By Nteranya Sanginga
IBADAN, Nigeria, Jan 5 2016 (IPS)

2016 is the International Year of Pulses, and we at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture are proud to be organizing what promises to be the landmark event, the Joint World Cowpea and Pan-African Grain Legume Research Conference.

Nteranya Sanginga, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Courtesy of IITA

The March event in Zambia should draw experts from around the continent and beyond and offer an opportunity to share ideas into the edible seeds – cowpeas, common bean, lentils, chickpeas, faba and lima beans and other varieties – now enjoying their well-deserved 15 minutes of fame as nutritional superstars.

Pulses may look small, but they are a big deal.

Nutritionists consistently find that their low glycemic profiles and hefty fiber content help prevent and manage the so-called diseases of affluence, such as obesity and diabetes. And the protein they pack holds great potential to assist the world in managing its livestock practices in a more sustainable way, so that more people can enjoy better and more varied middle-income diets without placing excess strains on natural resources.

First and foremost, we must make more pulses available. Global per capita availability of pulses declined by more than a third in the four decades following the 1960s. But production has been growing sharply since 2005, especially in developing countries. Cowpeas have been one of the specific leaders of this trend, which has been marked by very welcome increases in yield as well as more hectares being planted.

Importantly, almost a fifth of all pulses today are traded, up almost three-fold from the 1980s, a pace that vastly outstrips the growing trade in cereals. Moreover, while North America is an exporting powerhouse, so is East Africa and Myanmar; more than half of all pulses exports now come from developing countries.

There is a serious opportunity to scale up these protean protein sources.

The good news for the millions of small family farmers is that this may be more about reclaiming a traditional virtue than revolution. After all, the prolific Arab traveler Ibn Battuta wrote about Bambara nuts fried in shea oil while on a trip to Mali and the Sahel back in 1352. The cowpea fritters, known as akara in Nigeria and often seen at roadside stands around West Africa, are their direct descendants, and the elder siblings of acarajés, declared part of the cultural heritage of Brazil – where they are eaten with shrimp – and where their Yoruba name survived the dreadful middle passage of the slave trade.

We at IITA have been cowpea champions for decades. Just this month Swaziland’s Ministry of Agriculture released to local farmers five new cowpea varieties we developed – seeds that mature up to 20 percent faster and yield up to four times more. That latest success comes in great measure, thanks to IITA’s gene bank, which holds, for the world community, 15,112 unique samples of cowpea hailing from 88 countries.

Why so many cowpeas? Our question is why aren’t more being grown!

After all, cowpea contains 25 percent protein, is an excellent conveyor of vitamins and minerals, adapts to a broad range of soil types, tolerates drought as well as shade, grows fast to combat erosion, and as a legume pumps nitrogen back into the soil. We can eat its main product – sometimes known as black-eyed peas – and animals enjoy the residual stems and leaves.

So why don’t we hear more about it? Well, perhaps the world wasn’t listening, but it’s about to have another chance.

Seriously, though, cowpeas come with problems. First of all, the plant is subject to assault at every point in its life cycle, be it from aphids, mosaic virus, pod borers, rival weeds, or the dreaded weevils that fight with fungi and bacteria to consume the seeds while in storage. These are things IITA scientists try to combat, through seed breeding or spreading innovative technologies such as the PICS bags that keep the weevils out.

There is much more to learn, about the plant, how to grow it, and how to bolster its role in the food system. I’lll wager that in the Year of Pulses much will be learned about processing, a critical phase, and one that is already allowing many Nigerian businesses to prosper. Perhaps big global food manufacturers will find new ways to grind pulses into their grain products to produce healthier foods with more complete proteins.

As for farming cowpea, the plant can serve to reduce weeds and fertilizer for the cash crops. It is also harvested before the cereal crops, offering food security and also flexibility, as farmers can choose to let the plants grow, reducing bean yields but increasing that of fodder.

The plant’s epicenter – genetically and today – is West Africa. Nigeria is the big producer, but is also the main importer from neighboring countries. Niger is the world’s biggest exporter. But its ability to deal with dry weather and help combat soil erosion might be of interest elsewhere, such as in Central America’s dry corridor.

(End)

Excerpt:

Zambian cotton grower sitting on his bales. Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that characterises the global cotton market. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

By Haidee Swanby
MELVILLE, South Africa, Jun 15 2015 (IPS)

Genetically modified (GM) cotton has been produced globally for almost two decades, yet to date only three African countries have grown GM cotton on a commercial basis – South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

African governments have been sceptical of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for decades and have played a key role historically in ensuring that international law – the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety – takes a precautionary stance towards genetic engineering in food and agriculture.

They have also imposed various restrictions and bans on the cultivation and importation of GMOs, including on genetically modified (GM) food aid.

But now resistance to GM cultivation is crumbling as a number of other African countries such as Malawi, Ghana, Swaziland and Cameroon appear to be on the verge of allowing their first cultivation of GM cotton, with Nigeria and Ethiopia planning to follow suit in the next two to three years.“Scrutiny of actual experiences [with GM cotton] reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production”

Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that characterises the global cotton market.

At the moment African cotton productivity is declining – it now stands at only half the world average – while global productivity is increasing. The promise of improving productivity and reducing pesticide use through the adoption of GM cotton is thus compelling.

However, African leaders and cotton producers need to take a close look at how GM cotton has fared in South Africa and Burkina Faso to date, particularly its socioeconomic impact on smallholder farmers.

Scrutiny of actual experiences reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production.

As stated by a farmer during a Malian public consultation on GMOs, “What’s the point of encouraging us to increase yields with GMOs when we can’t get a decent price for what we already produce?”

In Burkina Faso, the tide turned against GM cotton after just five seasons as low yields and low quality fibres persisted. In South Africa, GM cotton brought devastating debts to smallholders and the local credit institution went bust. Last season, smallholders contributed to less than three percent of South Africa’s total production.

In Malawi, Monsanto has already applied to the government for a permit to commercialise Bollgard II, its GM pest resistant cotton, to which there has been a strong reaction from civil society and an alliance of organisations has submitted substantive objections.

Even Malawi’s cotton industry, the Cotton Development Trust (CDT), has publically voiced its concerns over a number of issues, including inadequate field trials, the high cost of GM seed and related inputs, and blurred intellectual property arrangements.

In addition, CDT has expressed unease over the potential development of pest resistance and the inevitable applications of herbicide chemicals.

Regional economic communities (RECs), such as the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), are also key players in readying their member states for the commercialisation of and trade in GM cotton, through harmonised biosafety policies. Together COMESA and ECOWAS incorporate 34 countries in Africa.

The COMESA Policy on Biotechnology and Biosafety was adopted in February 2014 and member states validated the implementation plan in March 2015.

The ECOWAS Biosafety Policy has been through an arduous process for more than a decade now and pronounced conflicts between trade imperatives and safety checks have stalled agreement between stakeholders. However, recent reports indicate that agreement between member states and donor parties has been reached and a final draft of the Biosafety Policy will soon be published.

Experiments and open field trials with GM cotton have been running for many years in a number of African countries and are increasingly at a stage where applications for commercial release are imminent.

However, there are many obstacles to the birth of a new GM era in Africa, chief among them the fact that this high-end technology is simply not appropriate to resource-poor farmers operating on tiny pieces of land, together with fierce opposition from civil society and sometimes also from governments.

Attempts by the biotech industry to impose policies that pander to investors’ desires at the expense of environmental and human safety may be easier to realise at the regional level, through the trade-friendly RECs. This is where many biotech industry resources and efforts are currently being channelled.

Despite whatever legal environments may be implemented to enable the introduction of GM cotton regionally or nationally, the fact remains that Africa’s cotton farmers are operating in a difficult global sector – prices are erratic and distorted by unfair subsidies in the North, institutional support for their activities is often lacking, and high input costs are already annihilating profit margins.

Fighting for the introduction of more expensive technologies that have already proven themselves technologically unsound in a smallholder environment is deeply irresponsible and short-sighted.

It is time that African governments turn their resources to improving the local environments in which cotton producers operate, including institutional and infrastructural support that can bring long-term sustainability to the sector, without placing further burdens and vulnerability on some of the most marginalised people in the world.

Civil society actions will continue to vehemently oppose and challenge the false solutions promised by GM cotton and will insist on just trading environments and true and sustainable upliftment for African cotton producers.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

* This opinion piece is based on the author’s more extensive paper titled Cottoning on to the Lie, published by the African Centre for Biodiversity, June 2015

Excerpt:

Whether they like it or not, many Africans faced with the possibility of having to access water through prepaid meters have resorted to unprotected and often unclean sources of water because they cannot afford to pay. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, May 8 2015 (IPS)

While many countries appear to have met the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, rights activists say that African countries which have taken to installing prepaid water meters have rendered a blow to many poor people, making it hard for them to access water.

“The goal to ensure that everyone has access to clean water here in Africa faces a drawback as a number of African countries have resorted to using prepaid water meters, which certainly bar the poor from accessing the precious liquid,” Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development, a Zimbabwean democracy lobby group, told IPS.

Prepaid water meters work in such a way that if a person cannot pay in advance, he or she will be unable to access water.Despite U.N. recognition that water is a human right, international financial institutions such as the World Bank argue that water should be allocated through market mechanisms to allow for full cost recovery from users

As a result, African rights activists like award-winning Terry Mutsvanga from Zimbabwe and other civil society organisations are against the idea of prepaid water meters.

“If one has to pay upfront before accessing water, then it would mean those in most need would be denied access,” Mutsvanga told IPS, adding that water is a global human right.

Mutsvanga was echoing the United Nations General Assembly which, in July 2010, emerged with a binding resolution on the human right to water and sanitation – but for Africa, the human right to water may be far from reality.

Laden with a population of approximately 1.1 billion, Africa’s 300 million people have no access to safe drinking water, according to the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Many rights activists on the continent attribute Africa’s mounting water challenges partly to the advent of prepaid water meters.

“We already have hundreds of millions of people without access to clean water, and imagine the severity of the water challenge if water prepaid meters would reach everyone on the continent,” Mutsvanga said.

Over the years, prepaid water meters have been widely used in African countries like Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland and Tanzania, as well as South Africa, where the meters which were rolled out in 1999 are currently in low-income areas.

Zimbabwe is currently conducting a pilot project aimed at installing the prepaid water meters, in towns and cities to begin with. And the country’s impoverished urban dwellers like 51-year old Tinago Chikasha are in panic mode, fearing the worst may be coming their way.

“Local authorities are pressing ahead with the idea of prepaid water meters, but jobless people like me have no money to make prepayments for water while we already have unpaid water bills running into thousands of dollars, which local authorities say they will deduct through all future water prepayments, meaning we run into the danger of having dry water taps for as long as we owe local authorities,” Chikasha told IPS.

In non-African countries like the United Kingdom, prepaid water meters are no longer being used after they were declared illegal in 1998 for public health reasons.

They were also abandoned in South Africa at one stage following a massive cholera outbreak, but were reintroduced and have replaced previously free communal standpipes in rural townships.

Despite U.N. recognition that water is a human right, international financial institutions such as the World Bank argue that water should be allocated through market mechanisms to allow for full cost recovery from users, and civil society activists like Melusi Khumalo in South Africa blame capitalist tendencies for necessitating the advent of prepaid water meters.

“Prepaid water meters are a result of such negative policies by institutions like the World Bank and they [prepaid water meters] deny water access to those in most need,” Khumalo, who is affiliated to Parktown North Residents’ Association in Johannesburg, told IPS.

In Zimbabwe, Mfundo Mlilo, chief executive officer of Combined Harare Residents’ Association (CHRA), told IPS: “We are vehemently against the prepaid meter project because it will not solve the problems of water delivery, and these prepaid water meters will not lead to residents receiving adequate safe and clean water, while the same prepaid water meters will also not lead to increase in revenue flows as the City [of Harare] claims.”

Last month, Harare’s Town Clerk Tendai Mahachi was reported by Zimbabwe’s Weekend Post as saying: “With these meters we expect roughly to save about 20-30 percent of the current costs we are incurring.”

According to Mahachi, at least 300 000 households in the Zimbabwean capital are scheduled to have prepaid water meters installed, while all new housing projects will be obliged to install meters.

Meanwhile, with prepaid water meters set to rake in big money for some of Africa’s local authorities, there are those like Nathan Jamela, an urban dweller in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, who fear the health consequences.

“We experienced the worst cholera outbreak in 2008, and we fear that if prepaid water meters are installed in every household here we will slide back to the crisis, with many people unable to afford to pay for water,” Jamela told IPS.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Processing baby vegetables at Sidemane Farm. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Sep 30 2014 (IPS)

Men in blue overalls are offloading vegetables from trucks while their female counterparts dress and pack the fresh produce before storing it in a cold room.

When another truck drives in, the packed items are loaded and the consignment is driven away again."Production is not a problem but getting access to the market is a challenge. That’s why you’d find farmers giving away their produce for free because that is the only way they can prevent it from being spoilt.” -- Betina Edziwa

Such are the daily activities at Sidemane Farm, situated a few kilometres outside the Swazi capital of Mbabane.

“The farmers have a contract to supply me with baby vegetables throughout the year,” Themba Dlamini told IPS.

In turn, he supplies Woolworths stores in South Africa with the vegetables, a business he said was very “sensitive”. Not only does his client demand high quality vegetables, but he has to be on time when it comes to meeting deadlines.

He bought the E1.6 million business from its previous owner in 2005 and he says demand has been growing each year.

“I’m competing with other suppliers from South Africa and Kenya,” he said.

The contracted farmers are critical to the survival of his business because the 90-hectare land that is cultivated by the existing farmers is no longer enough. He needs more farmers to supply him.

With a staff of 95, Sidemane currently exports 25 tonnes of vegetables monthly, although there is a potential to expand to 40 tonnes. But for the company to meet its growing demand, it needs to train more farmers. Lack of adequate funding was a limiting factor.

“When buying the farm, I took a loan and I was not in a position to get another loan until I finish this one,” he said. “It would have been difficult to expand without additional financial support.”

Last year, Dlamini applied and got an E380,000 grant from the European Union-funded Marketing Investment Fund (MIF), an initiative under the Swaziland Agriculture Development Programme (SADP). The Ministry of Agriculture implemented the SADP while the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations provided technical assistance.

From the MIF grant, Dlamini got a mini-truck, a generator and crates in which he packs the vegetables. The truck is very useful for transporting the vegetables and reaching out to farmers for trainings.

“We experience a lot of power cuts yet we deal with perishables. The generator helps to keep the stock whenever we don’t have power,” explained Dlamini.

He is one of 47 famers and agro-processors to benefit since 2012, said MIF coordinator Betina Edziwa. The project is the boost that many farmers needed to grow their businesses and improve their livelihoods.

“It has been realised that production for farmers is not a problem but getting access to the market is a challenge,” said Edziwa. “That’s why you’d find farmers giving away their produce for free because that is the only way they can prevent it from being spoilt.”

This necessitated the need to create a funding mechanism to enable beneficiaries to buy equipment and get training to help farmers sell their products. The grants were not handed out in cash, but the farmers were given the equipment and trained in business management and marketing.

“Successful applicants were those working with smallholders or were involved in value-addition,” said Edziwa.

This is one government and development partners’ initiative to reduce poverty and food insecurity in the country, where 63 percent of the one million population lives below the poverty line, according to the 2010 Swaziland Household Income and Expenditure Survey (SHIES).

Given the high incidence of HIV/AIDS – with Swaziland leading the world at 26 percent of the productive age group – a lot of farmers took a knock.

This is the injection that many Swazi farmers needed to ensure that they are able to grow from just being subsistence to commercial agriculture, said Minister of Agriculture Moses Vilakati.

“The fund is in line with ministry’s approved strategy on diversification and commercialisation,” he said.

Although the disbursement of funds under the MIF came to an end in June, Vilakati said the ministry will establish an agribusiness section to ensure sustainability and expansion of the initiative through follow-up training, monitoring and evaluation of the enterprises and the farmers.

In a recent interview on the FAO’s website, SADP’s chief technical advisor, Nehru Essomba, said MIF is part of the broader SADP that has benefited 20,000 farmers in many other activities. One of the activities includes the rehabilitation of six dams for irrigation to support production, not only of crops but also livestock.

“We’re already helping more than 20,000 famers move from subsistence agriculture to a more sustainable high income-generating and market-led agriculture,” said Essomba.

It is a comprehensive approach in addressing the value chain, said EU Ambassador to Swaziland Nicola Bellomo on the same website. He said this programme links production, processing and marketing of the product, which is new in the country, a net importer.

“We are trying to develop a capacity and ability to export food,” said Bellomo.

And this is what Sidemane and many other famers are already doing.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A Swazi mother with her baby. In July Swaziland will roll out Option B+, the latest treatment recommended by the World Health Organisation for HIV positive mothers. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Jun 5 2014 (IPS)

For months, Nonkululeko Msibi could not find her voice each time she wanted to share the news to her husband. She had learned that she was infected with HIV at the age of 16 when delivering her firstborn baby at Swaziland’s Mbabane Government Hospital.

“Although I was shocked by the news, I accepted it,” Msibi told IPS. “But the most difficult part was breaking the news to my husband.”

Her biggest fear was to be thrown out of their marital home should he believe that she had brought HIV into the family.

Despite being put on antiretroviral treatment (ART) at the baby’s birth and living two kms away from the clinic, where she could easily refill her prescriptions, her daughter contracted HIV, possibly through breast milk.

“Because I did not disclose my status, I failed to convince my mother-in-law that I had to breastfeed exclusively,” said Msibi.

Her second baby is also HIV positive because, she says, the clinic failed to give her nevirapine, although the nurses knew her status.  “I don’t know why this happened,” she said.

Born and bred at rural Motshane, about 15 kilometres from the capital city of Mbabane, Msibi dropped out of school in Grade 3 and got married at the age of 15 when five months pregnant. A product of a broken family, with both her parents deceased, marriage is the most important thing in her life.

“There must be someone to look after you and your children, especially if you’re unemployed like me,” said Msibi.

So, when she received the HIV diagnosis, she imagined her world falling apart, did not tell anyone and did not follow ART properly.

But she is not the only woman in this kind of dilemma.

“We realised that some women do not return to health centres within the stipulated timelines,” said researcher Thandeka Dlamini. She and other researchers set out to find why married women start ART late or drop out.

Their study, conducted by MarxART, a project by the Swaziland National AIDS Programme (SNAP), found “distinct socio-cultural challenges faced by women before initiating ART that result in specific gendered decision making patterns.”

This matters because in July Swaziland will roll out Option B+, the latest treatment recommended by the World Health Organisation for HIV positive mothers. Option B+ consists of lifelong provision of ART to pregnant women, regardless of their CD4 count. CD4s, or helper cells, fight infections in the body.

Since last year, Option B+ has been provided to 600 women to test feasibility, acceptance and clinic readiness. Soon it will be offered to the four out of ten pregnant women who are HIV positive. Among these, women aged 30-34 showed the highest prevalence – more than half were HIV positive in 2010.

Gendered decisions

Although Swazi women have better health-seeking behaviour than men, they find it hard to deal with HIV because of socio-cultural barriers, says the study. Many HIV positive married women live in a dilemma between obeying their husbands or following the advice of the health workers

According to Dlamini, in this conservative country, where women were considered minors until not long ago, wives must obey their husbands, even if they oppose ART or prefer traditional medicine.

Dlamini said an HIV diagnosis threatens married women’s sense of security because they fear being cast out by their spouses or in-laws.

“Submission might result in death, revolt can result in life, but threatens the loss of dignity and the refuge found in a marriage, and can bring shame when a marriage fails,” said a 25-year-old married woman quoted in the study.

National HIV prevalence is 26 percent among people aged 15-49, and 5,600 women were newly infected with HIV in 2012, according to the United Nations. Two thirds of infections are among women aged 25 and over – in their married, childbearing years.

Although the 2007 Swaziland Demographic and Health Survey reports that both married and single women have a high HIV prevalence, they are faced with different choices when it comes to ART. Single women can take a decision on their own; married women can’t.

Dr Velephi Okello, senior medical officer at SNAP, said the findings will help strengthen its HIV communications strategy.

“This study has helped us understand why women are either dropping out or initiating ART late,” said Okello.

The 2013 Global Report of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) shows that nine out of ten Swazis remain on ART after a year. But Okello said one dropout is one too many.

“We need to understand the barriers they encounter at social level so that we help them stay on treatment,” said Okello.

Dlamini recommends empowering married women with skills to negotiate access to ART, and researching how some women successfully navigate this tricky situation.

One such woman is Msibi, now 24, who is on treatment together with her husband.

“When my firstborn fell seriously ill, I realised I had to disclose,” she said.

Counselling from health workers helped her find the voice to break her silence. Msibi approached her mother-in-law, who already suspected that the child was HIV positive. An HIV test confirmed her fears.

“But that made it easy for me to disclose to my husband, who found it difficult to accept at first, but eventually he did,” she said. Later he trained as an HIV/AIDS counsellor at the local clinic, and the couple now helps each other follow ART carefully.

Excerpt:

Lindiwe Dlamini nurses her six-week-old baby boy. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Jan 7 2014 (IPS)

Smiling as she breastfeeds her six-week-old baby boy, Lindiwe Dlamini, 38, is optimistic about his future.

Dlamini, who is HIV-positive, is determined that her baby will not be infected. The mother of three – who conceived her first two children when she was HIV-negative – was on antiretroviral therapy (ART) when she delivered a healthy boy in November.

Now she is feeding him on breast milk and nothing else for six months – advice she received during antenatal care. She knows mother’s milk is more nutritious and carries antibodies.

“Breastfeeding is the most affordable method for me because I’m unemployed, but I wasn’t so sure considering my status,” Dlamini told IPS.

Half of all new episodes of HIV transmission to children occur during breastfeeding if mothers are not on ART, says the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS).

Alarmingly, although Swaziland recorded a 38-percent decline in new HIV infections among children between 2009-2012, seven out of 10 mothers here do not receive antiretroviral medicines during breastfeeding to prevent infecting their babies, says the 2013 UNAIDS Progress Report.

Swaziland has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, at 26 percent of people aged 15 to 49.

A domestic worker who had to quit her job after falling pregnant, Dlamini relies on the income from her partner, a construction worker. Buying formula milk would strain the family budget. A 900-gramme tin costs 130 emangaleni (about 13 dollars) and lasts a month.

Dlamini breastfed her first two babies without any problem, but faced a dilemma with the third, or so she thought: “The worst thing that could happen to me is to infect my baby with HIV.”

Help came through a mentor mother, Jabu Mkhaliphi, who works for the NGO Mothers to Mothers. An HIV-positive mother who breastfed her three-year-old daughter, Mkhaliphi allays the fears of pregnant women.

“No mother wants to infect their baby,” Mkhaliphi told IPS. She takes them through her experience and, as a result, most of her clients, like Dlamini, embrace exclusive breastfeeding despite their initial fear.

Yet many women living with HIV are sceptical about breastfeeding in this impoverished southern African country. Only 17 percent of children aged four to five months are exclusively breastfed, says the most recent Demographic Health Survey.

And, with a median duration of mixed breastfeeding of 17 months, there are many chances for HIV infection.

Percy Chipepera, director of the Swaziland Infant Nutrition Action Network (SINAN), links this trend to the discovery, back in the 1990s, that breast milk carries the virus, when HIV positive mothers were discouraged from breastfeeding.

“During this period, a lot of children died of diarrhoea and malnutrition,” said Chipepera.

Some deaths could be attributed to poor hygiene when preparing the feeding bottles, leading to gastrointestinal infections, while many parents could not afford formula milk, which led to malnourishment, he explained.

A glimmer of hope was restored when ART was introduced around 2005. ART lowers the mother’s viral load significantly, making breastfeeding, if done properly and exclusively, quite safe.

Being at body temperature, breast milk will not damage the baby’s delicate mucosa lining up its digestive system. However, hot food can cause microscopic lesions through which the virus could enter.

The good news: if the mother’s viral load is low or undetectable thanks to ART, the chances of transmission are greatly reduced.

The art and science of breastfeeding

Exclusive breastfeeding – giving the baby nothing but breast milk – for six months is recommended by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), by SINAN and by the Ministry of Health.

However, exclusive breastfeeding is not that simple for many mothers. Grandmothers and aunties may believe that babies are not satisfied by breast milk alone and must be given supplementary food or ritual herbal teas.

Dr. Florence Naluyinda-Kitabire, an HIV/AIDS specialist with UNICEF, attributes these practices to poor understanding of breastfeeding.

Among the things that mothers should learn, said Naluyinda-Kitabire, is that babies should not be removed from one breast until they have dried it out.

“There is a lot of art and science around breastfeeding,” she said. “We need to educate not only the mothers but their families.”

One common mistake is that mothers remove the infant from the one breast soon after they have finished the liquid milk, leaving the hind milk. Yet the hind milk fills up the baby because it has fat.

“While HIV/AIDS is responsible for the decline in breastfeeding, other issues need to be addressed,” said Naluyinda-Kitabire.

One is the misconception, not only in Swaziland, that exclusive breastfeeding is for HIV-positive mothers. Naluyinda-Kitabire stressed that all babies, irrespective of the mother’s HIV status, should be breastfed because it is good for their health.

On average, exclusive breastfeeding by Swazi mothers lasts only three months, reports the 2010 Swaziland Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey.

Part of the reason is that mothers must return to work after 12 weeks. The International Labour Organisation, through the Maternity Protection Convention, which Swaziland has not yet ratified, calls for a minimum maternity leave of 14 weeks and for workplace support for nursing mothers.

Another deterrent is the aggressive commercial marketing of formula as a good substitute for breast milk. The government is considering a Public Health Bill to limit false claims in formula marketing, and to force manufacturers to explain, on the tin, in the local language, SiSwati, that breast is best.

Swaziland goes to the polls for the second and final round of voting in its elections on Sept. 20, 2013. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Sep 20 2013 (IPS)

As Swaziland goes to the polls for the second and final round of voting in its general elections on Sept. 20, giveaways have become the order of the day in this southern African nation.

Voters are receiving food parcels, blankets, booze and even cash from desperate candidates vying for a seat in the House of Assembly or parliament, despite the practices being against the country’s Electoral Act in this tiny southern African nation with a population of just under two million.

Nothando Ndwandwe, a voter from Manzini, the commercial hub of the country, has received parcels of maize and beans from a campaigning candidate. “Members of parliament neglect us for five years and only return when they want our votes. It makes sense for the voters to cash in now,” she tells IPS.“Under the present system these elections are never going to produce the quality of government that would bring positive change to the people.” -- Musa Hlophe, the coordinator of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations

It is not surprising that voters are accepting handouts as about 40 percent of the country’s 1.2 million people live below the poverty line of 1.25 dollars a day, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index. The country is also recovering from a crippling economic crisis.

Some candidates provide the handouts to voters as a way of electioneering during the primaries. Swaziland is a monarchy, ruled by King Mswati III, and political parties are not allowed to contest for power. Instead, 55 individuals are elected to the 65-member House of Assembly from 55 constituencies know as “Tinkhundla”. Mswati selects the other 10 members.

Individual candidates contesting seats in parliament are not allowed to canvas for votes during the first round of voting. That was held on Aug. 24. The government also prevents candidates from debating on state-controlled national radio and TV stations.

During the second round of voting, candidates compete in their constituency for a seat in parliament. It is only during this round that they are allowed to solicit votes.

“It’s very frustrating because those who have money then start buying people food and booze as a way of campaigning long before the primary elections,” complains Nomcebo Dlamini, a candidate from Sidvwashini, in the capital city Mbabane, who lost during the primary elections.

She tells IPS she would have stood a better chance if the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) allowed candidates to start canvassing for votes ahead of the second round.

“It’s worse for marginalised groups such as women and people living with disabilities because most of them do not have money to conduct the campaigns,” says socio-political analyst Thembinkosi Dlamini.

Some candidates are struggling under the pressure of voters’ expectations. Meshack Makhubu, a candidate for the House of Assembly from Mpolonjeni, which lies just outside Mbabane, says voters are milking candidates dry.

“Voters are demanding as much as 500 emalangeni (50 dollars) for a vote,” Makhubu tells IPS. “I can’t afford that kind of money.” He says that his financial circumstances put him at a disadvantage, as wealthy competitors are able to meet the voters’ demands.

But Dlamini tells IPS it is not surprising that handouts have come to characterise the elections as Swaziland has a system of government that prevents its people from organising and growing together politically.

“Individual merit places the risk squarely on the person running for parliament and they have every reason to want to game the system in order to succeed,” he says.

Critics say these elections serve the King, and not the people, as he has an overwhelming representation in parliament and cabinet. The House of Assembly or parliament has no power as Mswati overrules decisions he does not like. Mswati appoints the prime minister and 20 of the 30 senators. The remaining 10 are elected by the House of Assembly.

Mswati, who has 14 wives, each with their own palace, and whose wealth Forbes Magazine estimated at 100 million dollars in 2010, is accused of living in excess at the expense of the taxpayer. Corruption in the government is also high. In 2011 Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole said that 128 million dollars was lost annually through government corruption. The Swazi budget for 2012/2013 is just over one billion dollars.

And with an unemployment rate of 40 percent, it comes as little surprise that many are eager to win a seat in parliament. According to the deputy director at the Coordinating Assembly of NGOs, Njanbulo Simelane, people have realised that they do not stand to benefit from their MPs.

“The idea is that we elect you so that you get gainful employment so we also want something in return for our votes,” Simelane tells IPS. “After all, parliament is not important to the rank and file of this country.”

Musa Hlophe, the coordinator of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations, says people are forced to elect candidates they hardly know because they are not allowed to debate policy issues around the elections.

Mdaka Kunene from Timphisini, northern Swaziland, says he has never seen any of the people who are contesting and when he votes he will just put a cross next to the face of someone likable.

“My area is too big so it’s impossible to know the candidates without them canvassing for votes,” Kunene tells IPS.

For that reason, says voter Mkhululi Dlamini from Mbabane, “Swazi elections should be called ‘selections’ because we are just voting for people whose policy direction we don’t even know.”

Hlophe adds that the EBC prevented some NGOs from conducting civic education campaigns to help educate the voters about their rights in the elections.

“Under the present system these elections are never going to produce the quality of government that would bring positive change to the people,” says Hlophe.

Women in Swaziland’s Ekwendzeni Chiefdom register to vote for the primary election. Analysts say that chauvinistic practices are being used to prevent women from participating in the Aug. 24 elections. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Aug 21 2013 (IPS)

Archaic and chauvinistic practices are being used to prevent Swazi women from taking part in the upcoming primary elections, despite the country having a constitution that guarantees their rights, says political analyst Dr. Sikelela Dlamini.

“The discrimination [against] women by preventing them from participating in politics is a consequence of deeply-rooted notions of male dominance and the subordination of women,” Dlamini told IPS.

He was reacting to a recent warning issued by the chief of Ludzibini, Prince Magudvulela, who told his subjects that they should not vote for women in mourning during the country’s Aug. 24 primary election.

It was clear during the meeting that Magudvulela was referring to former member of parliament and a contender for the Timphisini constituency, Jennifer Du Pont. She lost her husband, Bheki Shiba, in May and mourned him for a month instead of the normal two-year period. She is running for a second term of office.“Women don’t look good in pants and the chiefdom banned them from wearing pants." -- local headman, Zephaniah Dlamini

During an Aug. 17 meeting at the Ludzibini Royal Kraal in northern Swaziland, Magudvulela told his followers that according to customary practice, women in mourning were not allowed inside parliament, royal residences and near the King. Magudvulela said that electing women in mourning to parliament would be an embarrassment to the chiefdom.

Swaziland, a landlocked nation in southern Africa with a population of just over one million people, is ruled by a polygamist monarch, King Mswati III. Here political parties are not allowed to contest for power but individuals are elected to parliament from 55 constituencies know as “Tinkhundla”. The constituencies are sub-divided into 385 chiefdoms or districts nationwide. In the primary elections voters choose candidates from their chiefdoms who will then contest the secondary elections and compete against other candidates in their constituency for a seat in parliament.

“You must vote for someone that the King will be able to use,” Magudvulela had said.

Magudvulela told his followers that even though, according to the country’s constitution, Du Pont had a right to decide whether she followed the custom of mourning or not, customary law was still superior to the constitution.

Du Pont, who attended the meeting, was devastated by the chief’s conduct but said that she was still determined to win the elections.

“I’ll launch a complaint with the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC),” she told IPS.

Local chiefs play a huge role in the election process here. Swaziland’s EBC gives them the responsibility to decide where in their local districts to hold the elections.

Since the election process began, some chiefs have told their subjects not to elect gay people or those who belong to political parties.

King Mswati III , when dissolving parliament on Aug. 2, told the nation to elect people that he would be “able to use”. It was a statement that has been criticised by the progressive movement.

“It might look like it is just advice from the authorities, but this was a way of telling people what to do,” head of department in theology and religious practices at the University of Swaziland (UNISWA), Nonhlanhla Vilakati, told IPS.

Du Pont was not the only woman to be discriminated against ahead of this election.

When Mana Mavimbela was nominated to run for a seat in parliament in the Lusabeni constituency, EBC presiding officer Lindiwe Sukati disqualified her because she was wearing pants.

“The presiding officer just asked the audience if a woman wearing pants [should] be allowed inside a cattle byre,” Mavimbela told IPS of the Aug. 4 incident. “When the people said ‘no’, she just moved on.”

She has since launched a complaint with the EBC.

“I was nominated and I haven’t done anything wrong in terms of the law that would have disqualified me,” Mavimbela said. She was the only woman out of four candidates nominated from her area.

Mavimbela was also summoned to appear before the Lusabeni chiefdom where local headman Zephaniah Dlamini said that it was unacceptable for women in the district to wear pants.

“Women don’t look good in pants and the chiefdom banned them from wearing pants,” Dlamini told local newspaper, Times of Swaziland.

Mavimbela said that she had apologised to the Royal Kraal council on Aug. 10, because she feared for her destitute family who live in rural Ncandvweni, in southern Swaziland.

But Vilakati said that the chiefs’ conduct was not surprising in a country where people are expected to live according to the public transcript.

“We have no gender policy in the country and people react in different ways depending on their living realities,” said Vilakati.

Women in rural areas tend to face more challenges with regards to customary practices compared to their urban counterparts, Vilakati noted.

While EBC chairperson Prince Gija condemned the violation of women’s rights on the basis of customary practices, he said he had no control over the chiefs.

“The chiefs are appointed by the King,” he told IPS. “The EBC can only advise them [about] civic education, but we have no power to reprimand them.”

Gija admitted, however, that chiefs play a big role in the Swazi elections.

However, giving chiefs the right to run the elections is an anomaly on its own, said UNISWA law lecturer, Maxine Langwenya.

“The EBC is abdicating its responsibility because the constitution is very clear that the EBC should run the elections,” Langwenya told IPS.

Happy Shongwe, a smallholder farmer from rural Maphungwane in eastern Swaziland, shows off her seeds. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MAPHUNGWANE, Swaziland, Jun 15 2013 (IPS)

The overcast sky is a sign that it might rain, and Happy Shongwe, a smallholder farmer from rural Maphungwane in eastern Swaziland, is not exactly happy.

Inside a roofless structure made of cement blocks sit different types of legumes – peanuts, jugo beans, mung beans, cow peas and ground nuts – which she has placed in separate containers. “Women also form the majority of farmers and it makes sense to ensure that women have enough inputs to do their farming.” -- FAO assistant representative Khanyisile Mabuza

“If I don’t cover the seeds, the rain will spoil them and they will fail the test at the laboratory,” Shongwe tells IPS. “I have to cover the seeds with a sail to ensure that the rain doesn’t get to them.”

The unfinished structure is where she keeps her harvest for drying, before taking the legumes to the storage containers. An award-winning smallholder farmer who cultivates nothing but legume seeds for planting, Shongwe says the crop is drought tolerant and grows well in the dry parts of the country.

“I always monitor the weather because the little rainfall we get from this part of the country is enough to germinate the seeds,” she says. “You just have to know your weather so that you plant at the right time.”

She is preparing to take samples of her harvest to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Seed Quality Control laboratory for testing. If her seeds are of good quality, then she’ll package and label her stock before it is ready for sale.

“I get a certificate that shows that my seeds germinate at the required standard, therefore good for planting,” explains Shongwe.

One of her major clients is the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. FAO buys the seed for the organisation’s demonstration plots to promote conservation agriculture.

“FAO has placed an order of one tonne of ground nuts from this harvest which we are supposed to supply by September,” says Shongwe.

On her own she cannot supply such a big order from her four-hectare farm, so she works with a group of 10 women calling themselves the Lutsango Palata Cooperative. In fact, she chairs the association of women she has mobilised herself to go into seed production.

“We make a lot of money from selling the seed inputs compared to farmers who sell for food,” says Shongwe.

The National Maize Corporation buys a 50kg bag of maize at 13 dollars while a 5kg bag of nuts sells for 14 dollars.

There are about 10 associations of women doing similar work, bringing the number of farmers in this project to over 100, all from the drought-stricken Lubombo Region. These farmers produce indigenous seeds which they sell within their communities before offering them countrywide.

“It used to be very difficult for farmers to come across seed inputs for legumes because these are marginalised crops,” according to FAO assistant representative Khanyisile Mabuza.

Mabuza said FAO asked the Ministry of Agriculture to train women farmers in seed production and entrepreneurship back in the 1990s when the drought started. In 2008, FAO introduced Input Trade Fairs (ITF) where poor farmers received 72 dollars in vouchers from FAO to buy farming inputs.

“The community-based seed producers were also invited as vendors at the ITFs and that is where more women started joining in,” Mabuza tells IPS.

In the Kingdom, she says, legumes are considered “women’s crops” and men ignore them. As a result, there was a deliberate effort by FAO to target women to grow seed for themselves for these marginalised crops, which are very important in balancing the diet.

“Women also form the majority of farmers and it makes sense to ensure that women have enough inputs to do their farming,” says Mabuza.

She adds that there was a deliberate effort by FAO to target the dry areas, because legumes tend to withstand drought. For many years, farmers have been persistent in their cultivation of maize, which is the country’s staple food, although they received no yield because of the drought.

“We want our farmers to understand that because of climate change, drought is going to be a part of their lives and they must now learn to adapt,” according to Mabuza.

Farmers from the drought-stricken areas can sell their legumes so that they can afford to buy maize from their counterparts based in wetter areas.

“We’re very happy with the progress these women farmers are making,” says Mabuza.

The community-based seed producers are providing an alternative to the escalating costs of hybrid seed products sold by two multinational companies in the country, Seed Co. and Pannar. According to Seed Quality Control operations manager, Chris Mthethwa, many subsistence farmers do not have enough resources to buy the expensive hybrids.

“The advantage with indigenous seeds is that you can replant their offspring, yet that is not possible with hybrids,” according to Mthethwa.

He said the big companies are also reluctant to sell indigenous seeds because they are not as profitable as their hybrid counterparts. That is why the government, with support from FAO, decided to mobilise smallholder farmers to produce the indigenous seeds, whose taste many Swazis prefer.

There is a possibility that seeds from the smallholder farmers will be exported under the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) Harmonised Seed Security Programme (HASSP).

Swaziland is among four countries in this programme – Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe – working on aligning their seed legislation with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Seed Regulatory System. According to HASSP programme manager Dr. Bellah Mpofu, this pilot project will ensure easy movement within the SADC region of seeds produced from the participating countries.

“This will improve the access to and availability of quality seed to smallholder farmers,” he tells IPS.

This means by the end of the project this year, Shongwe, who won the 2011 FANRPAN Civil Society Policy Movers and Shakers Award, can expand her customer base.

“I can’t wait to start exporting,” she says proudly.

A woman fetches water from one of the few functioning water schemes in the rural community of Maphilingo, Swaziland. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE , Mar 25 2013 (IPS)

Every day for the last four years, 52-year-old Tintfombi Msibi has had to walk past the borehole in her village of Ekuphakameni, one of the driest rural villages in southern Swaziland, to a dirty stream two kilometres away to collect drinking water.

“We’ve been struggling to get water in this community because the borehole the government installed for us broke down,” she told IPS.

The borehole was supplied to the community through the government Umtfombo Wekuphila Water Scheme on the condition that the beneficiaries of the project set up a fund for its maintenance.

However, Msibi said some community members were too poor to contribute the monthly payment of about 1.60 dollars.

“Most people are poor here, so they could not afford to pay,” she said.

In the end, because of the lack of maintenance, the borehole eventually broke down and the cost of repairs would have required each household to raise 10 times the amount they would have originally contributed. In a country where 63 percent of people live below the poverty line of two dollars a day, 17 dollars is considered a huge sum.

But Msibi’s community is not the only one struggling with access to water.

While Swaziland’s Rural Water department claims that 69 percent of the population has access to clean water, the Water Project, an NGO that helps African countries access safe water, says that some 90 percent of community water projects in this southern African nation are not working.

Obed Ngwenya, the director of the Rural Water department, under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy, confirmed that his department also estimated that 90 percent of community water projects were not working. He said, however, that he would only be able to supply concrete figures once an assessment of all the dysfunctional schemes was concluded.

“Over 90 percent of the rural water schemes use boreholes, which is where we have the biggest challenge because they break down and accumulate huge electricity bills,” Ngwenya told IPS. Ten percent of the projects are protected springs, which are much easier to manage, Ngwenya added.

He explained that normally when a borehole broke down, a development partner would usually build another one.

“The one that is broken down is not fixed but left to lie idle,” said Ngwenya.

This has created a lot of “white elephant” water schemes throughout the country, he said.

The Ekuphakameni village is part of the Matsanjeni constituency, which has 175 boreholes, constituency headman Seth Gumbi told IPS. He said that of these, 75 were not working and the remaining 100 were not sufficient to supply the population of 17,000. Many people are forced, like Msibi, to travel significant distances to fetch water.

Some boreholes use hand-operated pumps that break down easily, said Gumbi. He added that others broke down because the high concentration of salt in the water corroded the mechanism.

“Some boreholes ran dry because there was inadequate water underground,” he said. “There are boreholes all over the place, but there is no water to drink.”

But Trevor Shongwe, the acting director of the Rural Water department, assured IPS that in a few months time the borehole in Ekuphakameni would be repaired and Msibi would just have to step into her village to get clean, safe drinking water.

“We’re currently mapping out all the rural water schemes in the country to get a sense of how many are functioning and (how many are) not,” said Shongwe. He said that five out of the country’s 55 constituencies had already been investigated.

Shongwe added that the government had teamed up with partners, including NGOs and the private sector, to repair the water projects that have broken down.

According to Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Forum chairperson Jameson Mkhonta, most of the government water schemes here have collapsed because of mismanagement. And others stopped working because communities could not afford the escalating electricity costs of pumping the water.

“As part of the rehabilitation exercise, we’ll also sensitise communities to mobilise resources to settle their electricity bills,” Mkhonta told IPS.

The communities will also be trained on how to run the projects efficiently.

In order to avoid leaving communities with huge electricity bills, the Rural Water department has been encouraging them to use gravity to pump water, where possible.

Nsuka, a community that is about an hour’s drive from the commercial capital of Manzini, is doing just this. Funded by World Vision Swaziland  (WVS), this project involves the construction of a 120,000-litre tank that will hold water drawn from a nearby spring.

“The spring is sitting at the top of the hill, which makes it easy to pump the water through gravity,” Daniel Maduna, WVS water and sanitation programme manager, told IPS.

The project will supply water to 221 households of about 10 people each from June, Maduna said.

While the cost of running the scheme will be low, Nsuka residents will have to contribute money towards the maintenance of the water pipes. So far, they have collected about 66 dollars for the establishment of the maintenance fund.

Maduna said this project was based on the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy model for providing water for rural communities, and communal taps would be installed within a 200-metre radius of each household.

“Each person is entitled to 30 litres of water per day, a demand that this project, which has a lifespan of over 20 years, will meet,” said Maduna, adding that his organisation would also train residents on how to manage the scheme.

(*This story, which moved on Mar. 22, 2013, originally stated that the Water Project says that some 90 percent of community water projects in Swaziland were not working. This was information taken from the organisation’s website. Added here is a reaction from Obed Ngwenya, the director of the Rural Water department.)

The Swazi government has asked principals of public primary schools to return an annual top-up fee that they have been charging pupils since the Free Primary Education Programme (FPEP) was introduced in 2009. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Feb 18 2013 (IPS)

As the Swazi government struggles to guarantee a no-cost nationwide primary school system, it finds itself sparring against school principals over the question if it is a lack of funds or an abundance of corruption that is standing in the way of its success. 

Most recently, the government has asked principals of public primary schools to return an annual top-up fee they have been charging their pupils, without government authority, since the Free Primary Education Programme (FPEP) was introduced here in 2009.

It is a request that some principals have refused, saying it could bankrupt many schools in this southern African nation. One principal, who asked for anonymity, told IPS that it was not feasible to refund parents because the money had already been used to settle bills with suppliers. It is a view shared by the national principals association.

“We’ll run schools as the government wants us to and – if they collapse because of a lack of funds, it’s not our problem,” president of the Swaziland Principals Association (SWAPA), Mduzuzi Bhembe, told IPS. He added that principals were frustrated by the government’s attitude, but he remained noncommittal on when exactly they intend to refund parents.

Schools owe parents an undisclosed amount, estimated to be millions of emalangeni (10 emalangeni is about one dollar), for the annual top-up fees that most of the country’s 558 primary schools charge pupils.

While the additional fees vary from school to school, some parents pay up to 76 dollars per child annually. It is considered a huge sum, as 63 percent of Swazis live below the poverty line of two dollars a day.

Schools charge these fees in addition to the annual 62 dollars per child that the government pays for pupils in grades one to five. The government’s orphan and vulnerable children’s grant programme, in addition, pays schools a higher amount of 219 to 280 dollars for primary and high school children who have registered for it.

But principals argued that the money paid for the free primary programme did not meet their running costs.

According to Minister of Education and Training Wilson Ntshangase, the money was sufficient to pay for stationery, textbooks, feeding schemes and teachers’ salaries.  His ministry is determined to get rid of the extra fees, he told IPS, as they make Swazi school dues exceptionally high.

Now, “There are many children who are idling at home even though the government has paid their fees, because they can’t afford the top-up fees,” Ntshangase told IPS.

“Government heavily subsidises education, yet the cost of education in this country is escalating,” Dumisani Mnisi, Swaziland director for Save the Children, told IPS

She agreed that some schools were operating efficiently with the money that the government paid them.

Regina Masuku’s grandchildren attend one of the few primary schools in the country that does not charge top-up fees.

“I’ve got nothing to complain about – except that they eat beans at school every day,” Masuku told IPS of the Mnyokane Primary School, in northeastern Swaziland.

Corruption

Meanwhile, Ntshangase admitted that corruption was rife in public schools. The government suspended two principals in December and January, following fraud allegations of funds amounting to over 680,000 dollars.

“Each time we ask for financial statements to justify the school expenditure from principals, they fail to give it to us,” said Ntshangase.

“Principals claim that they draw up their budgets with parents, but the reality is that parents just listen to what the head teacher tells them because the majority of them are uneducated.”

Parents have welcomed the move by the government.

Thandi Mntshali*, a mother of three,  is relieved that she will no longer have to obtain loans from micro lenders in order to pay the annual top-up fees.

“The principal told me that if I refused to pay the top-up fees, then he’d kick my children out of school,” she said.

Mntshali, who sells fruits and sweets at the school her children attend, had no option but to pay 228 dollars in top-up fees for all three of them.

“It was difficult to raise the money, but I had no choice because I don’t want my children to be uneducated like me.”

However, some have labelled the move to scrap the unauthorised top-up fees as a political gimmick by Ntshangase. While absolute monarch King Mswati III rules Swaziland, voters will go to the polls later this year, at a date yet to be announced, to elect Members of Parliament. Political parties are illegal here and not allowed to contest the elections.

Many have also questioned why it has taken Ntshangase three years to instruct principals to stop the practice and return the money already collected.

“Why was he quiet about this since 2009 when he took office?” asked one principal who preferred to remain anonymous.

Ntshangase denied accusations that the move was a political one, saying that the government had previously issued warnings to principals to stop the practice.

“This year we decided to make it formal,” he said.

Smallholder farmer Susan Godwin employs three women to help her process the peanuts she grows and was named by Oxfam International as the 2012 Female Food Hero in Nigeria. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
DES MOINES, Iowa, USA, Nov 16 2012 (IPS)

Give a woman a hand-out and you feed her for a day. But teach her to farm, and how to add value to her product, and you feed her and her family for a lifetime. And if she happens to be Nigerian smallholder farmer Susan Godwin, she in turn will also provide jobs for her community and become a national food hero.

Instead of turning to financial hand-outs when her crop failed four years ago, Godwin went back to the classroom to learn new farming methods, how to add value to her product and how to draw up a business plan to access credit.

“Some of the women I trained with gave up after realising that the training had no financial hand-outs, but I wanted to see it to the end,” Godwin told IPS.

The following harvest, Godwin’s yam and groundnut yield doubled. From the sales she bought a peanut shelling machine and began processing them into oil and groundnut cake, something a few people in her community have done.

Today, her family is food and financially secure. Not many smallholder farmers in her village of Tunduadabu in Nasarawa State in central Nigeria can make that claim. While Godwin employs three women to help her process the peanuts she grows, many farmers in the village are struggling. This is because, unlike Godwin, they have not been educated about adopting new farming methods and still rely on traditional techniques.

“Training is very important for smallholder farmers, especially in Nigeria, because without the training they would not know about new farming methods. Adopting new methods has helped lift me out of poverty to a new life where I have enough to eat, to give to people around me and to sell. I am now able to send my children to school,” the mother of five said.

According to a March 2012 report titled “Oxfam in Nigeria”, by Oxfam International, some 70 percent of the country’s women contribute to the West African nation’s agricultural output. But Nigeria is vulnerable to food insecurity despite ranking first in agricultural output in Africa. Only 50 percent of the country’s arable land is farmed.

Godwin now has five shelling machines and employs three women to operate them. She also lets her community use the machines for a small fee. “From the daily takings from the shelling machines I give each woman half of what she makes that day; 200 Naira (1.27 dollars) makes a difference when you have nothing,” said Godwin, who is also the chairwoman of the United Movement for Small Scale Farmers.

By sharing the profits of her business, Godwin has empowered her employees. Some of them have now been able to start up their own businesses.

“Smallholder farmers can feed the world if we give them the tools and support them,” she said

A continent away from her village, Godwin was recently feted as a farming role model at the 2012 Borlaug Dialogue held in the Midwestern U.S. state of Iowa in October. Godwin was also named by Oxfam International as the 2012 Female Food Hero in Nigeria.

Sithembile Mwamakamba, manager of the Women Accessing Realigned Markets project at the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), bemoaned the high level of illiteracy among smallholder women farmers on the continent.

“With the right support, smallholder women farmers can identify their needs, package relevant messages and effectively communicate them to policymakers,” Mwamakamba told IPS.

“There is a need to establish local-level dialogue platforms that capture the voice of women farmers in the process of policy formulation and implementation. Furthermore, there is a need for specially-designed extension and training services targeting smallholder women farmers in order to improve their productivity.”

Mwamakamba emphasised that these programmes must be complemented with improved access to inputs and markets if they are to have a lasting impact on farmers’ livelihoods.

Director of global public policy at CropLife International, Tracy Gerstle, told IPS that women were the backbone of the rural economy, comprising 43 percent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries and an estimated two-thirds of the world’s 600 million poor livestock keepers.

“We cannot overlook the central role of women in global food security and economic growth,” she said.

“Within poor households, women are essential to breaking the cycle of poverty, given that women tend to invest a significantly higher portion of their income on food and education for the family. Yet women struggle to reach their potential, given globally persistent gaps in their access to extension (services), agricultural inputs, land and finance vis-à-vis men. (This is) underpinned by persistent inequalities in their basic human rights in terms of access to education, land and equality.”

Gerstle said that providing educational support for girls and women through training facilities, scholarships, mentoring, extension services and other forms of technical assistance would help bridge the equality gap.

Happy Shongwe is leading the fight against food insecurity in her homeland, Swaziland. Shongwe, a commercial seed grower and winner of the FANRPAN 2011 Movers and Shakers Civil Society Award, agreed that smallholder farmers hold the keys to food security.

“Smallholder farmers can feed the world, if you capacitate them and give them all the tools,” Shongwe told IPS in a telephone interview from the southern African nation.

Shongwe grows certified legume and maize seeds under conservation agriculture techniques on her farm on the Lubombo plateau in the Siteki region, 150 kilometres east of the capital, Mbabane.

After noticing that farmers were constantly short of seed, Shongwe ventured into the competitive, yet lucrative, market of seed production.

“Financial support is important for smallholder farmers. I have the energy and the passion for farming, but not the money to kick-start some of my projects,” Shongwe, a mother of two, told IPS.

Her income has tripled since she started the business, which in a good season can bring in 2,500 dollars. Her success has even attracted the Swazi royal family, which has consulted her on growing legume seeds.

Shongwe is also passing on her wealth of knowledge to others.

“I am currently mentoring 60 farmers keen to go into seed production and have another group of 10 who I am training on conservation agriculture because knowledge and information is key if smallholder farmers are to contribute to food security,” said Shongwe.

Swaziland’s King Mswati III (r) pictured with former African Union chair Jean Ping (l). The country is experiencing a constitutional crisis after the House of Assembly passed a vote of no confidence in the cabinet. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Oct 13 2012 (IPS)

Swaziland’s King Mswati III is under immense pressure following the constitutional crisis that has resulted from his cabinet’s refusal to resign after the House of Assembly passed a vote of no confidence.

Political analysts feel this has exposed the undemocratic nature of the Swazi system of government and that it has put Mswati in a precarious position where he has to choose between the will of the people and those he has placed in power.

“The prime minister’s actions reveal beyond a doubt that the executive arm of government holds sway and that the verbal or laid-down supremacy of the constitution is not worth the paper that it’s written on,” political analyst Dr. Sikelela Dlamini told IPS, referring to Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini’s (no relation) refusal to vacate office.

The House of Assembly, which is the lower chamber of parliament, fired the cabinet or the executive arm of government, which includes the prime minister and ministers, on Oct. 3 following a ruling by the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) that compelled the state-owned Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC) to shut down all its mobile services after Swazi MTN complained of unfair competition. SPTC has since been left with only its fixed-line business.

Mswati holds 10 percent of MTN shares while Prime Minister Dlamini has a stake in Swaziland Empowerment Limited, which own 19 percent of shares in MTN.

However, some legal experts have argued that the ICA ruling was not legally binding because it was not an order given by the country’s courts, though the government has insisted that it is bound by it.

Prime Minister Dlamini had said a few hours after the vote of no confidence that the cabinet would not step down.

“His Majesty’s government believes that the motion passed by the House of Assembly is null and void as it seeks to compel the cabinet to defy court orders,” Dlamini had said, referring to the ICA ruling.

While the constitution clearly states that the cabinet should resign three days after a vote of no confidence, government spokesperson Percy Simelane told IPS that the executive branch of the government was still waiting for the King’s decision. On Oct. 9 he told reporters that the prime minister would not step down.

Swaziland is a monarchy and Mswati appoints the cabinet and 20 of the 30 senators in the upper chamber of parliament, with the remaining senators appointed by the House of Assembly.

And while political parties have not been allowed to campaign for office since 1973, the public can elect members of parliament to the House of Assembly under the Tinkhundla (constituency) system. The vote of no confidence in the cabinet by the House of Assembly has therefore been seen as the vote of the people.

Director of the Coordinating Assembly of NGOs Emmanuel Ndlangamandla said that the House of Assembly’s decision reflects the will of the people and Mswati is expected to endorse the resolution if he is serious about upholding the rule of law and democracy.

“We can’t have a situation where we have authorities on one end and the people on the other. In this case, it’s clear that the people do not want the government,” said Ndlangamandla.

A highly placed source told IPS that the 44-year-old monarch is refusing to see the Speaker of the House about this matter and is not prepared to act on the vote because he was extremely upset by the House of Assembly’s resolution.

The constitution gives Mswati powers to dissolve the cabinet after a vote of no confidence. The Speaker of the House of Assembly, Prince Guduza, who happens to be Mswati’s half brother, said he was still seeking an audience with the King on the matter.

“The King hasn’t said anything so far,” said Simelane. “So it’s business as usual.”

However, the Law Society of Swaziland said in a statement on Friday, Oct. 12 that the vote of no confidence was legal until the courts declared it otherwise. “It is our view that this matter should have been taken to court as a matter of urgency,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the House of Assembly has resolved to boycott the cabinet, which means that the debating and passing of bills in parliament has stalled.

But the law is on the side of the people, said constitutional lawyer Thulani Maseko, who argued that not even Mswati is above the constitution. He added that he was not surprised at the turn of events given the authorities’ disregard for the rule of law and human rights.

“The constitution has been undermined, breached and flouted every step of the way in more ways than one,” Maseko told IPS.

Federation of Swaziland Business Community president Henry Tum du Pont told IPS that the cost of communication services in Swaziland were the highest in the Southern African Democratic Community because of the mobile phone monopoly and further criticised the prime minister for acting selfishly in this matter.

“The SPTC saga is one of a long line of self-serving decisions taken by this cabinet, which seriously undermine the business reputation of the country,” said Du Pont.

The showdown between the cabinet and the House of Assembly is strengthening the voice of progressives in their call for multiparty democracy. Since 2008, trade unions have called for a multiparty democracy through labour protests that have been met by a vicious clampdown by security forces.

Maseko said that the showdown between the two branches of government show that “the chickens have finally come home to roost.”

By Jinty Jackson
Sep 20 2012 (IPS)

Carolina Poalo strikes the dry earth over and over with her hoe, her frail body bent almost double. She is determined to begin planting. During the long, dry season in Mozambique, she and her two young grandchildren have eaten little but cassava leaves.

In a country where the average life expectancy is 50, the 65-year-old is considered very old, but her golden years are far from restful.

Instead, life is a constant battle for the many elderly living in the semi-rural outskirts of the capital, Maputo.

Violence and abuse against the elderly – ranging from rape to psychological abuse and neglect – are on the rise, say authorities. Often this is linked to witchcraft accusations, although no official statistics exist about the phenomenon. Perpetrators are often family members.

Carolina Paolo’s sister, Amelia Paolo, fled her home when her sons accused her of witchcraft. “They threw me out, calling me a witch,” she tells IPS. “I only survived thanks to my plot of land.”

It was a bit unclear how she got access to land where she lives now, but she has a plot of land next door to her sister’s in Bilalwane, on the outskirts of Maputo.

“I don’t get any help from my children. Sometimes they dump their kids here when they get pregnant,” Carolina Paolo tells IPS of her two daughters.

The women survive by earning extra cash when they can, working in nearby fields. The five dollars a month state elderly grant, the lowest in Southern Africa, is enough to buy them a one-kilogramme bag of salt. With no access to running water, the money also comes in handy when filling up at a nearby tap – one barrel of water costs them three cents.

Mozambique’s social welfare office is notoriously corrupt and inefficient. Only one in three people interviewed by IPS said they received the grant despite all three having applied for it.

Her body shrunken and her eyes grown over with cataracts, Maria Chambale (70) admits she is frightened of what might happen when she can no longer work, “I must go on fighting,” she says and shrugs. “What else can I do?”

She, like the other elderly in Mozambique, works on her own small plot of land to grow vegetables to feed herself. She also accepts “piece jobs” or day jobs in nearby fields owned by richer neighbours who have land but do not have the time to farm it.

Despite the heady pace of Mozambique’s economic growth – the World Bank expects the economy to expand by 7.5 percent in 2012 – little benefit is trickling down to the poor, many of whom are elderly people.

“Sixty-eight percent of the elderly live below the poverty line in Mozambique,” says Janet Duffield, the director of the aid agency HelpAge International in this country.

For the elderly in the city who cannot grow food to feed themselves, conditions are even worse.

Sixty-year-old Armando Mattheus is amongst the many elderly people who now find themselves begging on the streets of the capital, unable to cope with the high cost of living. “Before I could buy something with the little I have but today I can’t buy anything,” says Mattheus, who spends his days outside a popular Maputo restaurant, begging tourists for handouts.

It is a situation experts say Mozambique’s government needs to address urgently. Eighty percent of people work well into old age in Mozambique – one of the highest rates in the world.

“The population in Mozambique works until they die because there aren’t alternatives,” says the director of Mozambique’s Institute of Social and Economic Studies, António Francisco.

With half its population of 23 million under 18 years old, Mozambique is often referred to as a country of young people. Those who can remember the devastating civil war that ended two decades ago are now in the minority.

Newly discovered natural gas and coal deposits promise untold riches for a lucky few and will soon fuel what is already one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

The aged make up a tiny fraction of the population – just five percent.  However, by the time a child born today reaches 60, that number will be nearly three times as high, according to Francisco’s research. This represents, he says, “an unprecedented demographic transformation in the history of Mozambique.”

Nearby countries – South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho – all spend between 0.3 and two percent of GDP on grants for the elderly. Like Mozambique, they have a young population structure but such an approach can pay dividends.

Japan, which in 2010 registered 38 percent of its population over the age of 65 – the world’s largest proportion – spends over 10 percent of GDP on pensions, according to the International Monetary Fund. And the United Kingdom spends five percent of GDP on pensions, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Studies show that providing state pensions can reduce hunger and poverty because elderly people share resources with the family.

A 2003 study by HelpAge International found that “social pensions increase the income of the poorest five percent of the population by 100 percent in Brazil and 50 percent in South Africa.” And a 2005 study by the University of Manchester in the U.K. found that people living in households receiving a pension were 18 percent less likely to be poor in Brazil and 12.5 percent less likely in South Africa.

One fifth of all families in Mozambique include an elderly person. This is one reason why aid agencies are pushing the government to fall into step with other countries in the region. Another is that 43 percent of orphans are cared for by grandparents in Mozambique. The country has an HIV prevalence rate of 16.2 percent, one of the highest rates in the world.

“Of the 10 African countries with the highest HIV prevalence, eight have introduced some form of social pension or cash transfer directed at older people,” says Duffield.

The government would need to provide citizens over 60 with a minimum of 26 dollars a month to have an impact, estimates Francisco. The figure represents three percent of the country’s 12.8-billion-dollar GDP.

But universal social pensions would be too costly, argues Felix Matusse, who heads the government’s Department for the Elderly. “We still depend on external aid,” he explains, pointing out that foreign donors contribute over 30 percent of the entire state budget.

But the government cannot go on pleading poverty for long. By some estimates, Mozambique stands to collect over five billion dollars a year in the long term from its natural gas alone.

Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, financed its universal pension scheme or “Dignity Pension” in 2007 through a direct hydrocarbon tax. Could Mozambique do the same?

“Improved revenue collection from new-found mineral resources could free up fiscal space more than adequate to provide a cash transfer for all older people,” suggests Duffield.

Others argue that caring for the elderly should not have to depend on hydrocarbon windfalls. “What kind of state do we have that cannot look after five percent of its population?” asks Francisco, adding that nearby Lesotho finances a pension scheme but has no natural resources to speak of.

Few expect a major shift in government policy on pensions before the next national elections in 2014. But in the run-up, the government is showing greater willingness to tackle its elderly problem.

A draft bill, due to go to parliament before the end of the year, aims to protect the aged from abuse, meting out specific tough penalties for violence related to witchcraft accusations. However, there is no mention of universal old age pensions.

Matusse points out that Mozambique will not begin to reap the benefits of hydrocarbons for at least another five years. “Then we will see what is going to happen in terms of social security,” he says.

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Jul 31 2012 (IPS)

Swazis should not see the ongoing nationwide one-month teachers’ strike as a movement capable of overthrowing the political regime here, despite the fact that civil servants and nurses have joined the action, according to political analyst Dr. Sikelela Dlamini.

Since Jun. 21, teachers in this southern African monarchy have engaged in an indefinite strike demanding a 4.5 percent cost of living increase, which has left thousands of pupils in about 30 to 50 percent of the country’s 179 secondary schools and 153 primary schools without teachers.

The country’s National Association of Public Servants and Allied Workers Union has also since joined the strike, although over 70 percent of its members are at work, and the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union is engaged in a go-slow after the government won an interdict in the country’s Industrial Court against full-blown strike action on Jul. 19.

While strikers have mainly protested against the government’s move to freeze all public servant salaries, on numerous occasions the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) president Sibongile Mazibuko warned that if the government refused to give workers the 4.5 percent cost of living adjustment, which is below the inflation rate, “the government might end up losing the country.”

The inflation rate currently stands at 9.43 percent, which has made it difficult for the 63 percent of Swazis living below the poverty line of two dollars a day to put food on the table.

But Dlamini and other analysts feel that the struggle for democracy in Swaziland lacks clear political alliances between labour and political organisations.

Dlamini told IPS that Swazis should not read too much into the teachers’ strike because workers have not yet declared their regime-change agenda at the negotiating table. In addition, only just over half of SNAT’s 9,000 members are on strike.

“No amount of all-out protest and defiance on the part of labour alone is sufficient to topple the status quo without a clear political direction,” Dlamini told IPS.

While workers are in a strategic position to challenge King Mswati III’s regime because they can withhold the labour that fuels the economy, Dlamini said that the country needs political organisations to negotiate and contest power.

Political parties have been banned in Swaziland for almost four decades and King Mswati III’s government continues to use security forces to quash any political dissent spearheaded by trade unions.

Following the fiscal crisis that has hit the country since 2009, after a 60 percent decrease from Southern African Customs Union income, workers began to call for political change, better working conditions, and below-inflation salary increases.

A United Nations Impact of the Fiscal Crisis in Swaziland survey released on Mar. 16 said that 21.9 percent of surveyed households have experienced reduced income since the crisis hit in 2009. And about seven percent of households surveyed admitted to having a member who lost a job as many families here survive on a meal a day.

The government has said that there is no money to pay public workers, whose salaries constitute a significant 52 percent of the national budget. Last year, the cash-strapped country took out a 320-million-dollar loan with neighbour South Africa. And at the time, the International Monetary Fund advised the Swazi government to reduce public servants’ salaries by 4.5 percent and politicians’ salaries by 10 percent, to save the government 24 million dollars a year.

However, the government has refused to adhere to calls demanding the cancellation of the controversial Circular No. 1, a government gazette that awards politicians, including the prime minister, cabinet ministers and members of parliament, lucrative perks. The government also continues to spend, and has plans to purchase 800 new cars over five years.

In addition, Mswati, Africa’s last absolute monarch, who has 13 wives, has also been criticised for his lavish lifestyle. The South African Mail & Guardian newspaper reported on Jul. 25 that three of the monarch’s wives are to soon go on holiday to Las Vegas, in the United States, with a 66-member retinue.

“We want a competitive government that will care about ordinary people instead of only those in power,” Mazibuko told IPS.

The government has responded to the strike by cutting the striking teachers’ July salaries by a third. It said that this was done because the strike is illegal as the Industrial Court recently ruled against it. However, teachers remain on strike.

But South African-based socio-economic analyst Thembinkosi Dlamini told IPS that civil society organisations in Swaziland, particularly labour unions, are weak and not very well coordinated to challenge the regime.

“The state has also made frantic efforts to dismantle any form of collective effort that could bring pressure to bear on the system,” said Dlamini.

For instance, in March the government registered the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), only to deregister it in April after stating that there is no legislation governing the merger of trade union federations here.

Trade unions felt that the government was trying to weaken the labour movement by deregistering TUCOSWA so that there could be no unity among workers, which could lead to them protesting against the government.

Meanwhile parents and public school pupils, who are supposed to be sitting for their mid-year examinations, are the ones most affected by the labour action, said human rights activist Doo Aphane. Some children do not even attend class currently, which exposes them to all sorts of risks, including sexual abuse and drug use, Aphane told IPS.

“Our government lacks a human rights-based approach because it is clear that the government has not taken into consideration the plight of the many ordinary people who are suffering because of this strike,” said Aphane.

Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini has threatened to fire striking teachers and close down schools if the strike continues. He has maintained that public servants will not receive a salary increase for the next three years.

“This does not guarantee lessons for the children who have been idling for weeks now,” the director of Save the Children Swaziland, Dumisani Mnisi, told IPS. “I wish that the government and teachers could sit down and sort out their differences so that children do not suffer the consequences of the action.”

A director of one of the country’s civil society organisations, who asked for anonymity, said that the prime minister was not handling the matter well and was “very arrogant because he is the King’s appointee and he has nothing to lose even when the public complains about his conduct.”

“Since the strike started we’ve been trying to get an appointment to engage the prime minister, but he’s been refusing to see us,” he said. “He seems to be only interested in fixing up the teachers and not ensuring that the children receive an education.”

He said that the government’s decision to buy cars to the value of 2.4 million dollars when it claimed that there was no money for workers showed how insensitive those in power were.

“That’s why people are now calling for a system that will ensure that those serving in the government take the citizens seriously,” he said.

Analysts insist though that it will take more than a group of aggrieved workers and empty threats to bring about political change in Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy.