Mozambicans Need This Land To Produce And Live

Evidence of the effects of land grabbing in the region, where ProSavana is being implemented, on the peasants particularly women is beginning to show. In Nampula province, women are being prevented from passing in the areas where the foreign companies operate. They cannot access the firewood or gather wild foods. 

This reality was reported during a discussion panel on “Structural challenges to development of peasant agriculture in Mozambique: peoples’ demands in regard to ProSavana”, at the Second Triangular Conference of the Peoples, held on 24 July 2014, in Maputo. 

In this panel, many reports were made on the violation of the access rights to land of women in particular. In rural areas, women are the ones who work the land to provide for their families and fetch firewood to cook. Ana Paula, a peasant from the peasant movement UNAC based in Nampula, said that in that region women are forbidden to exercise their right to use and exploit the land, which, in itself is a clear violation of the Law of the Land. 

This Law requires that community be consulted to grant lands to companies, thus giving communities the right to refuse, as in cases where such land granting implies the abuse of their rights.

 “We women are suffering from grabbing of the land. As women, we can’t even pass through the lands where the project is based to fetch firewood, or to take roots from the soil to use for medicines for our families. As a result, we are going through really hard times because of these companies that are using the land in Nampula and in other areas” said Ana Paula, peasant and leader of UNAC.

 She called on the government to cease the production of soy and other crops for export as they cause health problems due to the use of agro-toxins, as it happened in Brazil in the Cerado brasileiro region. 

“We ask the government to hear the peasants and not allow the production of crops that bring agro-toxins, for they cause diseases. And I want to call on the governments of Japan and Brazil to stop thinking that we have large portions of available and abandoned land in Mozambique. The Mozambican population is growing and needs this land to produce and to live” said Ana. 

According to her, the peasants need technical support, an increase in quality of local seeds and access to markets to sell their products at a fair price.

from here

Communities' Resistance To Palm Oil At Odds With President's Stance

Liberia's Jogbahn Clan is at the forefront of efforts to resist the grab of Indigenous Peoples' land and forests for palm oil plantations. But according to the country's President, they are only 'harrassing and extorting' international investors.

"If we lose our land how will we live? We are in Africa, we live by our crops. Palm plantations can't help us!"
"They refuse to talk to us about our land business. Because we are standing here, are we not people? We are somebody."
So spoke Elder Chio Johnson defiantly looking through the tall iron gates of Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) / Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad (KLK's) office in Grand Bassa County, Liberia.
His Jogbahn Clan had come to deliver a petition signed in solidarity by over 90,000 people to tell the UK and Malaysian palm oil companies that they must stop grabbing the Clan's land. However the companies refused to speak with the community.
EPO also thwarted efforts to present the petition in London, when they refused a meeting. Attempts to doorstop their London premises proved futile - the office appears to exist only in the form of a brass plate.

Even though the companies refused to speak with the communities the story of their struggle is now known all over the world with signatories for the petition coming from across the globe.
Their story has also been a source of inspiration for communities all over Liberia who like the Clan are facing dispossession from their land by agribusiness corporations that will replace their sustainable communities with monocultural plantations to produce certified 'sustainable' palm oil for the global market.
The fight many communities are facing in protecting their land is a fight for their very survival.
Last month Liberian communities affected by all four major palm oil companies; Equatorial Palm Oil / Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad, Golden Veroleum Liberia (Golden Agri-Resources), SIFCA / Maryland Oil Palm Plantation (Wilmar / Olam) and Sime Darby came together for the first time to discuss agriculture concessions as a national issue.

These companies are European (UK), Asian (Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean) and African (Côte d'Ivoire) with considerable European financing. The focus was on creating a space for these diverse communities to share their experiences.
The same narrative of exploitation is playing out all over the country; the companies' names were interchangeable. Bringing the communities together in this way laid the foundations for connecting their separate struggles.
Chio Johnson offered advice to the other communities, urging them to stay united in the face of the companies' divide and rule tactics. "Land is life, it is too valuable to lose", he warned.
Solomon Gbargee, a youth representative gave a stirring speech recounting the Clan's struggle so far and urged all the communities to stand together in their resistance of the companies:
 "If we lose our land how will we live? We are in Africa, we live by our crops. Palm plantations can't help us!"

Communities impacted by Wilmar's operations described resisting land clearances and the destruction of their property. When they objected to paltry compensation for destroyed crops they were told by their politicians: "If you want to get nothing, take to the streets" - where communities who continue to protest face assault and arrest.
Deyeatee Kardor, Jogbahn Clan's chairlady called on women to lead the struggle. "Because I stood up to the company people accused me of being a man but I carry the spirit of a thousand women", she proclaimed.
"For those of us under struggle with a palm company we must remain strong. My land is my land, your land is your land, your forest and bushes are your bank. Don't get tired. We cannot agree to leave our land."
Communities shared advice and support and these exchanges led to the development of a community solidarity network to provide a platform to work together.

In her ninth Address to the Nation in January 2014 the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, characterised community resistance to large scale concessions on their land as "harassment and extortion of investors".
"Agriculture remains the key sector of the economy for local employment creation, poverty reduction, food security and income generation, as over 60 percent of the population depends on this sector for livelihood.
"Food security is listed as a national priority, but we must admit that there has been under-investment by both the public and private sectors. Only massive investment can fix this under-performing sector so that it can play the vital role of delivering inclusive economic growth, environmental sustainability and long-term poverty reduction.
"Our scarce budget resources cannot do this, given the many other priorities, so we will need to attract investment from the private sector. At the same time, the private sector will not respond if there is continued harassment, extortion and unreasonable community demands."
Her statement somehow failed to recognise that investors are primarily interested in the production of export cash crops - which does nothing to increase food security in Liberia. Indeed it achieves the very reverse, as land used for local food production is comandeered to produce commodities for global markets.
The result of community resistance, she later claimed, is to undermine Liberia's economic growth and harm "the renewed confidence that Liberia is still a good destination for investment".
Earlier this year she voiced support for the Jogbahn Clan's struggle against EPO - as reported by The Ecologist. But her promises have come to nothing.
Read more here

Boko Haram and Capitalism

According to Human Rights Watch, in Nigeria, Boko Haram, the groups most people regard as a terrorist group, have killed in the last six months more than 2,053 civilians. Some people suggest that number has also been reached by the government of Goodluck Jonathan, who some say has killed as many people over the same period. Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa. It's the sixth-largest oil exporting country in the world. Why such chaos?

This video is well worth a watch

Baba Aye is a trade union educator and Deputy National Secretary of the Labour Party, is the National Convener of United Action for Democracy, the largest rights-based CSOs coalition in Nigeria. He has been very active over the past three decades in the various trenches of struggle for democratic rights and is the author of the book Era of Crises and Revolts: Perspectives for Workers and Youth.

Baba Aye: Boko Haram represents two contradictory developments, two contradictory phenomena. One is a reflection of the level of poverty, the level of disillusionment and discontent in the part of the country where you have--Boko Haram have their base. That is the northeast. The northeastern part of the country has the highest poverty rate in the country, the highest level of unemployment in the country, and you have the highest proportion of children of school age out of school, elementary school, in the world in the northeast. And that is one aspect of it. And Boko Haram feeds on this discontent. It taps into this disillusionment with the system.
The second part is this: it's also a reflection of elite politics played with the mask of ethnicity and religion, I mean, primordial sentiments, because while Boko Haram presented itself as some organization fighting against ostentatiousness, fighting against, I mean, Western civilization, in the sense of this being oppressive, so to speak, it also has close ties with ruling members of the state. And it's rather unfortunate, but it is understandable, because this is part of a pattern that goes back to the decolonization process in the country, where you found different sections of the elites playing up primordial cards so as to be able to win sections of the masses to their side as they battled amongst themselves for who gets the lion's share of access to the state treasury through access to state power....
...Were Boko Haram to be smashed today, a dozen Boko Harams would arise. As it is presently, you have three well-known splinter groups from Boko Haram, of which the larger of the other two smaller groups is Ansaru, which has targeted foreign nationals specifically, and with particular reference to French nationals. You have these. But in May you also had a totally unknown group in Niger state, which is in the northern region. So you have to situate Boko Haram within a bigger problem, and that problem as part of the dynamics of interclass power play based on interests, economic and political interest of the elites in the country feeding into mass poverty, disillusionment, and anger that is quite palpable not only in the northeastern part of the country but across the country as a whole....

....You have had an infinitesimal few, few, getting stupendously rich while poverty has has stalked the land, while poverty has become the lived realities of the bulk, the immense majority of the population. The percentage of people living below the poverty line as at last year, from the less statistics, official statistics, is 69.5, roughly 70 percent. This is up from 54 percent barely ten years back. So you have poverty increasing while a few, a few people, a few people--. In Nigeria you have, I mean, show rooms of Ferrari, of Lamborghinis. You have a few people that--. And that's the problem, that is the problem with the country, inequality.



The full interview and transcript can be accessed here 

Statelessness = Invisibility

At least 750,000 people are stateless in West Africa, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which is calling for governments to do more to give or restore the nationality of stateless individuals, and improve national laws to prevent statelessness.

Many in the region are both stateless and refugees, said Emmanuelle Mitte, senior protection officer on statelessness with UNHCR in Dakar, but the overwhelming majority of stateless persons in West Africa are stateless within their own country, lacking proof of the criteria required to guarantee their nationality.

Statelessness can block people’s ability to access health care, education or any form of social security. In the case of children who are separated from their families during emergencies, the lack of official documentation makes it much harder to reunite them, says the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Lack of official identification documents can mean a child enters into marriage, the labour market, or is conscripted into the armed forces, before the legal age.

Statelessness can also render people void of protection from abuse. Denied the right to work or move, they risk moving into the invisible underclass, said UNHCR’s West Africa protection officer, Kavita Brahmbhatt, who gave the example of a group of stranded non-documented Sierra Leonean migrants living in the slums of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, selling charcoal as they were too poor to do anything else, and too scared to return home for fear of being punished. “They became a member of Monrovia’s underclass,” she said.

Fact Box

The 1954 Convention relating to the status of Stateless Persons aims to regulate their status and protect their human rights. The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness outlines tools to avoid and resolve stateless cases.

Statelessness not only stops people travelling across borders but restricts movement within countries such as Côte d’Ivoire or Mauritania, which are heavily check-pointed.

“Nationality is not just a document; it affects all of your rights as a citizen. Without a nationality you’re invisible, you don’t exist,” said Mitte. According to her, the 750,000 figure is “just the tip of the iceberg” - no studies have been undertaken to document the number officially. But UNHCR estimates at least 10 million people are stateless worldwide.


read more here

Comment on South African unions

The role of a union is to convert perceptions of individual injustice into collective action by promoting group cohesion.

 While unions are facing a decline on a global scale, in South Africa, however, those unions that are able to successfully connect wider social injustices to their members’ cause and mobilise people around this are increasing their membership numbers. Workers do not necessarily see their work and living environments in isolation, so any protest over wages can easily be further inflamed by issues outside the workplace. As a result, they are increasing their political influence.

In South Africa high unemployment, wage inequality, low education levels, low service delivery and social unrest has provided fertile ground for unions to blur the boundaries between workplace issues and social injustices.

In South Africa, an abundance of breakaway splinter unions such as the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) has revealed growing dissatisfaction among rank-and-file members with leaders who appear closer to the political elite than the concerns of the workers.

The close relationships between trade unions and political parties have shown that union leaders lose the focus on servicing their members’ needs. This dissatisfaction is more acute when the unions are institutional players in the establishment.  The metalworkers’ union Numsa is trying to escape this.

Slavery In Mauritania

Mauritania has the highest proportion of people in slavery in the world. According to one NGO in Mauritania, up to 20 percent of the Mauritanian population is enslaved.⁵ While not identical to the Global Slavery Index estimated of prevalence, these two figures, in the absence of more precise measurement, point to a growing consensus of high levels of enslavement in Mauritania.

Slavery in Mauritania primarily takes the form of chattel slavery, meaning that adults and children in slavery are the full property of their masters who exercise total ownership over them and their descendants. Slave status has been passed down through the generations from people originally captured during historical raids by the slave-owning groups.⁶

People in slavery may be bought and sold, rented out and given away as gifts. Slavery is prevalent in both rural and urban areas. It is reported that women are disproportionately affected by slavery; for example, they usually work within the domestic sphere, and a high level of control is exercised over their movements and social interactions. They are subject to sexual assault by their masters. Women’s roles include childcare and domestic chores, but they may also herd animals and farm, as men in slavery do.⁷

Beyond the context of private homes, it is reported that some boys, who have been sent to attend Koranic schools to become talibes (students), have been forced into begging. Although the scale of this problem is not known, it is thought to be quite significant; affecting local boys as well as boys trafficked into Mauritania from the surrounding regions.⁸

It is also reported that women have been subjected to forced marriage and sexual exploitation, both within Mauritania but also in the Middle East.⁹ Slaves are not permitted to have any possessions, as they are considered to be possessions themselves. As such they are denied inheritance rights and ownership of land and other resources. When an enslaved person marries, the dowry is taken by the ‘master’ and if they die their property can be claimed by the ‘master’.¹⁰

^{read more here}

South Sudan's Plight

As South Sudan’s malnutrition epidemic intensifies, seven major international aid agencies, all of which prioritise food security in South Sudanese villages, may have to shut down their projects due to severe funding gaps.

CARE International, a U.S.-based relief agency, naming South Sudan to be “the most pressing humanitarian crisis in Africa, stated that the United Nations’ most recent appeal for South Sudan is less than half funded.  Some 1.5 million South Sudanese residents are now estimated to be displaced within the country, thereby decreasing their access to reliable food sources and requiring them to share already-limited supplies.

“We will be staring into the abyss and failing to avert a famine if funds do not start arriving soon,” Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam, said. “This is a not a crisis caused by drought or flood. It is a political crisis turned violent. The people of South Sudan can only put their lives back together once the fighting ends.”

While solving the political problem at the root of South Sudan’s current violence is a significant priority, aid workers say the international community’s most dire concern should be for the nutritional needs of South Sudanese children.

Dr. Jenny Bell, a medical worker and expert on South Sudan with the University of Calgary in Canada, acknowledges that “the nation’s health situation wasn’t brilliant before December,” but warns that the civil conflict has “compounded” the country’s medical issues. South Sudan “already had the world’s highest maternal mortality rate, and it had been estimated that one in five South Sudanese children die before they reach age five,” she told IPS.

“But even though there had barely been enough food before, now there really won’t be enough, as internally displaced farmers were unable to grow crops due to the violence, and cannot do so now because South Sudan is well into its rainy season.”  she adds that despite the “amazing agricultural potential” of South Sudan, funding for this purpose has been weak.

Sandra Bulling, media coordinator for CARE International explained “We need to have photos of children starving and dying before the world reacts to such a disaster. This is what has worked for Somalia … you need these pictures to talk. For South Sudan we do all these press releases and calls to action, but as long as there is no big report with photos to show how bad the situation is, there is no response.”

Stateless

The other side of nationalism

At least 750,000 people are stateless in West Africa, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR),

According to the UNHCR estimates at least 10 million people are stateless worldwide. Lack of birth registration is the first step to statelessness for many children: some 230 million under-fives globally have never been registered, according to UNICEF.  “It’s how societies first recognize and acknowledge a child’s identity and existence,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, UNICEF deputy executive director. West Africa suffers very low rates of birth registration: just 4 percent of infants are registered in Liberia; 16 percent in Chad, and 24 percent in Guinea-Bissau, making them among the world’s worst 10 performers.  A significant proportion of West Africa’s three million double orphans (children with no living parent) are stateless, as are almost all of the region’s street children, known as talibés.

 The overwhelming majority of stateless persons in West Africa are stateless within their own country, lacking proof of the criteria required to guarantee their nationality.

Statelessness can block people’s ability to access health care, education or any form of social security. Lack of official identification documents can mean a child enters into marriage, the labour market, or is conscripted into the armed forces, before the legal age. Statelessness can also render people void of protection from abuse. Denied the right to work or move, they risk moving into the invisible underclass.  UNHCR’s West Africa protection officer, Kavita Brahmbhatt, gave the example of a group of stranded non-documented Sierra Leonean migrants living in the slums of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, selling charcoal as they were too poor to do anything else, and too scared to return home for fear of being punished. “They became a member of Monrovia’s underclass,” she said. Statelessness not only stops people travelling across borders but restricts movement within countries such as Côte d’Ivoire or Mauritania, which are heavily check-pointed. Statelessness usually occurs because people cannot provide the necessary documentation to prove their identity when state laws exist. But in some cases the laws are simply too weak to impose or do not sufficiently help protect citizens’ rights.

“Nationality is not just a document; it affects all of your rights as a citizen. Without a nationality you’re invisible, you don’t exist...many people living in transit camps are from Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, but have no papers. “You can’t send them to a country where they will have no status,”

From here

Quote of the Day

 Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian poet, playwright, Nobel Prize for literature winner and activist explained:

 "Those who unleashed Boko Haram on the nation are not poverty stricken. They are politicians .... desperate for power, intelligent enough or perceptive enough to recognise that the cocktail of politics and religious fundamentalism can only yield them dividends. They think they have nothing to lose. But the foot soldiers have been indoctrinated for years, from childhood. And they believe that their religion [Islam] is in danger ... But Islam is not in danger. It is the pervert followers who are being used and who use others and proclaim that they are fighting for Islam ....Look at the histories of the world: Boko Haram, if not contained and eradicated, will be found in the heart of Lagos before you know it.".

French Flex Military Muscle

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Saturday that about 3,000 soldiers will participate in an upcoming military operation in Africa. The action will begin this summer, in conjunction with five regional countries. Its objective is to fight terrorist groups, Le Drian said.

The majority of the troops will be stationed in Chad and Mali, with 1,250 and 1,000 soldiers, respectively. France also expects to activate its military bases in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. France also maintains nearly 2,000 soldiers in the Central African Republic, as part of Operation Sangaris, initiated in December 2013.

Immunity?

At this years annual meeting of the African Union, 54 African heads of state quietly voted to grant themselves and their senior officials immunity from prosecution for genocide and crimes against humanity at the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.

Amnesty International blasted the decision as “a backward step in the fight against impunity and a betrayal of victims of serious violations of human rights.”

 Between 1960 and 2004, sub-Saharan Africa witnessed 26 wars, nearly 200 attempted coups, 80 violent or unconstitutional changes of government, half of all presidents overthrown, 25 heads of government killed. Are today’s leaders so clean they can grant themselves immunity from prosecution? Al-Bashir, the genocidalist Sudanese president, who still reigns after 25 years. Mugabe, still a menace to Zimbabweans after 34. Kenya’s Kenyatta, wanted by the International Criminal Court. The leaders of the world’s newest state, South Sudan, fomenting ethnic violence. The men responsible for the conflicts in Congo, Nigeria, Mali, Central African Republic, Somalia. The men who unforgivably denied the reality of HIV and AIDS.

Such men are, no doubt, righteously outraged that the International Criminal Court feels more like the African Criminal Court, that the likes of George W. Bush and Tony Blair are forever immune from punishment for their palpable crimes. But should Africa’s leaders then seek their own immunity?

From here 

Fact of the Day

A half-dozen African cities have some of the highest costs of living worldwide for expatriots.

Luanda, Angola topped the list. N’Djamena, Chad, is second in the list, and other African cities that are heavy on a foreigner’s pocket include Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libreville, Gabon and Lagos, Nigeria. All are in the top 25 most expensive expat cities out of the 211 cities researched. 

Carbon Offsetting: Who Wins? Who Loses?

World Bank and UN REDD programme behind genocidal land grabs

Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 500 million acres of land in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean was acquired or negotiated under deals brokered on behalf of foreign governments or transnational corporations.
Many such deals are geared toward growing crops or biofuels for export to richer, developed countries – with the consequence that small-holder farmers are displaced from their land and lose their livelihood while local communities go hungry.
The concentration of ownership of the world's farmland in the hands of powerful investors and corporations is rapidly accelerating, driven by resource scarcity and, thus, rising prices. According to a new report by the US land rights organisation Grain: "The powerful demands of food and energy industries are shifting farmland and water away from direct local food production to the production of commodities for industrial processing."
Less known factors, however, include 'conservation' and 'carbon offsetting.'

A damning new report from the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) based in Washington DC warns that the UN and World Bank approach to REDD is paving the way for large-scale "carbon grabs" by foreign governments and investors, putting at risk the land rights, livelihoods and lives of indigenous communities.
The report surveyed 23 low and middle income countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, covering 66 percent of the developing world's forests, concluding that REDD had not established laws or mechanisms by which indigenous peoples and local communities could profit from the carbon in the forests they inhabited.
"Their rights to their forests may be few and far between, but their rights to the carbon in the forests are non-existent", said Arvind Khare, RRI executive director.
At the United Nations climate negotiations in Warsaw in November 2013, delegates reached an agreement that would allow REDD to move forward which, however, excluded questions around who should control and benefit from the new carbon value found in standing forests.
Instead, the World Bank Carbon Fund's approach to defining carbon rights has been widely criticised by civil society groups for creating conflict between new property rights to carbon, and existing statutory and customarily held rights of local communities. The lack of clear safeguards and measures opens up an unprecedented opportunity for corporate and government land grabbing.

Read more here and specifically about Kenya's experiences of land grab.

"No Better Future For Workers Than Solidarity And Unity"

Victory for sugar workers at Swaziland's Tambankulu Estates but Illovo refuses to settle!

Note from the editors: Illovo is the largest sugar plantation owner in Africa, with plantations in six African countries. The company is at the centre of numerous land conflicts.

Last week we asked you to support the strikes by Swaziland's Agricultural & Plantation Workers' Union (SAPWU) at two major subsidiaries of South African sugar TNCs. Thousands of you responded, and the union won its demands at Tambankulu Estates - a significant victory for rural workers in the country. But management at Illovo's Ubombo is refusing to concede similar demands.

South African-based Illovo, Africa's largest sugar company which boasts of being "one of the world's lowest cost sugar producers", is 51% owned by the UK's Associated British Foods. In Swaziland they are in partnership with the despotic King Mswati III, who has banned political parties and de-registered the country's national trade union center.

Southern Africa's impoverished sugar workers have been rising up for improved living and working conditions. In late May/early June this year, an 11-day strike by the South African Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) and two other unions won important wage and non-wage improvements from the country's sugar employers, including Illovo.

The Swazi sugar strike actions have now spread to another company, the citrus and sugar producer United Plantations, which supplies cane to Ubombo/Ilovo. SAPWU is leading the fight against rural poverty in Swaziland.

Illovo, whose Swazi plantation and refining operations are many times greater than Tambankulu Estates, is a hugely profitable company which can at least meet the terms negotiated by the union at a major competitor.

From here

UPDATE:

Settlement in Swazi sugar strike brings important gains for workers The three-week strike by the Swaziland Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (SAPWU) has ended with a settlement bringing workers a 10% wage increase and satisfying the union's non-wage demands, including improved benefits for seasonal workers. Over the course of the strike involving some 3,000 workers, union members stood up to intimidation by military and security forces and legal action by the company intended to hamper picketing. Ubombo Sugar, the Swazi subsidiary of South African sugar giant Illovo, is 40% owned by Swaziland's despotic monarch Mswati III. Illovo in turn is 51% controlled by the UK's Associated British Foods (ABF). The union's general secretary Archie Sayed has written that "The workers of Ubombo send their gratitude to all who contributed to their struggle and appreciate the spirit of solidarity which has also come as a lesson to them that there no better future for the workers as solidarity and unity."

from here

Refugees In Need Of More Food Aid

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have launched an urgent appeal to address a funding shortfall that has already resulted in food ration cuts for a third of all African refugees. As of mid-June, nearly 800,000 refugees in 22 African countries have seen their monthly food allocations reduced, most of them by more than half.

WFP is appealing for US$186 million to maintain its food assistance to refugees in Africa through the end of the year, while UNHCR is asking for $39 million to fund nutritional support and food security activities to refugees in the affected countries. A joint report by WFP and UNHCR released last week warns that failure to prevent continued ration cuts will lead to high levels of malnutrition, particularly among children and the most vulnerable.

Worst hit have been refugees in Chad, Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan where a total of nearly half a million refugees are experiencing ration cuts of 50 to 60 percent.

The funding shortfall is not the result of shrinking budgets for either WFP or UNHCR, but a substantial increase in the need for food assistance generated by an unprecedented number of refugee emergencies in 2014. “The amount of large-scale, simultaneous emergencies has never been so high to the best of my memory,” said Paul Spiegel, UNHCR’s deputy director of programme support and management, speaking to IRIN from Geneva.

Out of a global figure of 11.7 million refugees under UNHCR’s protection at the end of 2013, the highest number since 2001, 3.3 million live in Africa.

“There has also been a lot of earmarking [by donors] for certain situations, particularly the Syrian situation,” he added. “Some situations, particularly CAR, have been severely under-funded so there is an equity issue here that needs to be dealt with. Protracted refugee situations have also not had the same level of funding.”

Only about a quarter of those affected by the ration cuts are new arrivals, according to Spiegel. The rest are long-term refugees who have been unable to wean themselves off food aid, usually because they are confined to remote camps where there are little or no possibilities for them to generate an income.


read more here

Facts of the Day - Poverty

More sub-Saharan Africans are living in extreme poverty now than in 1990, said a major United Nations report, warning the region will miss most of its development goals. 

The number of people living in extreme poverty rose from 290 million in 1990 to 414 million in 2010. 

The number of undernourished children increased from an estimated 27 million in 1990 to 32 million in 2012.

The number of stunted children increase from 44 million to 58 million between 1990 and 2012. 

Quote of the Day - Kenya "democracy"

"Like they have done over the past 50 years, our ruling elite is rather determined to hype ethnic differences as a cover for its thieving ways. It is creating tribal animosity and fear to circumvent real and meaningful discussion over the causes of our penury, ...They do not want us to see the systems of oppression of privilege and oppression that have been maintained since colonial times, to understand how these constantly work to extract dignity, rights and resources from the majority and bestow them upon a minority at the top." - Patrick Gathara 

Aid Subsidising Land-Grabs

"Life was good because the land was the land of our ancestors. The village was along the riverside, where you could get drinking water, go fishing and plant mango, banana and papaya. The temperature there was good and we could feed ourselves."

This is how Mr O remembers the home he shared with his family in the Gambella region of Ethiopia. The fertile land had been farmed for generations, relatively safe from wars, revolutions and famines. Then, one day, near the end of 2011, everything changed. Ethiopian troops arrived at the village and ordered everyone to leave. The harvest was ripe, but there was no time to gather it. When Mr O showed defiance, he says, he was jailed, beaten and tortured. Women were raped and some of his neighbours murdered during the forced relocation.  Tens of thousands of people in Ethiopia have been moved against their will to purpose-built communes that have inadequate food and lack health and education facilities, according to human rights watchdogs, to make way for commercial agriculture. With Orwellian clinicalness, the Ethiopian government calls this programme "villagisation". The  villagers, including Mr O and his family, found themselves in a new location in Gambella. He says there was no food and water, no farmland, no schools and no healthcare facility. Jobs, and hope, were scarce.

This mass purge was part bankrolled, it is claimed, by the UK. Ethiopia is one of the biggest recipients of UK development aid, receiving around £300m a year.  Of all the donors to Ethiopia, the British government has been sending the most funds to the villagisation programme.  British aid is provided on condition that the recipient government is not "in significant violation of human rights". It asserted that the UK has failed to put in place any sufficient process to assess Ethiopia's compliance with the conditions and has refused to make its assessment public, in breach of its stated policy. "The British government is supporting a dictatorship in Ethiopia," says Mr O who  offered to meet British officials but they decided his refugee camp was too dangerous. He offered to meet them in a major city, but still they refused. Human Rights Watch explained, "While they have conducted several 'on the ground' assessments in Gambella to ascertain the extent of the abuses, they have refused to visit the refugee camps where many of the victims are housed. The camps are safe, easy to access, and the victims of this abusive programme are eager to speak with DfID, and yet DfID and other donors have refused to speak with them, raising the suspicion that they aren't interested in hearing about abuses that have been facilitated with their funding."

Ethiopia is hailed by pundits as an "African lion" because of stellar economic growth and a burgeoning middle class. One study found it is creating millionaires at a faster rate than any other country on the continent. Construction is booming in the capital, Addis Ababa, home of the Chinese-built African Union headquarters. Yet the national parliament has only one opposition MP. Last month the government was criticised for violently crushing student demonstrations. Ethiopia is also regarded as one of the most repressive media environments in the world. Numerous journalists are in prison or have gone into exile, while independent media outlets are regularly closed down.

Gambella, which is the size of Belgium, has a population of more than 300,000, mainly indigenous Anuak and Nuer. Its fertile soil has attracted foreign and domestic investors who have leased large tracts of land at favourable prices. The three-year villagisation programme in Gambella is now complete. A 2012 investigation by Human Rights Watch, entitled Waiting Here for Death, highlighted the plight of thousands like Mr O robbed of their ancestral lands, wiping out their livelihoods.

 Human Rights Watch. Felix Horne, its Ethiopia and Eritrea researcher, says: "Given that aid is fungible, DfID does not have any mechanism to determine how their well-meaning support to local government officials is being used in Ethiopia. They have no idea how their money is being spent. And when they are provided with evidence of how that money is in fact being used, they conduct seriously flawed assessments to dismiss the allegations, and it's business as usual."

From here

Malawi - 50 years of independence

 Malawi gained its independence from Britain on July 6, 50 years ago. Malawi still relies on donor aid to finance about 40 percent of its budget.

 Eighty-two-year-old Harry Maseko remembers vividly how Malawi gained its independence
 "To tell you the truth, I cannot point out the benefit of being independent for 50 years, with the exception of 20 years ago, when we were able to fight for and won the freedom of expression, which was suppressed by Banda's autocratic rule. But freedom without food on the table is nothing." (our emphasis)

Africa, Climate Change and Migration

Climate crisis is forcing people to migrate, leave their homes and occupation. Climate change threatens to cause one of the biggest refugee crises of all time and climate change experts have warned that up to 200 million people would be forced to abandon their homes over the course of the next century. It's being observed in Africa. Migration as a result of climate change is not isolated to the southern parts of Africa. The Horn of Africa and Sahel regions have experienced among the worst climate change induced famines, forcing people to seek refuge in other countries. Millions have been affected.

The Zimbabwean reported on July 2, 2014 :

“Makuleke village is a melting pot for illegal migrants from Zimbabwe and Mozambique searching for greener pastures in their wealthy southern neighbor. It is located on South Africa 's eastern border area with Mozambique on the outskirts of the Kruger National Park.

Timothy Murombedzi, 30, from Buhera district in Zimbabwe , is one of many people living in South Africa illegally. “I was a farmer in Zimbabwe but the climate conditions have become unpredictable. It is now difficult to have a good rain-fed cropping season. I used to have more than 20 head of cattle but lost 15 beasts due to drought. I came here in 2010 and am doing menial jobs on the local farms. It is better than watching my cattle dying back home. Yes some people are running away from Mugabe's iron-fist rule but I am not one of those people. I am running away from drought and hunger,” Murombedzi said.

Murombedzi is one of the millions of climate change refugees from Zimbabwe searching for sustenance in various countries in and outside Africa . Although there are many reasons that force people to migrate, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is increasingly recognising that environmental degradation and climate change are among major drivers in both forced and voluntary migration.

The accepted line of argument has been that most of the migrants in South Africa are political and economic refugees, the truth however is that some are climate change refugees. And some people are migrating from as far as the Sahel Region and Horn of Africa in search of jobs. Crops are failing, livestock is dying and clean water is becoming scarce, forcing many people to abandon their traditional homes.

USA climate change activist, journalist and author, Ross Gelbspan warned that: ‘…. as we experience more crop failures, water shortages, and uncontrolled migrations by people whose lands become less able to support them, governments will become more totalitarian in their efforts to keep order in the face chaos. So it's really the political and economic aspects that I've been thinking about.'

Zimbabwean climate change journalist based in South Africa , Fidelis Zvomuya, says farmers in Zimbabwe no longer employ as many workers as before due to persistent drought. This forces people to cross borders in search of employment in neighboring countries. The lack of food in areas like Matabeleland provinces in Zimbabwe where droughts are now an annual event is forcing people to cross to South Africa for jobs.

An expert on climate change migration, Mukundi Mutasa, recently opined that discussing migration was particularly important to southern Africa , a region that had suffered a number of climate-induced disasters in recent history. These include the flooding in the Zambezi Valley in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and in the Namibia 's Caprivi region, and droughts across the entire region. Mutasa warned that the mass movements have resulted in conflict among people as they fight over resources. Conflicts as a result of climate change migration have been evident in some parts of Zimbabwe where people are moving in large numbers to regions which are still receiving good rainfall. ‘And the xenophobic attacks in South Africa in the recent years are just a dress rehearsal of impending fights over resources', he warned.

Experts say poverty, failing ecosystems, vulnerability to natural hazards and gradual environmental changes have always been linked to migration. The effects of warming and drying in some regions will reduce agricultural potential and undermine the provision of clean water and availability of fertile soil. The increase in extreme weather events such as heavy rains and resulting flash or river floods in tropical regions will affect even more people and generate mass displacement.  A sea-level rise will permanently destroy extensive and highly productive low-lying coastal areas that are home to millions of people who will have to relocate permanently. Its main impacts are escalating humanitarian crises, rapid urbanization and associated slum growth, and stalled development.

From the Countercurrents website here