A field of maize spoiled by drought in Zambia, one of the countries that has declared an emergency as it grapples with the effects of El Niño. Credit: WFP/Gabriela Vivacqua

By Kevin Humphrey
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jul 23 2024 (IPS)

Heading into the traditional dry period of winter in southern Africa, there was significant consternation due to the drastically below average rainfall the region has been experiencing since January 2024.

Countries, including Botswana, Mozambique, Angola, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, have only received less than 20 percent of the rainfall that they usually receive in the month of February. The driest January/February period in 40 years, according to a report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Agriculture in these large areas of southern Africa has been seriously affected, as farming is rainfall-dependent with no access to irrigation systems.

Edward Phiri cooking mealies (maize) on an open fire at his vegetable stall in a busy street in Windsor West, Johannesburg. Edward, mentioned how expensive mealies had become in the last few months and that he was the only vegetable stall selling cooked maize. All the other stalls (at least 15 in a small but densely populated area) had closed down due to high costs. Credit: Kevin Humphrey/IPS

Machinda Marongwe, programme director of Oxfam Southern Africa, said the region is “in crisis” and called on donors to “immediately release resources” to prevent an “unimaginable humanitarian situation.”

“With all these countries facing multiple crises simultaneously, the urgency cannot be overstated,” Marongwe said.

In southern Africa, a region Oxfam describes as a “climate disaster hotspot,” El Nino, the climate pattern that originates along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, has severely influenced the weather in the region. A feature of El Nino is that it brings high temperatures and low rainfall to southern Africa. This dries out the ground, causing floods when it does rain.

Professor Jasper Knight of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Wits University spoke to IPS about the current extreme weather conditions.

A prolonged dry spell in southern Africa in early 2024 scorched crops and threatened food security for millions of people. The ongoing El Nino, which altered rainfall patterns during the growing season, has played a significant role in fueling the drought. Credit: NASA

“We are in an oscillating period of El Nino, and this causes variability in regional rainfall across southern Africa. Some parts of the region are very dry and have experienced heat waves; parts of southern Lesotho are currently in a crisis state of drought, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRC),” says Knight.

“But this water crisis isn’t just about rainfall; it is also about managing water more effectively when it is already scarce. The water infrastructure in southern Africa is not fit for purpose and this makes the situation worse. Developing more resilient infrastructure will help buffer some of the negative effects of rainfall variability. This in turn will help society cope with drought events.”

In addition to the problem of raising crops, which has led to very real risks of food insecurity, a lack of water has ushered in widespread outbreaks of cholera. The rainy season misfired and became a drought and the fact that the next wet season is months away increases fears for the region as a whole in terms of the provision of food and the effects on people’s lives economically and in terms of dangerous health threats.

According to the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), southern Africa is in the grip of an urgent crisis.

FANRPAN stated in a recent media briefing that “the situation is dire and demands immediate attention. Widespread crop failure looms in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Livestock are dying at alarming rates due to a lack of water and vegetation.

“The movement of desperate people and animals is spreading diseases, including those transmissible to humans.”

A drought disaster was declared in Zambia on February 29 and Malawi’s president followed suit on March 23—for the fourth year in a row that weather conditions have led the country to do this. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) said El Niño was “exacerbating the devastating effects of the climate crisis in Malawi.” Zimbabwe joined them in early April.

Reuters reported Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa as saying, “More than 2.7 million people in the country will go hungry this year and more than USD 2 billion in aid is required for the country’s national response.”

Joe Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), spoke to IPS.

“This year’s El Nino-related production shortfalls are partially offset by larger carrying stocks following large maize crops in 2022 and 2023.  Poor crops have already resulted in increased imports in countries like Zimbabwe. Exports are expected to fall as stocks tighten in the region. The coming La Niña will hopefully bring needed precipitation to the region later this year, which should mean that the drought-related shortages are relatively short-lived.”

After heating up the eastern Pacific Ocean for about a year, El Niño finally died out in May 2024. As of July 2024, the eastern Pacific was in a neutral phase, but the reprieve may be short-lived. Credit: NASA

This hopeful forecast is also mentioned in a blog published, on April 10, 2024, by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Entitled “Southern Africa drought: Impacts on maize Production,” Joseph Glauber and Weston Anderson wrote: “Unlike 2014 to 2016, when key producer-exporter South Africa suffered back-to-back droughts, this year’s drought follows a year of good harvest and stock building. Larger beginning stocks will help buffer the impact of the current drought. However, supplies from outside the region will be necessary to meet consumption needs, and exports will likely decline, particularly to markets outside of Southern Africa.”

Drought and the attendant extreme hardships that it causes are undoubtedly creating havoc in the region. Hopefully, food stocks from countries like South Africa will go some way to alleviating this crisis and that this coming spring, there will be ample rain and bumper crops.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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A large part of the oil exploration areas in both Botswana and Namibia falls within the Okavango River Basin which flows into the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Fracking is banned in some countries and has been blamed for serious water pollution, among others, and threats to the regional water supply are among environmentalists’ biggest concerns.Credit: Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jul 8 2021 (IPS)

Wildlife and environmental campaigners have called for international action as concerns grow over a project to create a massive oilfield in one of Africa’s last wildernesses.

ReconAfrica, a Canadian oil and gas company, has licensed drilling areas in over 34,000sq km of land in parts of northern Namibia and Botswana that overlap with Africa’s Kavango-Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area (KAZA), which includes land in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

A large part of the exploration areas in both Botswana and Namibia falls within the Okavango River Basin which flows into the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which supports the world’s largest remaining population of endangered savanna elephants, as well as dozens of other endangered or vulnerable species such as rhinos, wild dogs, and pangolins. It is also home to 200,000 people.

Campaigners fear the project could do untold damage to the delta’s ecosystem, threatening already endangered wildlife, the environment, and the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of people who live on the land.

But as international media attention on the project has also grown, some foreign politicians are raising concerns too.

Last month US Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman Jeff Fortenberry urged senior officials to launch a government investigation of the project under the Defending Economic Livelihoods and Threatened Animals (DELTA) Act, which is designed to protect areas like the Okavango Delta.

And groups working to raise awareness of the project and its potential effects say international co-operation is needed and pressure from outside Africa must be brought to bear to stop the project going ahead for the good of not just the Delta, but the entire globe.

Ina-Maria Shikongo, an activist from Fridays for Future – Windhoek, which has led a public campaign against the project, told IPS: “We have no choice but to get this stopped. Local and international co-operation is needed because this does not affect just us here, but everyone, everywhere.

“ReconAfrica says there is the potential to extract 120 billion barrels of oil from this field. Can you imagine what all the build-up of toxins, from that, the emissions, everything, is going to do to already rising global temperatures?

“Even though we in the global south are feeling the effects of projects like these most, the global north is feeling them now too, with heatwaves. Everything is connected, all over the world. There is only one global carbon budget, and this project will use up a lot of it.”

ReconAfrica began drilling test wells in Namibia at the end of last year and if the tests are successful, hundreds of wells are expected to be drilled in the area.

The company’s own reports have suggested that the oilfield could potentially generate up to 120 billion barrels of oil, making it one of the largest oil finds for decades.

Although the licences were granted in 2015, criticism of the project has  grown sharply over the last 18 months as details of it have emerged, especially suggestions in company promotions to investors that fracking, which involves blasting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks to extract oil and gas, could be used.

Fracking is banned in some countries and has been blamed for serious water pollution, among others, and threats to the regional water supply are among environmentalists’ biggest concerns.

Shikongo explained: “The big problem is our water. We have a very fragile ecosystem, we rely on the water that is underground. If that water gets poisoned, what is going to happen?

“Wildlife, local people, they all rely completely on our water, and if it is poisoned then you could destroy the local food system.”

Rosemary Alles, co-founder of the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos conservation campaign group, told IPS: “ReconAfrica has continued to deny that fracking is in the works; however, there is no inevitability that the company will not frack, despite its rhetoric du jour. The concern is legitimate. If fracking takes place, the immediate potential impacts in the context of waterways and air pollution will be devastating.”

Meanwhile, there are serious concerns about the impact operations could have on local wild animals, especially some of the 130,000 elephants which the Okavango Delta supports.

Conservationists point out that vibrations used in the exploratory work for the field, including in seismic surveys, can disturb elephants, while the inevitable rise in construction, road-building, and accompanying traffic in the area could push the animals away from established migratory routes and closer to villages and agricultural areas, creating easier access to hitherto inaccessible elephant habitat for poaching and a potential exacerbation of already growing human-elephant conflict.

One expert at a conservation group in the area, who asked not to be named, told IPS: “If this company is allowed to start drilling for oil in the Delta it will be a major environmental crime with inevitably devastating impacts on the natural world. In terms of what it will mean for elephants: until we know the scale of the operation it’s hard to estimate exactly, but history shows that oil extraction always means environmental disaster and this is right in the middle of the last wilderness in the elephants’ last stronghold: the KAZA.”

The project will also impact local communities and farmers, and there are concerns that these groups have not been engaged properly in consultations over the project.

UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has pointed out that there are hundreds of working farms within ReconAfrica’s drilling area. But in a recent press release, the group said that it was “far from transparent how, or indeed if, these communities are being consulted”.

It pointed out that the public consultations on the oilfield project have been either online or in person, and the vast majority of those living in ReconAfrica’s license area have limited or no access to the internet and the COVID-19 pandemic has severely restricted travel and public meetings. The meetings are also regularly conducted in English, which is not the first language for many locals.

“It is unclear whether their voices are being heard,” EIA said.

ReconAfrica has sought to allay all these fears. It has said it has currently been granted licences for exploratory work which do not allow fracking, and its officials have repeatedly said they are only interested in conventional extraction.

It has also issued official statements saying it believes the regional energy industry can be “developed in an environmentally and socially responsible manner that is accountable and supports the development and delivery of much-needed economic and social benefits….” and has pledged to take measures to address potential issues with noise and vibration affecting local wildlife when doing work.

Critics have questioned the validity and integrity of the Environmental Impact Assessments conducted for the project, but the company has rejected this criticism and any suggestions it is not meeting full legal requirements for the project.

In official statements it has stressed that it is “committed to continuing to work closely with, and under the direct oversight of, the governments in both countries, as well as their regional and traditional authorities, to ensure we continue to comply with relevant laws and regulations throughout all the stages of our operation”.

And it has claimed that its public consultations have been well-attended and welcomed by locals – although this is strongly disputed by many who went to them.

ReconAfrica has also highlighted the local economic benefits of the project, saying it will bring jobs and growth to the region – something government officials have also stressed.

Tom Alweendo, Namibia’s Minister of Mines and Energy, said in an interview with international media earlier this year: “Any volume of oil that is commercially viable will mean a lot to our economy. Not only in terms of employment, but income that would come into the treasury.”

However, environmentalists have questioned both the scale of the claimed local economic benefits and the thinking behind such a project given that only weeks ago the International Energy Agency said no new oil and gas fields must be exploited from this year on to ensure global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were brought down to net zero by 2050 and keep global heating within safe limits.

Shikongo, whose Fridays For Future – Windhoek has dubbed the oilfield a “carbon gigabomb”, said: “This project will only generate an income for a very few, but it will take away the livelihoods of millions of people. The oil needs to be kept in the ground.”

She re-iterated calls for global co-operation to stop this, and similar projects, and said there needs to be a move away from the “neo-colonialism” behind such projects.

“We need to stamp out this neo-colonialist system – Africa cannot continue to be treated simply as a resource for the global north. The global south and global north need to work together on this, because it affects us all. We’re all humans,” she said.

Alles added: “All western governments must apply pressure, particularly the USA and Canada. The DELTA Act could prove to be a means to an end. The possibility of bailing out the Namibian government must be on the front burner – it must be a point of conversation.”

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The world was shocked by the unexplained deaths of hundreds of elephants across Botswana. While Botswanan officials have said they have identified what killed the animals as cyanobacteria, some wildlife experts and conservationists have questioned the government’s claim, saying many questions remain. Courtesy: Elephants Without Borders (EWB)

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA , Oct 20 2020 (IPS)

When hundreds of elephants died in the space of a few months in Botswana earlier this year, conservationists were shocked. Wildlife experts said it was one of the largest elephant mortality events in history.

But that shock quickly turned to exasperation over what they said was the government’s slow, botched and untransparent investigation into the incident.

Now, Botswanan officials have said they have identified what killed the animals – cyanobacteria, a naturally occurring bacteria which can produce lethal doses of toxins – in water the elephants had drunk and bathed in.

But some wildlife experts and conservationists have questioned the government’s claim, saying many questions remain and have criticised the lack of transparency from authorities amid fears of a deliberate rolling back of years of pioneering conservation work in the south African state.

“Questions remain. The whole way this has been handled is indicative of the approach of the Botswana government to transparency and openness,” Mary Rice of the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), told IPS.

Between March and June, hundreds of elephants – the Botswanan government’s official figure is 350, but some conservation groups claim it is as much as 700 – died in the country’s Okavango Delta.

Many of the dead elephants were found near natural watering holes, others on trails. Some had collapsed on their chests, suggesting their death had been fast and sudden. Horrific scenes were also reported of dying elephants running around in circles, or with paralysed limbs.

Despite being alerted by conservation groups to the problem, it was June before the authorities said they were investigating.

International and local conservation groups criticised the government for its slowness to respond to the incident as carcasses – and vital evidence – rotted or were scavenged.

They also attacked its failure at the time to obtain proper samples or send them off quickly enough to expert laboratories to determine the cause of death and the sometimes confusing information given out by officials over what had been ruled out as the cause of the deaths and where samples had been sent for testing. 

It was only late last month when the government announced that it had determined the cause of the death that it was finally confirmed samples had been sent to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Canada, and Europe. It is still unclear exactly where and how it was established that the neurotoxins were behind the deaths.

The authorities’ slow response and lack of transparency in its handling of the investigation has sparked speculation the government may be hiding something related to the deaths.

One conservationist working with elephants who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, said: “Because of the government’s actions, we are unlikely to ever discover the real reason so many elephants died in Botswana. We have to assume that the government has therefore achieved its objective.”

Others say that it has at the very least given rise to some doubts the right conclusion has been drawn.

Dr Niall McCann, biologist and co-founder of the conservation group National Park Rescue, told IPS: “The lack of transparency in this process has left room for doubt. The Botswana government’s explanation is a plausible one, but it doesn’t make it right. The likelihood that it is something else is still there. It could be another disease or some other poisoning.

“The cause can only be definitively confirmed by examining the brains of the elephants in detail, but there is no chance of this now. The government’s initial slow response means that we will probably never find out for sure what killed the elephants.”

McCann is far from alone in raising questions over the government’s claim.

Many experts have pointed to the fact that only elephants appear to have been affected while it would be expected other animals drinking the water would have been killed.

Rice said: “The big question is, why weren’t other species affected?”

Others have asked why it would only occur in one small area.

One expert on elephant disease, who asked not to be named, told IPS: “This theory is severely compromised by the extreme localisation – if correct [animal deaths] would have appeared across the region.”

Dr Pieter Kat of conservation group LionAid, who has extensive experience of wildlife diseases in Africa, wrote in a Facebook post that the government had failed to provide essential scientific information to support their claim that cyanotoxins were responsible for the animals’ demise.

“The Botswana government has a long way to go to convince that the highly specific mortalities among elephants were directly related to neurotoxic cyanotoxins,” he wrote.

When contacted by IPS about the elephant deaths, Botswanan government officials did not respond.

However, announcing their findings at the end of last month, government representatives suggested that individual species can be affected by neurotoxins in different ways – something experts say may be possible – or that because the quantity of water, and depths they drink from, is so much greater than other animals they may have been affected differently.

Mmadi Reuben, the government’s principal veterinary officer, admitted though: “There are a lot of questions that still need to be answered.”

This comes amid growing worries among conservationists over the government’s attitude to the fate of what is the world’s largest elephant population.

There are more elephants in Botswana than in any other country. Measures to protect large wildlife, including hunting bans and “shoot-to-kill” policies to deter poachers, have seen the population grow from 80,000 in the late 1990s to an estimated 135,000 today.

But conservationists have raised the alarm over a rise in poaching since Mokgweetsi Masisi became president two years ago.

Having promised to reduce the number of elephants in the country amid rising human-wildlife conflicts as the human population grows, Masisi last year lifted a ban on hunting elephants.

The ban had been introduced five years previously by his predecessor, Ian Khama, whose conservation efforts won international praise.

According to research published by conservation group Elephants Without Borders (EWB), there was a nearly six-fold rise in elephant poaching in the country between 2014 and 2018.

Not long after taking office Masisi gave stools made from elephant feet to the leaders of Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, all of whom had been pushing for a ban on the sale of ivory to be lifted.

McCann said: “Re-instating elephant hunting, giving parts of elephants as gifts to foreign officials – these were statements.”

There have even been suggestions that the government’s concerns over human-elephant conflict could have been behind the botched investigation.

One conservationist who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity said: “Human-wildlife conflict is a major problem in Botswana. The authorities were slow to act on this at the start because they did not want to be seen to be devoting lots of resources to elephants at a time when they were dealing with a human pandemic.”

Others see the government’s handling of the incident as part of a wider, more sinister, and tragic approach to the country’s wildlife by a corrupt regime in league with poachers and wildlife traffickers.

They told IPS: “Africa’s least-corrupt wildlife haven and luxury tourism destination, known for its friendly, international cooperation and positive conservation models, appears to be entering an era of secrecy, exploitation and xenophobia.

“A culture of secrecy …. is a tragedy for conservation, which requires a culture of openness and international cooperation to function.

“Individuals in the Botswana government are absolutely in the pockets of the poachers, as are some of the police.”

On September 22, 27 Botswana Defence Force soldiers were arrested for wildlife trafficking, having just returned from the Okavango Delta region.

However, not everyone sees nefarious motives at the highest levels as being behind the way the investigation has turned out.

Philip Muruthi, a conservation expert at the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), told IPS that while he felt officials in Botswana could have moved sooner on the investigation and been more transparent about its progress, “the Botswana government is serious about conservation. There are serious people there [in state administration] working on conservation”.

He said that the explanation the government gave for the elephant deaths was plausible. “This has happened before, and while it is not a very common thing in Africa it does occur,” he said.

But if the government’s claim is true, its implications for African wildlife in the near and mid-term future could be significant.

Threats to wildlife from natural biological phenomena are being exacerbated by climate change and rising temperatures, scientists say.

Unusually warm weather was linked to the deaths of 200,000 critically endangered Saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan in 2015. They were killed when a naturally occurring bacteria in their nasal passages became lethal amid high daily temperatures and humidity.

Scientists say that harmful algal blooms are also increasing in size and frequency around the world as climate change pushes up global temperatures. This is especially important in southern Africa where they are rising at twice the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

McCann agreed. He said: “Higher temperatures exacerbate existing problems, in the case of algal blooms by promoting the proliferation of bacteria. Climate change is a threat multiplier, and we will see more of these events occur. As time goes on, there are likely to be more and more problems with watering holes in Africa.”

Lorato Modongo at the “Speak Up, Speak Out: Young Advocates Advancing SRHR Through Storytelling” in New York, during the current 63rd sessions at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), March 2019.

By Lorato Palesa Modongo
GABORONE, Botswana, Mar 20 2019 (IPS)

This week, I joined thousands of activists, campaigners, thought-leaders, and change-makers in New York to advocate for women’s rights and promote gender equality during the 63rd session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

While many of the conversations will push for policies and programs at the global level, we must not lose sight that the work of dismantling patriarchy and gender inequality must also begin within our families and communities.

I was raised in a small village in Botswana called Palapye. Like many Batswana children, I was raised by my grandmother alongside 3 of my boy uncles and cousin. I was the only girl child in this houseful of boys.

I did everything with these boys. I played soccer on the streets with them. I climbed trees with them. I would fall and bruise my knees with them. I was carefree and naive. I never consciously saw myself as different from them. Until one fateful Saturday morning.

I was 8 years old. My grandparents had left for another village and wouldn’t be returning until a day later. In their absence, we did what most children do with newfound freedom. We ate what we wanted including the rice and meat that was reserved for Sundays. We let a heap of dishes pile up in the sink.

As the day went on, the place became a mess. We didn’t bother with any broom or mop. How could we? We were glued to the TV–watching whatever channel we desired. There was no adult policing us to say, “But that is for adults! Watch cartoons instead!”

When my grandparents came back the next day, my grandmother (May she rest in power), nearly had a heart attack at the sight of the messy state of her house. “Le thakathanktse ntu yame jaana, naare la tsenwa?” she exclaimed in Setswana. “Why have you messed up my house like this? Are you all crazy?”

Silence.

Our eyes darted about with no proper explanation. My grandmother continued, “Lorato! Ke a go botsa!” Lorato, I am asking you! I paused. Why was I being singled out to answer this question?

So, with my notorious loud mouth I asked, “Why me when they all created this mess?” “Because you are the girl,” she responded.

I protested of course. The person who should be responsible for this is my older 15-year-old uncle, since in my 8-year-old mind, older people had to be the responsible ones. My protest sort of worked. I didn’t have clean the dishes. But my uncles did NOT clean up either.

Lorato Modongo (second from left) runs Teen Lead in Botswana. The project mentors high school students about leadership, personal development, consent and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights.

It was my grandmother who did what she did every day–all the chores.

This moment was my first introduction to gender roles. It was my first memory where I came to realize that girls and women must physically labor in their households. I realized that my beloved grandmother labored daily for us not because she was older, but because she was the only woman in the house.

And here I was, at age 8, being recruited and positioned for that same role.

Since then, I became more aware and conscious of the many inequalities in my world that were rooted in gender differences. In the classroom, for example, I noticed how as girls we had to act “more appropriately.” We had to tone our voices down and not go galaotega – to not speak on loudspeaker.

I noticed how when puberty hit, our developing breasts were a source of embarrassment. Our periods had to be talked about in hushed voices. We had to hide our sanitary pads. Our legs. Our legs had to be closed because respectful women close their legs.

Also, if you do not close your legs, men will see your thighs and they would want to see what is between your thighs. And no one will believe you because what business did you have, not covering your juicy, near ripe 15-year old thighs?

I noticed on National TV and newspapers and school books how there was little or no representation of women leaders in all kind of spaces in my country. I read history books about all the great leaders. Not a single mention of any African woman.

I witnessed inequality in everyday life: in education, in access to health services, in transport, in political power, and in the microcosm of family life. But it clicked and became more clearer when I was recruited to participate in research project during my 3rd year at University of Botswana.

During this project, we explored access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services for young girls like me. We explored how girls showed up in my world.

Hushed.

Invisible.

Respectful.

Nice.

Ambitious but with a limit.

Aware of self, but not too self-aware so as to not scare men off.

We explored how the world showed up for girls like me: With violence and rage and policing.

We explored our reality. The prevalence of sexual violence and rape and all types of violence upon our bodies. Although gender-based violence is prevalent across the world, in Botswana, over 67 percent of women have experienced abuse—which is double the global average. Research shows that 40 women are raped each week in the country.

We explored the policies and laws that sought to either protect us, or further our plight in the patriarchal society. We explored all this and own existence and agency in the world.

I better understood how access to SRHR and agency over women’s bodies are all linked to gender inequality. But it all began when I was 8. Access, or lack thereof, to SRHR services is linked to a need to police, dominate, and control women’s bodies.

Until we don’t dismantle patriarchy and gender inequality at the core within a family and community, we will not make progress at a societal, national, or global level.

In the words of Tapiwa Mugabe, “My ancestors live and breathe vicariously through me.” Unlike my grandmother’s generation, I have the space to speak up and speak out.

Being here today, I know she would be proud. Her defiant, rebellious granddaughter who at 8 refused to clean the house, stands before you today at 29 refusing to accept how the world shows up for women like me, for women like us.

*Lorato Modongo was born and raised in Botswana. She earned a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in Research Psychology. She is also a Women Deliver Young Leader from the Class of 2013.

Excerpt:

By Ish Mafundikwa
Selibe Pikwe, Nov 5 2013 (IPS)

Botswana is a very dry country but there are places where there is enough water for irrigation. There are also places in the Limpopo basin where even water to drink is difficult to get.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipslatamradio07/botsfinal.mp3[/podcast]

Children in Luanda. Angola is expected to graduate from the ranks of the LDCs by 2015. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2013 (IPS)

The number of “least developed countries” (LDCs), which rose from the original 24 back in 1971 to the current 49, is beginning to shrink – haltingly.

So far, three countries – Botswana, Cape Verde and the Maldives – have “graduated” from LDCs to the status of developing countries."The key issue of a widening inequality gap and redistribution of resources remains a development challenge." -- Dr. Arjun Karki of LDC Watch

And as economies improve, at least six more countries – Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Angola, Samoa and Equatorial Guinea – are on the verge of leaving the ranks of LDCs by 2015.

But some of them have been reluctant to graduate – and sought postponements – since LDC status provides several benefits, including preferential tariffs on exports and increased development aid.

Still, the growing list of potential “graduates” comes in the midst of a new U.N. report that says inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to LDCs grew by 20 percent last year, registering a record 26 billion dollars.

The strong gains were led by Cambodia, as well as five African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Mauritania, Mozambique and Uganda, all of them LDCs.

The recently-released World Investment Report 2013, authored by the Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), says growth was led by strong gains in Cambodia (where inflows were up 73 percent), DRC (96 percent), Liberia (167 percent), Mauritania (105 percent), Mozambique (96 percent), and Uganda (93 percent).

Still, 20 LDCs reported declines in FDI, and the trend was particularly pronounced in Angola, Burundi, Mali and the Solomon Islands.

Described as the poorest of the world’s poor, LDCs are mostly characterised by extreme poverty and economic structural weaknesses.

According to the United Nations, these have been often compounded by geophysical handicaps, limited capacity for growth and development and vulnerability to external shocks.

The most recent addition to the list of 49 LDCs is the new nation state of South Sudan, which joined the United Nations as its 193rd member in July 2011.

Asked if the FDI increase in LDCs is the beginning of a new trend or just a flash in the pan, Dr. Arjun Karki, international coordinator for LDC Watch, a global civil society alliance solely focused on developmental issues and concerns of the LDCs, told IPS, “The scenario is not crystal clear.”

Given the fall in FDI inflows to developed countries, the LDCs are now on the FDI radar, he added.

“If you observe the trend, it’s the resource-rich LDCs, such as the DRC, Liberia, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Uganda, that are receiving FDI inflows,” he pointed out.

But investments are reported to be highest in the extractive sector, he noted.

“From the development perspective, this trend is not very encouraging as this reinforces the commodity-led growth in LDCs which is not sustainable,” Dr Karki said.

The U.N. Committee for Development Policy (CDP) usually determines “eligibility” for LDC status – based on several factors, including population, national income and other economic indicators – but the ultimate decision rests with the countries themselves.
Zimbabwe, for example, has refused to join the LDC group despite being judged eligible by CDP.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the increase in FDI comes at “an important moment” when the international community is making a final push to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015.

One of the primary objectives of MDGs is to reduce and eliminate extreme poverty and hunger, two of the major problems facing most LDCs.

At the same time, he said, the United Nations is working to forge a vision for the post-2015 development agenda.

Credible and objective information on FDI can contribute to success in these twin endeavours, Ban added.

Dr. Karki told IPS the new Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs for the Decade 2011-2020 is a slight shift from the commodity-oriented growth towards building productive capacity of LDCs in order to achieve structural economic transformation of LDCs.

Therefore, FDI inflows to LDCs would be welcome if they are targeted at the manufacturing sector, infrastructure and basic services sector such as health, water and sanitation, electricity and communications.

The key problem with FDI inflows targeting the extractive sector is that the benefits fail to trickle down, with only the multinational and transnational corporations and the recipient country’s elites minting money at the expense of the poor, marginalised and vulnerable communities, he pointed out.

“The key issue of widening inequality gap and redistribution of resources remains a development challenge,” he said. “This fact was blatant during my recent visit to Liberia and Sierra Leone – two extremely resource-rich LDCs but unfortunately, with the poorest populations.

“Given such a sad irony, our civil society partners were of the opinion that all the riches should remain in the soil/ground as they fail to ensure the right to sustainable development of the peoples anyway.”

The negative growth – particularly in Angola, Burundi and Mali – could be attributed to the political instability in these LDCs, which is not a good breeding ground for FDI.

“Having said this, it is also interesting to note that FDI inflows are high in both authoritarian regimes as well as in vulnerable governments as is the case in Africa and Asia,” Dr. Karki noted.

He said the other reason for FDI decline could be the evolving role of development-oriented governments in LDCs that are attempting to safeguard national interests and rights of peoples over profit and plunder.

“If this is truly the case, then LDC governments are in the right direction towards genuinely uplifting their populations out of the structural causes of poverty, deprivation and injustices,” he said.

The issue of sovereignty is critical in terms of respecting and complying with country systems. Otherwise, it has been proven that FDI is more of a bane than a boon for sustainable development, Dr Karki concluded.