By José Graziano da Silva, Kanayo Nwanze, and Ertharin Cousin
ROME, Oct 2 2013 (IPS)

Every year, we take a snapshot of world progress in the fight against chronic hunger. This year, the picture is looking better, but it’s still not good enough.

Some 842 million people are estimated to have been suffering from chronic hunger in 2011-2013, according to The State of Food Insecurity in the World, a report released jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

This figure is down from 868 million during 2010-2012, and represents a decline of 17 percent since 1990-1992. Significant as this progress may be, it cannot disguise the harsh reality: roughly one person in eight suffers from hunger.

The vast majority of undernourished people, 827 million, live in developing countries, while 16 million live in developed countries. It is unacceptable that in a world of plenty, hundreds of millions of people are denied their most basic right to freedom from hunger. The only acceptable number is zero.

One of the hard truths underscored by the report is that, despite overall progress made in hunger reduction, marked differences persist across regions, with many countries left far behind. Sub-Saharan Africa has made modest progress in recent years, but remains the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment (24.8 percent).

Western Asia has seen no discernible improvement, while Southern Asia and Northern Africa have registered slow progress. Eastern Asia, Southeastern Asia and Latin America, on the other hand, have seen greater relief from the grind of extreme hunger, with significant reductions in both the number and the proportion of hungry people.

Food security depends on a host of factors. While food availability is important, it is equitable economic growth and access to employment for the poor that enhance access to nutritious food. The report shows that transport, communication, safe water, sanitation, and appropriate healthcare and feeding practices are also crucial for reducing chronic hunger and undernutrition.

Given that 75 percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and mainly depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, fostering inclusive growth means investing in agriculture. And this investment has been shown to pay dividends in poverty reduction.

It is estimated that growth in agriculture is five times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in any other sector. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is 11 times more effective. Since smallholder farmers produce up to 80 percent of available food in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, there is an obvious impact on food security as well.

Economic growth that reaches large parts of the population can reduce poverty, leading to improvements in food security. In Ghana, equitable economic growth contributed to lifting some five million people out of poverty in just 15 years, and fewer than five percent of the population were undernourished in 2011-2013.

However, such growth is not always sufficient to ensure that everyone has what they need to live healthy and productive lives. In many cases, despite a reduction in hunger, nutritional status may deteriorate, for example, with the increased prevalence of child stunting.

Inadequate intake of vitamins and other micro-nutrients, a high disease burden, unsafe water, poor sanitation and poor child feeding practices at key stages of child development cause serious health problems for up to two billion people globally. Greater efforts with a holistic approach are needed to combat malnutrition.

Thirteen years ago, world leaders set out a series of development targets to be met by 2015 through a global partnership, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Under MDG 1, which aims to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, the world sought to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of undernourished people.

With only two years remaining, 62 countries have already reached this target. Twenty-two of them have also achieved a higher goal, established during the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, to halve the absolute number of hungry people in the same time period. But extending that achievement across the board will require urgent, sustained action.

Countries need to address hunger and poor nutrition by integrating food security and nutrition into public policies and making the necessary resources available.

We urge governments, organisations and community leaders in every region to make economic growth more inclusive through policies that target family farmers and foster rural employment; strengthen social protection; scale up nutrition-enhancing interventions to improve dietary diversity and the health of the environment, especially for women and youth; and promote the sustainable management of natural resources and food systems.

Only with sustained efforts and long-term commitment will we be able to reach well beyond the MDG targets to fully interrupt the cycle of extreme hunger, malnutrition and poverty that is stifling the potential of future generations.

Better is good, but when it comes to hunger, better is not good enough. There are 842 million reasons why.
(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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Recent decades have witnessed remarkable rates of growth for many developing countries. That is good news, as high growth rates of GDP per capita are a key factor in reducing food insecurity and malnutrition.

But economic growth alone is no guarantee of success in the fight against poverty, hunger and malnutrition, as the 2012 edition of The State of Food Insecurity in the World, recently released by the Rome-based United Nations agencies, shows.

In order for economic growth to enhance the nutrition of the neediest people, poor women and men must participate in the growth process and its benefits.

Success stories from all developing regions make one thing clear: investment in agriculture, more than investment in any other sector, can generate economic growth that delivers large benefits to hungry and malnourished poor people. That is because most of them live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

We have learned that smallholder farmers can be supported to benefit from higher food prices and become part of the solution to reducing price spikes and improving overall food security. Higher prices of agricultural commodities can definitely provide positive incentives for increased investment in agriculture.

However, better policy responses and improved governance are also needed to address the effects of increased price volatility and of higher food costs for poor people, who spend a large share of their income on food.

Major climatic events are causing severe damage to agriculture. Until we find the way to make our food system climate-resilient, the danger will remain. Practical solutions that promote sustainable intensification of food production systems, ensure strong involvement of smallholder farmers, increase their access to markets, reduce their exposure to risk, build the resilience of rural communities and preserve natural resources are urgently needed.

We must also reduce the enormous amount of food lost or wasted throughout the food system — which has been estimated at around one third of total production.

There has been progress in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. The global number of chronically hungry people has fallen by 130 million since 1990, and the proportion of hungry people has dropped from 18.6 percent in 1990 to 12.5 percent today.

Still, nearly 870 million people continue to suffer from undernourishment, and the negative health consequences of micronutrient deficiencies continue to affect around two billion people.

In a world of plenty, childhood malnutrition kills more than 2.5 million children every year, and more than 100 million children under the age of five are underweight, and therefore unable to realize their full socio-economic and human potential. This is morally unacceptable and economically foolish. Good nutrition is key to sustainable economic growth.

While the world grapples with the burden of undernutrition, we are faced with an increasing trend towards overnutrition. A growing number of people have adopted lifestyles and diets that are conducive to being overweight and related non-communicable diseases, taxing public health systems in many countries.

Working with national governments and the international community, our organizations are committed to developing better-integrated approaches to food security and nutrition that are both “pro-poor” and “nutrition-sensitive” by promoting positive, sustainable interactions among the agriculture, nutrition and health sectors.

The world has the knowledge and the means to eliminate all forms of food insecurity and malnutrition. No ambition in achieving this aim is too high, which is why we welcome UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s recent “Zero Hunger Challenge”.

It’s up to all of us to rise to meet it. In the fight against hunger, the ultimate sum of all of our efforts must be zero hunger.

*The authors are  the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

By Sabina Zaccaro and Kanayo Nwanze
ROME, Dec 9 2008 (IPS)

The participation of the most vulnerable people is essential for Haiti’s development programmes, says Kanayo Nwanze, vice president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which this year earmarked 10.2 million dollars for aid to help the poorest country of the Americas survive the current food crisis.

Kanayo Nwanze Credit: Courtesy of IFAD

“The food price crisis hit Haiti hard, because more than half its food is imported,” Nwanze told Tierramérica. The Nigerian IFAD official is a biologist, with a doctorate in entomology from the U.S. University of Kansas, and has dedicated many years to agricultural research.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What was IFAD’s commitment to poor farmers in this region prior to the widespread losses in recent months caused by weather disasters? KANAYO NWANZE: We normally work on medium to long term projects, such as support for small-scale irrigation, which are aimed at improving the long term food security of Haiti and making farmers there more resilient to changing conditions, especially farmers in isolated or marginal areas.

The participation of the most vulnerable groups in the planning and management of development programmes in Haiti is very important for IFAD. This means training programme staff, private and public partners and beneficiaries, and strengthening dialogue between the rural poor and local government.

Over the past 30 years of working with the rural poor in Haiti, IFAD has financed seven projects with approved loans totaling 84.3 million dollars and has provided grant support to local organisations for a total of 2.2 million.

TIERRAMÉRICA: In what ways will the 10.2-million-dollar plan help Haiti’s farmers? KN: The priority is to have a quick impact on local production and increase the availability of basic food products in the markets. Through our sister agency FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) over 240,000 smallholder farmers will receive a package comprising, among other inputs, vegetable seeds, cereal seeds, manioc, sweet potato and banana plants. National capacity for seed production will be strengthened in an effort to improve food security across the country.

TIERRAMÉRICA: How does this tie in with other longer-term projects to help poor rural people in Haiti? KN: The most recent project (27 million dollars) is set to rehabilitate collective irrigation systems used by thousands of poor small farmers in two of the country’s poorest areas: the Northeast and Northwest provinces.

IFAD is responding to a clear need for improved practices, especially regarding more efficient water management. Despite wide deforestation and erosion there is still enormous potential in the Haitian soil. If we can just get water to the small farming plots, which are widely spread out, then even without fertilisers farmers can significantly boost yields, to three harvests per year instead of one.

The project will help 18,000 families in remote rural areas by allowing small farmers to grow a greater range of crops and boost output through better water management.

IFAD will continue to work with water users’ associations to take on the management responsibilities of the irrigation system. The project will also help to establish a national water management programme for agriculture.

IFAD also supports projects that help Haiti’s smallholder farmers improve mixed cropping systems and intensify food crop and vegetable production in the face of climate change.

TIERRAMÉRICA: Remittances from the Haitian diaspora, mostly in the United States, are a lifeline for many poor people in isolated areas. But there is concern that the global economic slowdown may adversely affect remittance flows. KN: A report by the Inter-American Development Bank indicates that after double-digit growth for years, this year the value of remittances from the U.S. to Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to decline in real terms.

This is very worrying for the many Haitian families who depend for their daily needs – food, shelter and education – on the money sent from friends and relatives abroad.

One way to meet this challenge is by innovation. IFAD has supported the alternative bank Fonkoze, (“shoulder to shoulder” in Creole) which serves the unbanked.

Now we are supporting an innovative project, for an integrated pre-paid remittance card for Haitians in the U.S. that will help reduce the cost of sending their money back home. The card works on the Visa circuit, costs just one dollar a month to run, allows the owner’s employer to directly deposit funds without charge and will allow the cardholder to deposit funds into Fonkoze “investment accounts” of families in rural areas of Haiti.

On opening the account, the customer authorises Fonkoze to invest the balance of the account in micro-loans for rural community projects. The card is an integrated, more efficient way of channeling money back home and costs less than traditional remittance transfers.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Excerpt:

Haiti's food security requires the availability of seeds and improvements in harvests and irrigation, asserts IFAD vice-president Kanayo Nwanze in this Tierramérica interview.

Kanayo Nwanze - Courtesy of IFAD

More than 240,000 small impoverished farmers will receive a package with seeds for vegetables and cereals, manioc, sweet potato and banana, with the aim of increasing the availability of food in 2009 in this Caribbean nation, thrashed in recent months by a series of storms and hurricanes — which only worsened the food shortages.

“The food price crisis hit Haiti hard, because more than half its food is imported,” Nwanze told Tierramérica. The Nigerian IFAD official is a biologist, with a doctorate in entomology from the U.S. University of Kansas, and has dedicated many years to agricultural research.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What was IFAD's commitment to poor farmers in this region prior to the widespread losses in recent months caused by weather disasters?

KANAYO NWANZE: We normally work on medium to long term projects, such as support for small-scale irrigation, which are aimed at improving the long term food security of Haiti and making farmers there more resilient to changing conditions, especially farmers in isolated or marginal areas.

The participation of the most vulnerable groups in the planning and management of development programs in Haiti is very important for IFAD. This means training program staff, private and public partners and beneficiaries, and strengthening dialogue between the rural poor and local government.

Over the past 30 years of working with the rural poor in Haiti, IFAD has financed seven projects with approved loans totaling 84.3 million dollars and has provided grant support to local organizations for a total of 2.2 million.

TIERRAMÉRICA: In what ways will the 10.2-million-dollar plan help Haiti’s farmers?

KN: The priority is to have a quick impact on local production and increase the availability of basic food products in the markets. Through our sister agency FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) over 240,000 smallholder farmers will receive a package comprising, among other inputs, vegetable seeds, cereal seeds, manioc, sweet potato and banana plants. National capacity for seed production will be strengthened in an effort to improve food security across the country.

TIERRAMÉRICA: How does this tie in with other longer-term projects to help poor rural people in Haiti?

KN: The most recent project (27 million dollars) is set to rehabilitate collective irrigation systems used by thousands of poor small farmers in two of the country’s poorest areas: the Northeast and Northwest provinces.

IFAD is responding to a clear need for improved practices, especially regarding more efficient water management. Despite wide deforestation and erosion there is still enormous potential in the Haitian soil. If we can just get water to the small farming plots, which are widely spread out, then even without fertilizers farmers can significantly boost yields, to three harvests per year instead of one.

The project will help 18,000 families in remote rural areas by allowing small farmers to grow a greater range of crops and boost output through better water management.

IFAD will continue to work with water users' associations to take on the management responsibilities of the irrigation system. The project will also help to establish a national water management program for agriculture.

IFAD also supports projects that help Haiti’s smallholder farmers improve mixed cropping systems and intensify food crop and vegetable production in the face of climate change.

TIERRAMÉRICA: Remittances from the Haitian diaspora, mostly in the United States, are a lifeline for many poor people in isolated areas. But there is concern that the global economic slowdown may adversely affect remittance flows.

KN: A report by the Inter-American Development Bank indicates that after double-digit growth for years, this year the value of remittances from the U.S. to Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to decline in real terms.

This is very worrying for the many Haitian families who depend for their daily needs — food, shelter and education — on the money sent from friends and relatives abroad.

One way to meet this challenge is by innovation. IFAD has supported the alternative bank Fonkoze, (“shoulder to shoulder” in Creole) which serves the unbanked.

Now we are supporting an innovative project, for an integrated pre-paid remittance card for Haitians in the U.S. that will help reduce the cost of sending their money back home. The card works on the Visa circuit, costs just one dollar a month to run, allows the owner’s employer to directly deposit funds without charge and will allow the cardholder to deposit funds into Fonkoze “investment accounts” of families in rural areas of Haiti.

On opening the account, the customer authorizes Fonkoze to invest the balance of the account in micro-loans for rural community projects. The card is an integrated, more efficient way of channeling money back home and costs less than traditional remittance transfers.

By Kanayo Nwanze and - -
ROME, Aug 20 2007 (IPS)

Imagine a new variety of drought and pest-resistant rice for Africa with double the yield of traditional rice, a growing season 30-50 days shorter than other varieties, a higher protein content, and it even tastes good. This is not a futuristic scenario but NERICA, the New Rice for Africa, which combines the high yield of Asian rice with the hardiness of African rice, writes Kanayo Nwanze, Vice President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and former Director-General of the Africa Rice Centre [WARDA]. In this article, the author writes that NERICA is a reality in the fields of 30,000 farmers in 20 countries. Yields have increased dramatically, families are taking advantage of the shorter growing season to plant an extra crop of vegetables or legumes, and women report that the wider leaf of the NERICA plant casts a shadow that inhibits weed growth. Rice was a crucial building block of the Asian green revolution. The high-yielding varieties that helped people overcome hunger marked the beginning of the end of Asia\’s chronic poverty and allowed its first steps toward industrialisation. Without a doubt, developments such as NERICA are exactly what is needed to move the African Green Revolution forward.

Today’s world faces multiple challenges like these, ranging from food insecurity to increased natural and human-made disasters and the effects of climate change. In 2003, the United Nations made a call for placing agricultural development at the forefront of the fight against extreme hunger and poverty. Half a decade later, the world is still debating how best to bring agricultural development into Africa.

A number of initiatives and organisations, including New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and, more recently, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) are a response to African leaders’ calls to chart a new path for prosperity by spurring Africa’s agricultural development.

The Asian Green Revolution is credited with saving a billion lives on the continent some four decades ago by revolutionising food production. The African Green Revolution should have its own agenda. It should be built on leadership from within Africa, but also tap into support from the outside. We recognise that the challenges facing African agricultural development require comprehensive solutions possible only through strategic alliances.

Imagine this: a new variety of drought and pest-resistant rice for Africa with double the yield of traditional rice, a growing season 30-50 days shorter than other varieties, a higher protein content, and it even tastes good. This is not a futuristic scenario, or a utopian fantasy. This is NERICA, the New Rice for Africa, which combines the high yield of Asian rice with the hardiness of African rice.

NERICA is a reality in the fields of 30,000 farmers in 20 countries. Yields have increased dramatically, families are taking advantage of the shorter growing season to plant an extra crop of vegetables or legumes, and women report that the wider leaf of the NERICA plant casts a shadow that inhibits weed growth.

IFAD, an international financial institution and specialised United Nations agency that invests in agriculture and rural development as a way to eliminate rural poverty, supported the development of NERICA. IFAD provided funds to the Africa Rice Center (WARDA) where this rice variety was developed to promote the use of NERICA in the region, and it is now designing a series of grants that will support NERICA seed multiplication efforts in several countries, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

The United Nations estimates that 1.7 million subsistence farmers in Africa could benefit from NERICA. At the macro level, this means that national economies of these countries will benefit from an increase in local rice production and, at the same time, reduce their need to use foreign currency to import rice. It is heartening to know that NERICA, and the varieties from which it was developed, will be part of the collection of the new Svalbard seed vault, an initiative of the Norwegian government that will store 3 million seed varieties representing the world’s crop genetic diversity.

The work of AGRA dovetails with IFAD’s goals. Since IFAD was established, nearly half of its programmes and projects have been devoted to African countries. It has made some USD 4 billion in loans and grants, financing close to 345 programmes and projects in 51 African countries of which more than 120, valued at more than USD 2.6 billion, are still underway.

If an African Green Revolution is going to be successful, it has to reach as many farmers as possible. Most are poor subsistence farmers who continuously face both local and global challenges. Climate change affects their traditional production patterns and rural-urban migration has meant an increased presence of urban supermarkets and the loss of farmers’ informal rural markets. In addition, the need for alternative energy sources will lead to the conversion of land from food crops to energy crops – all of which have serious implications for agriculture in general but small farmers in particular.

In its efforts to ensure that the needs of small-holder farmers are not overlooked by those who develop new policies, laws, and regulations for dealing with these challenges, IFAD makes investments in projects that involve the farmers themselves: projects meant to raise the capacity of grassroots farmers’ organisations. By building stronger rural institutions, farmers are enabled to work together, to participate in developing their own strategies, and to have a voice in decision making. They become empowered.

An African Green Revolution must have the right blend of political commitment and support, conducive and adequate policies, improved infrastructure and market access, improved consideration of land issues, and overall leadership and vision within Africa to move an action-oriented agenda.

Rice was a crucial building block of the Asian green revolution. The high-yielding varieties that helped people overcome hunger marked the beginning of the end of Asia’s chronic poverty and allowed its first steps toward industrialisation. Without a doubt, developments such as NERICA are exactly what is needed to move the African Green Revolution forward. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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