey Sachs on a recent trip to Ghana. The resulting interview and article addresses the progress being made in countries like Ghana when smart aid is delivered. In the interview Jeff Sachs lays out the “dos and don’ts” of aid giving: “Aid works when it’s practical, when it’s focused, when it’s targeted, when it’s an investment, when it is part of a strategy; and aid does not work when it’s money handed over in an envelope to a friendly ally, especially in a war zone or when it’s a payoff for some other diplomatic support.” And praises the UK’s Department for International Development for their results-based approach to aid. This approach, is mentioned again by paper’s editorial which argues that progress is being made, although we have yet to perfect aid. “Some money is wasted, some is undoubtedly lost to corruption and some aid programmes do not deliver meaningful results. But these are not good enough reasons to abandon foreign aid, any more than the failures of the financial system are reasons to abandon capitalism. Reflect and correct, yes. Abandon, no.”
The article on the trip to Ghana (with the excellent quote “In 10 years Ghana may not need aid” as its headline) touches on the great work done by programmes such as the Global Fund, which ONE campaigners have supported for many years and (RED) continues to fund. The article announces that “By any measure Ghana is a success story”.
The last word is probably best left to Bono, who argues that:
“It’s impossible, I believe, to keep up the scam that brutal, ugly, dumb poverty is something we can live with. That’s a scam. You can’t live with it if you see it. We bring over tough US military guys and US senators to Africa. When they see it up close – you can’t live with it. The only way you can live with it is to lie to yourself and pretend it’s not what people say it is.”
ONE on the UK Chancellor’s Autumn Statement
In response to the autumn statement from the UK Chancellor, George Osborne, ONE’s Europe Director Adrian Lovett said today:
“George Osborne’s confirmation that Britain will invest 0.7% of national income in overseas aid is good news. Our aid is saving lives and building livelihoods – and it is in Britain’s long-term interest as we seek new global opportunities for UK business.
“We’re obviously disappointed at the reduction in the scale of the aid increase, which is a painful side-effect of Britain’s economic performance. This government made a pledge not to balance the books on the backs of the poor. DFID’s current plans were expected to put 16 million children in school and vaccinate over 90 million in the next 4 years. We urge Andrew Mitchell to ensure that today’s news does not put these plans in jeopardy.
“The 0.7% aid target is a minimum, not a maximum, and we call on the Chancellor to confirm that just as aid may fall when Britain’s income goes down, so it must rise when income goes up. The government should now deliver on its promise to put the 0.7% minimum aid figure into law, so that as the UK economy picks up the world’s poorest also benefit.”
This is not the moment to give up on aid, but to believe in it – Tony Blair
Next week will be the first time in years we see former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair taking to the international stage and attending a high level forum with world leaders. The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea will review the progress made on former commitments to aid effectiveness, and showcase commitments that set a new agenda for development. Certainly one to watch.
Last week, ONE spoke to Tony Blair about his message to leaders as he prepares to attend the forum in Busan. We also took the opportunity to talk to him about some of the issues we’ve been calling for change on at ONE, and about how his Africa Governance Initiative plays a part in this.
So, why is he attending the Busan conference on aid effectiveness, and how can it be made a success?
“I think the most important thing is to show people this is a developing debate around an area where, believe it or not, things can change. I mean I happen to think with Africa, I think Africa is a continent on the move.”
Blair believes it vital that we show the progress made in Africa, and give people “a sense of the potential,” as many African countries “have come a long way in the past decade partly as a result of imaginative development policy.” He also points to the momentum that he hopes will be seen at Busan with so many leaders attending, including Hillary Clinton.
He also levelled a challenge at them, sending his message ahead of the conference: “We’re about to enter a whole new decade of really exciting innovation and development in the aid space. And so this is not the moment to give up on it but to believe in it.”
With 10 years of experience of international summits as UK Prime Minister, we asked how, following on from the recent meeting of world leaders in Cannes, the G20 should follow through on their warm words and break the cycle of famine by delivering long-term agricultural solutions , and how we at ONE, with over 400,000 voices, can help hold them to account for their promises.
Blair argues that there are two things we all need to do. The first is to challenge critics and “show people that aid really does work because the concept of aid being basically a waste of money is just not right.” His second challenge is for people in the aid community to show that they are also evolving their policies towards aid and aren’t “just stuck in the past. On the contrary there’s a lot of innovation, a lot of exciting things happening.”
But he also emphasises that a big part of convincing political leaders comes down to activists like us getting behind these issues, and that ONE members should carry on putting pressure on them “to show them that they would have support if they do the right thing.” And this is why our campaign on agriculture and food security is carrying on next year – to get real commitments to ending famine, and for all of the people who do not get enough food each day.
ONE’s next global campaign is being launched in the run up to World AIDS Day (December 1st ). We’re campaigning for the beginning of the end of AIDS by 2015. There is still a way to go but we know great results are possible. 10 years ago, just 100,000 people had access to lifesaving antiretroviral drugs to counter AIDS, and now 6.6 million people are able to take them. “Right, that’s amazing. I think on that, it’s a little bit like with the malaria campaign, you can really say it’s not true it’s all hopeless. Because otherwise what happens is that people get to the point with a lot of these campaigns where they think ‘well you know, they’re always asking me for money and they’re always telling me it’s all very difficult.’ There you’ve got a great story to tell.”
What about aiming to see 15 million people onto antiretroviral drugs, and ending mother to child transmission of the virus, both by 2015? “It can be done if people have the will to do it. And you can see that from what’s been done in the last 10 years.” As Hillary Clinton recently said, we really could be welcoming in an ‘AIDS free generation’.
While much has been achieved in Africa, in part thanks to aid coupled with strong African leadership, 400 million people still live in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa alone. The work isn’t complete. But with government cutbacks, and the Eurozone crisis, we’re hearing more voices saying we should be cutting back on aid too. What’s the former Prime Minister’s take on this, as someone with the rare experience of having felt some of the pressures that face our current government?
“This area of policy, uniquely in my experience of politics, is one of which you can literally measure in lives the difference you can make for the better. And, I think when people talk about the aid budget, they might sort of say ‘well I’ve got all these problems at home, do I care if it’s cut or not?’ but I think when you tell them what the money is spent on… you get their support”.
He went on to talk proudly of the UK Department for International Development (DFID)’s work ; “And you know after all DFID, for example, in our case is now a very, very effective development agency, perhaps the most effective of government departments in the world. You know I see round the world projects they do they really make a difference.”
Interestingly, when it comes to development, Blair believes that this is unlike talking to people about other issue areas “in a curious way, for once you get their support in particular more than you do in general.” By focusing on how many lives could be saved, how many communities stabilised, and how, Blair is confident that as a focused movement against extreme poverty we can bring others with us.
After leaving office, Tony Blair could have chosen any number of paths. But by setting up and being Patron of the (now 4-year-old) Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative, Blair signalled that development was and remains one of the most important areas to him. But why this route; why Africa?
“When I’m seeing these African leaders struggle with their challenges… often the single most difficult thing for them is to get anything done.”
But, seeing the potential for change, Blair notes that “if they can get say, basic infrastructure done – energy, electricity, roads – if they can put the right framework in place to attract the right type of transparent investment into their country, they can probably make a go of it.“
African leaders often “pull a lever, nothing happens. And so that’s why we focus on this, because what I learnt when I was in government is that aid is not enough. I didn’t learn that aid was a bad thing; I just learned it wasn’t enough. And that, for these countries, in the end they need to govern themselves, but to govern themselves they need to show that normal politics, in the sense of getting things done, can deliver for people.”
While there are lots of challenges ahead, Blair’s message throughout this interview was that when you see just how much has been achieved through effective aid, now is absolutely not the time to cut back, but to believe in it, and do what we can to convince world leaders to keep changing lives, and continue our fight to end extreme poverty.
We’re certainly up for that challenge. Are you?
Challenging stereotypes through ‘An African Election’
Ask your friends for words they associate with elections in Africa and you’ll likely get a mixed bag of ‘corrupt’, ‘violent’, ‘rigged’ or simply ‘what elections?’. It’s a fair bet no one will think to mention the 2008 Ghanaian election in which two presidential candidates fought a hard campaign, ended up separated by just over 40,000 votes, and yet the result was a peaceful transition of power.
The riveting ‘An African Election’ takes the audience up close to the campaign, with extraordinary access to the key players as they battle to take over from the retiring President Kufuor. The candidates criss-cross the country for months speaking to huge rallies, and are then forced into a frenetic run-off after the first round fails to yield a clear winner.
Thandie Newton at her ‘film of the year’ before a screening in London last Sunday.
The extraordinary levels of citizen interest and engagement will provoke jealousy from Western politicians. Indeed Ghanaians from all walks of life were clearly acutely aware that the pressure was on to show that Africa could do fair and functional democracy, following disastrous elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe earlier in the year.
The impression that Director Jarreth Merz brilliantly gets across is that the key characters in the election could just as easily be taking part in Gore versus Bush or Brown versus Cameron. The spin doctors, election agents, press officers and entourages – even the attack adverts on TV – showcase a vibrant but complex democracy going through a robust process to find a new leader. As tensions mount during the wait for the final results an unlikely hero emerges in the head of the Electoral Commission who calmly defuses a potentially volatile situation.
As we head into 2012 – a year packed with key African elections, including the next instalment from Ghana – the film is a timely reminder that democracy in Africa can thrive, and should serve as a wake-up call to some of the more complacent Western democracies.
Those living in and around London can catch the film courtesy of Dogwoof from Friday 25th November at the Empire Leicester Square. Other screenings around the country are listed on the website. You can also host your own screening through Popup Cinema.
Corruption in Context
Today sees the publication of the first reports from the UK’s new Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI). ICAI was set up to ensure that UK aid maximises effectiveness and value for money, and to provide an independent counter-balance to the Department for International Development’s own internal reporting systems. It counts ONE Africa Policy Advisory Board member John Githongo as one of its four commissioners.
Of their four reports it is inevitably the one focused on corruption that has picked up the most media coverage. The rising proportion of UK aid being spent in fragile and conflict states presents an obvious challenge to DFID officials: how to operate effectively in higher risk environments? That is not a task to be taken lightly, but it would be a mistake for the UK to only spend aid in benign governance environments.
The UK has made strides on designing aid delivery mechanisms that are appropriate to different parts of the world. As the ICAI report on corruption points out, in Nigeria – a country where the risks of corruption are deemed to be high – only 0.04% of DFID money is in the form of government budget support, while the figure is 72.4% in Zambia. There is also now a greater focus on transparency over DFID spending and the UK has been a prominent supporter of the International Aid Transparency Initiative which seeks to create a common reporting standard for all donors – making it easier for citizens to see what money is coming into their country and where it is being spent. In addition, DFID recommends that in countries where budget support is used around 5% of the value of that aid is used to strengthen domestic accountability – i.e. to help local civil society organisations to hold their government accountable for money spent. Indeed ICAI makes strong additional recommendations on how DFID can assist partner countries fight corruption through improved transparency and accountability mechanisms.
Of course fighting corruption in many of the countries where UK aid is spent is not just the responsibility of DFID. The new Bribery Act lays out a zero tolerance framework for UK companies operating abroad. The UK has also been at the forefront of European countries supporting new transparency legislation that will require all listed and large unlisted oil, gas, mining and forestry companies to publish the payments made to governments on a project-by-project basis.
Clearly badly spent aid money should not be tolerated but it is also inaccurate to suggest that corruption can be eradicated overnight (we struggle enough in this country), or that inefficiency and human error can be prevented. Nevertheless, ICAI’s report makes clear that DFID has a key role to play in building up the structures and local systems that in the long-run will help transform fragile and conflict states prone to corruption into places that prioritise citizens’ development needs.
Don’t feed the vultures
Campaigners like you have fought against the unfair debts that crippled some of the world’s poorest countries. We rightly celebrated when debt relief helped lift some of this burden.
Now that progress is under threat.
Vulture funds make money by buying up old debt against developing countries, and using the courts to sue them for it in order to reap massive profits. That’s just wrong.
The problem is, that while the vulture funds law brought in the UK last year finally stopped this activity happening here, this doesn’t currently extend to Jersey.
Sign up now to ask the Chief Minister of Jersey to extend the UK law to their courts too.
Right now, vulture fund FG Hemisphere is using Jersey’s courts to claim $100m from the Democratic Republic of Congo, on a debt thought to have been bought for $3.3m.
After having much of their debt cancelled by the IMF and World Bank just last year, the impact that this will have on the DRC, and people living in extreme poverty, is just unimaginable. This shouldn’t be happening – let alone so close to home.
Join ONE and the Jubilee Debt Campaign UK in asking Jersey’s Chief Minister to take a stand, by extending the law that already exists here in the UK. It’s simply not right to turn a blind eye.
Thanks for your support on this, and please ask your friends to sign up too.
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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: Agriculture, Ghana, Hunger Crisis, Millennium Development Goals, UK