Daily Nation
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Six months after declaring the famine in Somalia as one of “biblical
proportions”, the United Nations has now said that Somalia is a
famine-free area, but that nearly a third of the country’s people are
still “in crisis”.The Food and Agricultural Organisation has stated that while
the number of severely food insecure people had fallen from 4 million
to 2.3 million, high rates of malnutrition and insecurity posed by
Al-Shabaab are still of concern.
This
statement comes in the wake of a report by Save the Children and Oxfam
that claims that between 50,000 and 100,000 people died needlessly last
year because relief supplies did not reach them in time.
The
UN and NGOs are also blaming the Kenyan incursion into southern Somalia
for the deteriorating situation, apparently because villagers are
fleeing the combat zones and are, therefore, not agriculturally
productive.
In
July last year, when the famine story broke internationally, I
predicted that food insecurity would continue to be the main story
coming out of Somalia because it is the kind of story that generates
funding.
Somalia is an easy target for fund-raising because of its weak and donor-dependant government.
The
appeal for funds will continue as long as Somalia remains fragile and
unstable and until aid organisations identify another blighted country
for their fund-raising efforts.
This is why we hardly hear about catastrophes in more functioning democracies.
The media barely reports the fact that 2.5 million children in
India die every year from malnutrition and related illnesses — that is
25 times the number of people estimated to have died in Somalia due to
famine-related causes last year.
Yet India does not generate the kind of largesse that our northern neighbour does.
Could
it be because the Indian Government would not tolerate the fund-raising
shenanigans of foreign charities and aid organisations?
It seems Somalia — and Africa in general — can only generate disaster stories.
But
the story that even the mainstream media cannot ignore any more is the
phenomenal growth rates in several African countries.
A decade after dismissing Africa as a “hopeless continent”, The Economist magazine has now conceded that it was wrong.
In December last year, the magazine reported that African economies are not just rising, but skyrocketing.
It noted that over the past decade, six of the world’s 10 fastest
growing countries were African and that the continent has been growing
faster than East Asia.
Interestingly, the magazine attributes much of this growth to
the entry of China on the scene, which is credited with improving the
continent’s infrastructure, which, in turn, has boosted the
manufacturing sector.
The Economist
cites several statistics that should hearten Afro-optimists: Ethiopia,
which has for years been associated with famine, is now the world’s
tenth largest producer of livestock and grew at 7.5 per cent last year.
Africa
has the fastest growing middle class. In the past 10 years, the rate of
foreign investment in Africa has grown tenfold, with countries such as
Brazil, Turkey, and India becoming key investors.
Trade
between Africa and the rest of the world has doubled since 2000. And
more than 600 million Africans — or 60 per cent of the total population
— have a mobile phone.
These
statistics should please African governments, which have largely failed
to convince Western nations that Africa is not in need of more aid, but
more investment and trade on fairer terms.
I
believe it is time for the Somalis to directly participate in decisions
concerning their country and make choices based on their realities and
needs, not those of donors.
Food
insecurity is just one of many issues that need critical attention in
light of the fact that the deadline for the transitional government is
fast approaching and there are already plans underway by Western
governments to put in place a kind of “trusteeship” structure
comprising donors and the UN.
Somalia’s sovereignty has already been eroded and this arrangement could demolish it.
But the UN and humanitarian organisations would like us to believe that famine is the only problem facing the country.