Archie@ActionAid

This week I was in Canberra for a couple of days attending a workshop that was hosted by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) which was a consultation to provide thoughts on the establishment of the Australian International Food Security Centre (AIFSC) that was announced at the CHOGM Conference in Perth 2011. Whilst the AIFSC has a global remit initially much of the research will be conducted in Africa which is welcomed!

I was attending the workshop, along with OXFAM, representing the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) which is the umbrella organisation for Australian NGOs working on international development. Others attending included the science community, AusAID, academics, representatives of government agricultural departments, and farmers organisations from Australia.

It was an exciting couple of days which focused on ideas for what/how/where the AIFSC will work and importantly what partnerships the centre will have as partnerships with African institutions and Africans are imperative to the centre’s success.

The highlights for me concerned the emerging focus of the centre which appears to be:

1. Building the resilience of East African smallholder farmers to enable them to be better prepared to deal with drought and other hardships that will be exacerbated by climate change

2. The recognition that smallholders are critical to the success of the program. There is still some way to go to ensure that smallholders, particularly women, are involved in the oversight of the centre’s work in Africa, are consulted in research design, consulted through the process and involved in the preparation of research findings but we have a good start.

3. The recognition that Australia can’t do everything everywhere with limited resources at its disposal so there is a need to focus. What this focus might be led to a lively discussion on whether the nation state is the focus or whether there should be a focus on agro-ecological zones.

Thanks to those who got in touch through this blog, twitter, and email with some of the big issues that you were interested in. Your feedback largely focused on how Australian scientists can enable their African counterparts to build their capacity and how Australian farmers can learn from African farmers (particularly smallholders). The need for Australian scientists to work with their African counterparts to build capacity came through very strongly and this should be a feature of the centre as it is of ACIAR’s work. I did raise the issue that African smallholders are among the most resilient farmers on the planet and there is much to be learned from them and we should be looking at a two way exchange. There are various ideas on how this will work but this is in Australia’s interest and I’m confident that this will stay on the table.

From here the ACIAR team will take the consultation to Africa and it will be interesting to track their progress and see how the AIFSC takes shape. We at ActionAid are certainly keen to stay in the centre of the debate.

Next week I’m attending a workshop concerning the establishment of the Australian International Food Security Centre (AIFSC) which is a welcome initiative from the government. I should thank our friends at the Australian Council For International Development (ACFID) for the invitation to represent Australian NGOs at this event.

The establishment of the centre was announced by the Prime Minister at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, to assist developing countries maximise the benefits and opportunities of agricultural productivity, through research, to achieve food and nutritional security. The Australian Government has committed funding of $36 million over four years for the Centre’s activities.

Whilst the AIFSC will have a broad international focus, particular emphasis will be given to Africa, where the highest proportion of the world’s poor are found. The formation of the centre is a terrific initiative and one which we applaud.

The AIFSC will be based at the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in Canberra and with regional hubs, initially in Africa. An international conference on African food security will be held in the second quarter of 2012 under the auspices of the Centre, and this will be establish the foundations of the partnerships that will drive the Centre.

There are a couple of big questions that I’m looking forward to discussing in the workshop which include:

1. How will the AIFSC’s research prioritise ending poverty, ending hunger and promoting women’s rights?

2. How will the AIFSC meet the needs of poor and excluded people, particularly women?

Please let me know if there are other issues you feel should be on the table and I’ll report back to you at the end of next week on where this ends up.

This morning Gemma Jones has written an article in the Daily Telegraph that is highly critical of the Australian Governments spend on climate change as a component of its international development assistance. She questions why the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) has spent $1.5 million teaching foreign countries about climate change, including spending on expos and DVDs.

Climate change is one of the major constraints to ending poverty, inequality and enabling people to enjoy their human rights. Over half a billion additional people in the tropics – 526 million people – could be at risk of hunger because of climate change by 2050, according to recent estimates by the Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Rich countries such as Australia bear the overwhelming responsibility for the devastating impact that climate change is having on food production in poor countries. And their current actions are making things worse. A binding deal to limit global warming is nowhere in sight. Promised ‘fast start’ funding to cope with climate change is still only a trickle and aid funds for agriculture are still woefully inadequate, badly undermining poor countries’ chances of taking adequate steps to increase food production in time.

Projections of the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture by 2050 are getting more acute by the year. Climate change is already having dramatic consequences for agriculture and international food security. Scientists estimate that global production of key staples such as wheat and corn fell by 3.8 per cent and 5.5 per cent, respectively, over the last three decades as a result of climate change.

Increasing temperatures, leading to lower and erratic rainfall, warming and rising sea levels, melting glaciers, more frequent storms, typhoons, hurricanes and wildfires, plus droughts and run-away land degradation, are already a reality. Periodic surveys by ActionAid in 28 countries over 2011 indicate that climate impacts are disrupting farming practices in all countries surveyed.

Most experts believe that thanks to a deadlock in international negotiations over emissions cuts, the window to limit temperature increases to 2ºC has already closed. If leaders fail to implement binding emissions targets soon, the world could be on track to warm up by 4–5ºC, with disastrous consequences for farmers and agriculture. Alarmingly, the chief economist at the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, says that global temperatures have not been 3ºC higher than today for about 3 million years.

With such alarming climate scenarios becoming starker by the day, it is little wonder that the World Bank estimates that developing countries will need US$75–$100 billion per year to mitigate and adapt their economies, natural resources and agricultural systems to rapidly intensifying climate change.

Does the 1.5 million spent by the Australian Government on enabling developing countries to educate themselves about the impact of climate change still seem a big deal?

The first ActionAid Australia Strategy, Changing the Rules, has recently been completed and I thought I’d give a taste of where we are heading over the next six years.

ActionAid Australia, as a member of ActionAid International, supports change makers in developing countries to fight injustice and poverty. Guided by our theory of change, that puts women’s rights at the heart of our work, and cognisant of the increasing number of shocks expected in the years ahead, our mission objectives over this strategy period are focussed on women’s rights where they are most under stress.

We have committed ourselves to the primary objective of helping people to stand up, claim their human rights and actively challenge the prevailing growth-driven development model based on an unjust global economic and political system.

We have now commited ourselves to three core mission objectives:

1. Enabling poor and excluded people, particularly women, to secure access to, and control over, the productive resources, and decision making processes essential to improving their livelihoods.

2. Protecting women’s rights by preventing and responding to gender-based violence against women during disasters and conflicts.

3. Tapping  into positive values that encourage Australians to challenge the status quo and critically evaluate how their lives and choices affect people living in poverty.

The strategy will be up on our website early in 2012 when we have it nicely formatted etc etc.

Until then I want to thank everyone for all of their support during 2011 which we really appreciate.

I’ll be in touch early in 2012 with more news on our exciting new direction but until then I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a happy and healthy 2012.

We received some great news recently that Deutsche Bank in Australia has selected ActionAid Australia as one of its two “Charities of the Year” for 2012. We are going to be working with Deutsche Bank in Koh Sla Commune in Kampot Province and I was privileged to visit this former Khmer Rouge area in July this year.

The people of Koh Sla have multiple challenges they are bravely struggling with which include ensuring children have access to free, high quality education and food insecurity. The food security and general livelihoods challenges are amplified by the actions of other stakeholders in the commune.

For example in 2008-2009 the government gave 9000 hectares of public land, which was being used for agriculture by the community, to a private company, World Tristar Entertainment, a subsidiary company of the Songuon Group under the economic concessions legislation. This company plans to use the land for commercial farming to increase food exports and is currently looking for foreign investors to partner with them in this venture. No compensation was provided to the local people for their loss of their livelihoods.

The people affected by the land grabbing have discussed the situation with the commune leader with no initial results. They also met with the company which led to a fight and the company guards shooting a number of the villagers with a number of people wounded but no one killed. No charges have been laid.

In addition the company has reportedly used chemicals to clear the vegetation which affected fruit/ pepper trees/local water supply and led to the hospitalisation of 95 people with acute vomiting and diarrhoea. The villagers have observed the companies moving large quantities of logs out of the area. Community leaders have been threatened with kidnapping and the community has had to mobilise large groups of people to protect their leaders.

In later discussions between the community and the commune chief he recognised that the land is public land and belongs to the community although this hasn’t been recognised by the district chief or the Provincial Governors Office. As a result of this negotiation the company has agreed that 3000 hectares belongs to the community although it maintains it owns 4200 hectares of the land A further 1800 hectares remains in dispute and this is illustrated in the photo attached to this post.

The community remains locked in dispute with the company and one of their big challenges is for the entire community to join the struggle as a number of women felt it was only the people directly affected by the land grab who were engaging in the struggle. There is also a need for the community to become more familiar with the Kampot Five Year Development Plan and government legislation which is an ongoing initiative that ActionAid and our local partner, CWDCC, are working on. The struggle continues.

I’ve been offline these past couple of months as we completed the ActionAid Australia Strategy for 2012-2017 “Changing The Rules” and completed our preparation for the review of our accreditation with the Australian Government. It seemed right to get back on here to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women as eliminating violence against women is one of our big priorities.

Recently one of my colleagues alerted me to the extreme cultural practice of ‘Beading’ in northern Kenya which is an appalling violation of rights for many young girls aged as young as 6 years old and I felt compelled to post her story here.

It’s been reported that the practice involves a young man from the community, and often a relative, who approaches a male member of a family, often a younger brother, who agrees to provide his young sister for courtship or as an early marriage promise, often for a kilo of sugar and a red beaded necklace.

In some instances the girl’s mother, then builds a makeshift shelter next to the family compound where the young man unofficially ‘courts’ her in what is called a ‘small marriage’, but effectively violates her sexually on a daily basis until she is pregnant.  The marriage is not recognized by the community.

The young man continually brings more and more beaded necklaces which the young girl wears around her neck as the necklaces reflect  some value within the community. The young girl has no choice and no voice, and as a result of a pregnancy, she is either taken to the nearby bushes by a group of local women, often with her own mother, and they attempt to force a miscarriage by stamping on her stomach.

If this is successful, the young girl then returns to the same situation and the scenario is repeated if she becomes pregnant again. In many instances the young girl must ‘kill’ her own baby if the forced miscarriage is unsuccessful or if she is able to hide the pregnancy and then delivers the baby. The illegitimate baby is either left to the wild animals or given a concoction of tobacco that is forced into the baby’s mouth, where it subsequently dies. Alternatively, other local tribes have been known to take the baby and adopt it as their own.

At the same time that this practice takes place, the young girl is supposed to attract an official suitor who will marry her and produce a dowry. Often the only option is for her to be married off to a much older man, and she can often become a domestic and sexual ‘slave’ to him. Many girls are completely traumatised by the situation and many have been reported to commit suicide.  

This practice does not appear to be widely known outside of the community.  There is much to be done in response to this massive rights violation and work is ongoing to see if a Rescue Centre  that could provide birthing facilities, trauma counselling, and life skills and small business training to enable the young women to be self sufficient and support their child can be established .

At the same time its essential that the community is sensitised to the violation of rights and consequences for the young girls.  At a broader scale the young girls need to have their voice heard and be protected from these barbaric daily human rights violations.  There is a long way to go with this struggle………………

I’ve been visiting the drought affected areas of northern Kenya this week where there are numerous stories of hardship and courage. The strength and resilience of the Kenyan people shines through the hardship like a beacon.

Just outside the town of Isiolo I visited a town where I met Mrs Kalo Roba who told me her story. Mama Roba used to be a pastoralist like many others in the north and she was very successful with her livestock. She had 160 goats and 7 donkeys which made her a wealthy woman until cattle raiders stole all of her livestock and with her husband she moved into the Isiolo area and started to learn how to farm.

She was allocated a small plot of land by the elders of the tribe and is trying to farm despite the lack of water in the area. The March rains failed and the whole community is hoping and praying that the October-November rains arrive. Mama Roba is farming maize, beans, cow pea and cassava although it is increasingly difficult to the lack of water. The community is building structures or bunds to capture the expected rain water as it runs down the slope in a couple of months. Mama Roba has dug approx 200 holes roughly 1 metre deep and ½ metre wide where she has planted her seeds and added manure in the parched earth. Now she sits and waits for the rains.

The situation in the village is made even harder by the ongoing ethnic tension between the Samburu and Turkana which often explodes and the night before my visit seven people were killed in a livestock raid that was allegedly carried out by members of the Samburu tribe. These guys are well armed as small arms move freely in the region near Somalia and 50 bucks buys you an AK47 in the Isiolo Market which makes the raids violent and lethal.

The community is doing its best to resolve the conflict and has established peace committees which contain men and women from both tribes which meet weekly and provide a forum for dialogue. There is also a monthly dialogue between the tribal elders who discuss how they can the violence.

I’m proud of the contribution that we’re making in collaboration with ActionAid Kenya with the mobilisation of a Protection Advisor from Australia who is in the region for a month to assess the risk that the violence presents to the community and how women in particular can develop strategies to prevent and respond to the violence to enable themselves to protect themselves.

Amidst this cocktail of violence and drought the people get on with their lives with support from ActionAid. In the middle of it all Mama Roba begins another day, working hard and hoping for rain.

(Yesterday ABC’s The Drum published a piece I wrote on the East Africa Famine which led to a robust debate on their website. I thought it would be useful to reproduce the piece here)

The famine in Somalia never should have happened. This is the first famine of the 21st century and it is occurring while we are producing enough food to feed the world twice over.

The problem isn’t simply hopeless governments or failed rains; rather, the world’s food system is broken.

This is a tragedy that could have been prevented. The way the world currently responds to these problems is by waiting for situations to reach emergency levels then scrambling together a response. But humanitarian aid alone will never end hunger.

Instead of investing in the people that grow our food, the international community waits until it is too late. Shipping in food to avoid starvation becomes necessary, but spending that money smarter and earlier would have saved not only countless lives but a lot of money as well.

Last year, the UN called for a fraction of the funding that’s required now to avert the exact crisis we see rolling out on our TV screens right now. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), for every dollar we invest in agriculture this year, we save $10 the next year in humanitarian relief.

In Africa 80 per cent of the continent’s food is grown by farmers on small plots of land. Most of them are women. If we are serious about long-term solutions to hunger, these are the farmers we need to support. The FAO estimates that if female small holder farmers had the same access to resources as their male counterparts they could increase agricultural yields by up to 12 per cent, lifting up to 150 million people out of hunger.

There are more reasons that almost a billion people have been allowed to go hungry in the world.

The world’s water tables are being depleted and cannot be replaced. Saudi Arabians emptied their aquifers growing wheat and can longer feed themselves. They are now purchasing land in developing countries to grow their own food supply. Meanwhile Australia is gambling with its aquifers by blowing up our underground with reckless fracking. 

Demand for biofuels, particularly from European legislated targets and subsidies in the US, is taking fertile land away from growing food and is turning it into fuel.

Up to 50 per cent of food is lost from farm to fork in storage, transport and waste. This is particularly felt in cities, far from the food production, where most of the world’s growing population live.

Investment in agriculture has five times the effect on poverty as economic development. In Kenya some communities have shown remarkable resilience, with some agricultural training and community building projects, some villages have been able to continue growing food during the periods of failed rains.

Policy changes and long term planning can make an enormous difference. For example, Malawi invested in their small holder farmers and went from having 4.5 million people dependent on food aid in 2004 to less than 150,000 in 2009.

Many of us in Australia remember previous famines in Somalia and Ethiopia. Yet our well-meaning responses are not enough and haven’t prevented such a devastating crisis from happening again. The international community keeps relying on the same broken food system and crosses its collective fingers hoping that the same disaster doesn’t happen again.

Hunger is a man-made problem that can be solved. If they choose to, our leaders have the ability to change the global food system and  eradicate hunger. They need to move and move quickly to make this the last famine the world ever experiences.