For this report, researchers interviewed 200 farmers in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa about their experiences of changes in climate. They found considerable agreement between farmers across countries that they are observing changes in climate. Climate change is likely to reduce yields and increase food prices, with serious effects on both farmers and consumers. But farmers are already actively experimenting and changing agricultural practices and pursuing ways to diversify livelihoods in light of both the new changes to their climate and other multiple stresses. In some cases, these changes can be considered actual or potential successes in adapting to climate change; in other cases they may be simply coping or using maladaptive strategies, particularly where they create environmental degradation. Furthermore, whereas large-scale farmers, in the main, have access to the resources needed to adapt, small-scale farmers face major obstacles. These obstacles may not only prevent adaptation but also lead farmers into maladaptation, for want of other choices. Major new resources must be raised from domestic, regional and international levels to focus on and build the adaptive capacity of small-scale farmers and sustain levels of food production into the future, the report concludes.
Poverty and health
Oxfam has launched a global campaign, GROW, to combat global hunger. Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam, said that global agriculture is capable of feeding all of humanity yet one in seven go hungry. The GROW campaign will expose the governments whose failed policies are propping up the broken food system and the clique of 300–500 powerful companies who benefit from and lobby hard to maintain it. For example, four global companies control the movement of most of the world’s food. Three companies – Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill – control an estimated 90% of the world’s grain trade. Their activities help drive up volatile food prices and they profit from them. In the first quarter of 2008, at the height of a global food price crisis, Cargill’s profits were up 86% and the company is now heading for its most profitable year yet on the back of further disruptions to global food supplies. Oxfam is calling on governments - especially the G20 - to lead the transformation to a fairer more sustainable food system by investing in agriculture, valuing the world’s natural resources, managing the food system better and delivering equality for women who produce much of the world's food. It is calling on the private sector to shift to a business model where profit does not come at the expense of poor producers, consumers and the environment.
This newsflash from Nairobi this week emphasises how "..a searing drought that has put at least 11-million people across East Africa on the brink of starvation risks turning into a catastrophe if donors fail to respond quickly to the situation, an aid agency warned on Thursday".
In Namibia, a generations-long tradition of tapping the sap of palm trees runs counter to recent environmental protection efforts. Is this an essential cultural practice or merely destructive? These striking portraits investigate. The images in this series portray the Himba men who select, prepare and maintain Makalani palms during the sap tapping process. The Himba people from this area have utilised this plant family for generations, passing down the knowledge and technique needed to carry out the process of obtaining the liquid. Although the Makalani palm is a protected tree in Namibia and the tapping of palms a banned practice, the Himba firmly believe that it is their right to continue the tradition. They argue against Western law and instead follow ancient cultural traditions that respect these palms through their utilisation. In turn, they promote their conservation on a local, cultural level.
The Rural Economy, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment Committee of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) organized a joint workshop with the committees on gender, agriculture, justice and bureau of women on the 1st of March 2016 during the Committee Sittings in Midrand, South Africa. The Maputo Protocol ON “Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.” was originally adopted by the “Assembly of the African Union” in Maputo, Mozambique July 2003. It provides that women have access to opportunities as well as resources that are available in the country. The PAP aims to ensure that the policies and objectives of the AU are implemented. The members agreed that as a team they need to adopt laws to secure women’s access to land and ensure that they be given a chance to play productive roles with regards to economic development in the agriculture sector. Article 15 of the Maputo protocol raises women’s rights to food and security as well as land access. Granting women access to land was seen to not only improve their lives but to enable food security and sustainable development.
Desperate measures being taken by residents of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, to cushion the effects of acute water shortages are aggravating the health problems of its 1.5 million residents. Stringent water rationing has been introduced in a bid to make the contents of fast dwindling dams last until the onset of the expected rains in November, but the municipal council acknowledges that the poor inflows of water into the southern city's reservoirs has led to an increase in waterborne diseases.
Launched in 2008, the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) is a joint effort of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, the European Commission (EC) and UN-Habitat. To date, the programme has reached out to 35 countries, 160 cities, and 2 million slum dwellers. The approach is grounded in integrating slum dwellers into the broader urban fabric using city-wide participatory planning methods. In practical terms, PSUP puts slums on the ‘urban’ maps and facilitates dialogue at local, national and regional levels that is necessary for a ‘mind-set change’, key for inclusive urbanisation. PSUP provides tools and practical experience of inclusive integrated slum upgrading through which all stakeholders learn key lessons. It builds confidence in participatory planning; institutionalises partnerships and improved governance arrangements, equips government with key financing mechanisms for slum upgrading including mechanisms to engage and empower slum dwellers themselves to advance delivery of relevant, community led improved infrastructure in slums.
The Millennium Declaration of the United Nations committed the global community to halving, by 2015, the proportion of the world's population who live in poverty and suffer from hunger. Attaining the United Nations' goal requires good governance, a genuine political commitment by both developed and developing countries, and increased resources. Yet, reducing global poverty also requires a clear understanding of the factors that predict whether an individual or household will become less poor or more poor over time. Intervention programs often are evaluated on a short time frame, even though such interventions may have long-term effects.
This report maps progress in water supply and sanitation of 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the report, political stability has heavily influenced progress in improving access to water supply and sanitation services with low-income stable countries outperforming low-income fragile and resource-rich countries, breaking with the common perception that access to sanitation and water increases with gross domestic product (GDP). The good progress of low-income stable countries has been assisted by their receiving three times more aid than low-income fragile countries and two times more aid than resource-rich countries, per unserved person. Low-income stable countries making most progress have capitalised on harmonised and aligned aid modalities to successfully transition to more programmatic, ‘country-led’ forms of service delivery. The authors emphasise that a shift in aid modalities from external funder-driven projects to country-led programmatic approaches can potentially increase access to water and sanitation services for millions of people by 2015. To accelerate progress to meet Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation, at least an additional US$6 billion a year of domestic and external funding is needed, they add.
Dismal global figures hide the fact that the number of hungry people has been declining in 31 countries during the fifteen-year period from 1991 to 2005. This paper analyses four examples of countries that are on track to achieve 2015 food security targets: Armenia, Brazil, Nigeria and Vietnam. Based on these examples, it argues that success in the battle to halve hunger will usually be characterised by: creation of an enabling environment for economic growth and human wellbeing; outreach to the most vulnerable and investment in the rural poor; protection of gains; and planning for a sustainable future. Several developing countries have succeeded in transforming their agriculture sectors, turning them into important sources of growth and export earnings, and thus increasing their contribution to poverty and hunger reduction. The paper studies examples of countries that have transformed their sectors, concluding that supporting smallholder farmers is one of the best ways to fight hunger and poverty. It is estimated that 85% of the farms in the world measure less than two hectares, and that smallholder farmers and their families represent two billion people, or one-third of the world’s population.