http://www.redpepper.org.uk/dont-feed-the-world/
Don’t feed the world? How food aid can do more harm than good
Rasna Warah
January 2012
While the media again reports 'famine in the horn of Africa' caused by
'drought', Rasna Warah looks at the real reasons why people are going
hungry
Every year since the mid-1980s, when the late Mohammed Amin filmed the
famine in Ethiopia, the UN and humanitarian aid agencies have
announced a ‘historic disaster’ in some part of the world. In 2004, it
was the Indian Ocean tsunami that wreaked havoc in parts of Indonesia,
Sri Lanka, Thailand and India. In more recent years, it has been the
conflict in Darfur in Sudan that displaced millions of people, the
earthquake in Haiti, the floods in Pakistan – and now the famine in
Somalia.
There is a familiar script that accompanies each of these humanitarian
crises. Each disaster is described as ‘historic’. Fundraising appeals
are supported by heart-wrenching images of displaced or starving women
and children. The international community, led by the UN, descends on
the disaster area, cameramen in tow, to witness the humanitarian
catastrophe first-hand. This is often followed by fundraising concerts
and live appearances by celebrities at camps for displaced people.
The problem is that the images and stories that we see or read in the
international media are not as impartial as we would like to believe.
More often than not, they are told by aid agency staff on the ground.
Journalists rely almost exclusively on an aid agency version of the
disaster. The narrative becomes both predictable and one-sided.
Dutch journalist Linda Polman believes that the ‘unhealthy’
relationship between journalists and aid agencies does not allow for
independent, objective reporting and is often slanted in favour of the
agency doing the ‘reporting’. Media-savvy aid workers fully exploit
the eagerness with which journalists accept their version of a
disaster or crisis. For their part, says Polman, journalists ‘accept
uncritically the humanitarian agencies' claims to neutrality,
elevating the trustworthiness and expertise of aid workers above
journalistic scepticism.’ There is almost no attempt on the part of
news organisations to independently verify the facts and figures
disseminated by aid agencies – which, as I discovered when I worked
with a UN agency, are sometimes inflated or based on erroneous data.
Humanitarian crisis or fundraising opportunity?
Despite the usual acceptance of aid agencies’ figures, an increasing
number of sceptics are beginning to wonder whether the famine declared
in Somalia is as big as they would have us believe, or whether UN
agencies and international humanitarian aid organisations have
prioritised fundraising over accuracy.
The temptation to exaggerate the extent of a crisis in order to raise
more funding is always present, says Ahmed Jama, a Somali agricultural
economist based in Nairobi. Jama believes that some parts of Somalia
that have been declared as suffering from famine, such as the fertile
lower Shabelle region, may actually be food secure, and that the
people suffering there may not be locals but those who migrated to the
region from drought-prone parts of the country. He says that it is in
the interest of UN and other aid agencies to show a worst-case
scenario because this keeps the donor funds flowing.
The UN uses a scale developed by the Food and Agricultural
Organisation-managed Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit to
determine levels of food insecurity. This ranges from ‘generally food
secure’ to ‘famine/humanitarian catastrophe’.
The unit’s estimates for the number of Somali people ‘in crisis’ in
the period August–September 2011 indicate that less than half a
million people – not the four million cited by the press – were
experiencing famine. About 3.5 million people were experiencing some
form of food insecurity but they were not dying of starvation as
widely reported. And some of the food insecurity was related to
inflation and rising food prices, not necessarily to drought.
Since 1995, the European Commission (EC) has been providing millions
of euros for rural development and food security projects in Somalia.
Yet every year Somalia continues to receive food aid.
In fact, food aid has become a permanent state of affairs in the
country since the civil war in 1991. ‘Clearly there is a mismatch
between the resources made available by the EC to UN agencies and the
dismal picture emerging from what are generally considered the most
agriculturally productive regions of Somalia,’ says Jama. ‘How is it
possible that the EC investment in agriculture could not avert a
famine in those regions?’
Does food aid help?
George-Marc André, the European Union representative to Somalia,
cautiously admits that the EC is concerned that its efforts in Somalia
are being hampered by UN agencies flooding the capital Mogadishu with
food aid. In an environment where free food is readily available, he
explains, farmers do not get value for their produce. Delivering food
aid during the harvest season further distorts the food market. André
says that UN agencies such as the World Food Programme could actually
have ‘slowed down’ Somalia’s recovery by focusing exclusively on food
aid, instead of supporting local farmers and markets.
Given that most of the food aid comes from the US and other countries
outside Somalia, there is also concern that declarations of famine do
more to help farmers elsewhere rather than supporting local producers.
The food aid industry allows countries such as the US to offload food
surpluses to poor countries. This distorts local markets and disrupts
local food production. In other words, food aid destroys local
economies, especially when it is provided over long periods of time,
as in Somalia.
What is not mentioned in the appeals for funding is that a lot of the
funds are used to pay off officials and militia to allow aid convoys
to pass. In Somalia, the ‘entrance fee’ charged by warlords has in the
past amounted to as much as 80 per cent of the value of the aid.
Also suppressed are reports about the regular diversion or theft of
food aid, which is rampant in Somalia. In March 2010, for instance,
the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia reported that as much as half of
food aid was stolen or diverted by corrupt contractors, local
businessmen, local NGOs and even by UN employees. That report led the
US to withdraw funding from the World Food Programme, although it now
says it is carefully monitoring food aid and that very little is being
diverted. However, in August this year, the Associated Press reported
that the sale of food aid in Mogadishu’s markets is still quite common
and often occurs with the full knowledge of UN personnel on the
ground.
Like Somalia, Haiti offers a perfect example of how aid can destroy a
country. This island in the Caribbean has received so much foreign aid
over the years that it has been described as ‘a poster child for the
inadequacies of foreign aid’ because of its extremely poor development
record and widespread poverty. Every few years, a new disaster strikes
Haiti and the world rallies around through massive fundraising
campaigns. But Haiti, like its distant cousin Somalia, continues to
remain poor, under-developed and the site of much misery – ideal
ingredients for yet another fundraising campaign.
Rasna Warah, a columnist with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, is the
author of the recently published book Red Soil and Roasted Maize:
Selected essays and articles on contemporary Kenya
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Received on Tue Jan 03 2012 - 09:45:49 EST
