The food crisis in African states will not be solved by investment to spur agricultural production because the problem is not food output but poverty that is making food unaffordable for urban Africans.
This is the argument of Gilles Saint-Martin, the head of international relations for the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, known by its French acronym CIRAD. CIRAD’s approach to sustainable development focuses on the long-term ecological, economic and social consequences of change in developing communities and countries.
Saint-Martin talks to Hilaire Avril about the dire need for investment in African agricultural research; the effects that the economic partnership agreements will have on food production; and whether the African Union should adopt its own Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Q: You recently wrote that, despite last year’s food riots in many developing countries, ‘‘African agriculture is not disaster-stricken, and […] agricultural production has steadily increased across Africa since the 1960s, picking up even more speed since the 1980s.’’ How do you explain the food crisis currently affecting several African countries?
Gilles Saint-Martin (GSM): First and foremost, the problem is poverty. Last year’s food riots were mainly urban crises, affecting city-dwellers who could not afford to buy basic food anymore. The problem is not agricultural output, which is sufficient, but poverty, which makes it unaffordable.
The solution to the crisis is to tackle both issues, that is, to increase agricultural production and to decrease poverty by fostering rural economic activity.
The problem is that, for several years now, the traditional solidarity system between the African countryside and the cities has been severely undermined by repeated crises and that it has now broken down. Therefore, city-dwellers bear the full brunt of rising food prices.
Several CIRAD studies show that agricultural production has significantly risen in several African countries. Cassava outputs in Central and West Africa, for instance, have increased. But the problem is that the demographic increase is faster. We, at CIRAD, do not believe massive foreign investments will solve the problem of African food security. We’re still waiting to see what the outcome of investments such as those made in Senegal last year will be.
For the moment all the examples we’ve seen are geared towards ensuring food security for rich countries, which invest in agriculture for their own food security (and) not to share the production with the African country hosting the investment.
However, there are some under-reported but interesting initiatives - mainly in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, for instance, which faces significant food supply challenges, says it would consider investing in countries with a high agricultural potential such as Mozambique, and sharing the production between investors, producers and the global market.
But, again, the main problem remains that of urban populations accessing affordable food. It’s going to get worse as migrants send fewer remittances back home to urban Africans because of the global economic downturn
Q: The African Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and other organisations recently created an ‘‘Investment Fund for African Agriculture’’. Are such funds the solution to the food crisis?
GSM: There is currently a trend towards increasing agricultural output rather than implementing regional policies that foster rural activity to help urban populations access affordable food while regulating prices on a regional level. What worries us is that, whether public or private, these funds’ position seems to be ‘‘let’s simply produce more, and we’ll all be fine’’.
Q: How do you expect the proposed EPAs (the trade liberalisation deals that the European Union is pressing African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to sign) to affect this situation?
GSM: We at CIRAD tend to think these agreements should be signed with caution. But many countries have signed them anyway, as they would otherwise have lost access to European markets.
Our partners in Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon recently told us ‘‘if we hadn’t signed the agreement, we would not have been able to keep selling our bananas in the European Union’’. Several countries signed these agreements essentially under the pressure of producers’ associations, who were afraid they would lose access to markets.
I haven’t followed the latest developments but, as they were proposed two years ago, EPAs seemed based on an outmoded model.
Q: What is CIRAD’s answer to the food crisis?
GSM: We’re very preoccupied with innovation, which is a key element in solutions for the North as well as the South. CIRAD focuses on research, so we naturally invest in innovation, whether in urban or rural environments, to mitigate poverty and to enhance food security and a more efficient use of resources.
Unfortunately, supporting innovation and research has never been considered a priority. Many donors tell us ‘‘we want immediate results, so you must implement innovating ideas urgently’’. But the period of time needed to implement innovating ideas in real social settings, with tangible objectives, are not compatible with the expected response time to a food crisis.
Our African research partners have been entirely de-structured by the (International Monetary Fund’s) structural adjustment policies in the 1980s and 90s. Most have still not recovered. We work mainly with young African scholars and researchers, but young recruits are scarce in Africa.
This is our main warning call. African research capacities need to be rebuilt, created or consolidated in order to foster innovations allowing us to cope with evolving societies, to preserve limited resources and to secure food supply.
Also, after several years of soul-searching, we have identified the development of the rural sector, by intensifying ecological production, as a priority. That means not relying on more fertilizers or herbicides, but optimising the use of ecosystems’ natural cycles and learning more about the way plants and soil work.
Q: Should Africa adopt its own version of the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy?
GSM: Some versions of it already exist. In West Africa, the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Economic and Monetary Union have adopted regional agricultural policies which are not structured like the CAP but resemble it in that they harmonise national policies, including tariffs.
The Southern African Development Community and East African Community are also thinking of similar schemes. I think it’s unavoidable. Solutions can’t be found on a national level, they have to be regional.
The 2005 food crisis in Niger, for instance, was not a national but a regional emergency, which could have been solved if regional procedures had been put in place to share resources between Niger, Nigeria and Mali. This must be the priority for food security policies.
Q: What role could Europe play in constructing these regional clusters?
GSM: Europe’s organisational model for regional agriculture cannot be replicated but the EU could assist in setting up African region-wide systems.
But these regions’ agricultural products must also be protected, from time to time. The European CAP was built on these principles and still protects European farmers to some degree. The CAP so far focuses on markets, resources and consumer protection. In 2013, when the CAP is to be reformed, I think it should include food security as one of its main objectives.
European farmers, when you talk to them, are preoccupied by their production and purchasing power, of course. But they are also conscious of the food security problems the world faces. Incorporating world food security in the CAP’s objectives would be a positive evolution. It would help decompartmentalise the EU from global agriculture.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Scientists Warn: Two-Degree Rise Ever More Likely
Climate scientists are calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels because humans are now pumping so much carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere that the '2-degree-C climate balloon' will burst otherwise, new studies show.
That 2-degree C climate balloon has a maximum capacity of less than 1,400 gigatonnes of CO2 total emissions from the year 2000 to 2050, Malte Meinshausen and colleagues report in the current issue of Nature. The European Union and others consider a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees C as dangerous and potentially catastrophic. Temperatures are already 0.8 C warmer than the pre-industrial period.
The reality is that global emissions for the last seven years amounted to almost 250 gigatonnes of these long-lived greenhouse gases, meaning that the current and growing rates of fossil fuel emissions would burst the balloon in about 20 years – or less. Even if emissions are held to 1,400 gigatonnes maximum for the next 40 years, there is still a 50-percent probability of exceeding 2 degrees C, said Meinshausen, lead author of the study and climate researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Indigenous peoples from around the world also called for a phase-out of fossil fuels at the conclusion of the first Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change in Anchorage, Alaska, that concluded last week.
"That call is well-supported by the evidence in this study," Meinshausen told IPS.
However, the world's future global carbon budget is likely less than 1,400 gigagtonnes. When other short-term warming gases like methane are included, then the total 'forcing', i.e. warming, could be 10 to 40 percent greater by the year 2100, said Meinshausen.
And some climate feedbacks - changes that will amplify or accelerate the warming - are absent from computer models. "Our modeling cannot account for emissions in methane from melting permafrost," he said.
Permafrost - permanently frozen bog and peatland - contains enormous amounts of organic carbon, perhaps enough to triple the amount currently in the atmosphere.
"Only a fast switch away from fossil fuels will give us a reasonable chance to avoid considerable warming," said Meinshausen. "We shouldn’t forget that a 2-degree C global mean warming would take us far beyond the natural temperature variations that life on Earth has experienced since we humans have been around."
This will be a serious challenge, he said, because there is plenty of carbon left in the ground. Proven reserves of oil, gas and coal represent four times the amount of carbon that would burst the 2-degree climate balloon. Burning just one quarter of what's left in the ground will bring humanity to the 50-50 point of tipping into dangerous climate change.
Delay is not an option when it comes to the fossil fuel phase-out, scientists stress. Even though a tonne of carbon is a tonne of carbon, whether released today or in 50 years' time, there is only so much the atmosphere can take before a 2-degree rise or more is inevitable, Meinshausen, Myles Allen of the University of Oxford and others write in a Nature Reports Climate Change commentary.
"Emitting CO2 more slowly buys time, perhaps vital time, but it will only achieve our ultimate goal in the context of a strategy for phasing out net CO2 emissions altogether," they conclude.
"Climate policy needs an exit strategy: as well as reducing carbon emissions now, we need a plan for phasing out net emissions entirely," Allen said in a release.
So what are the targets for the negotiators United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the Copenhagen this December?
If negotiators heed the scientific evidence, then a new global agreement's goal will be to reduce global emissions by 50 percent compared to 1990 and do that by 2050. To achieve this, the current three-percent annual growth in carbon emissions must flatline by 2015 and start the decline by 3 percent per year, reports Martin Parry of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London in another Nature study.
"If we do this it leaves an even chance of exceeding 2-degree C of warming," Parry and colleagues write.
If mitigation efforts are not substantial enough and emissions peak in the year 2025, then a 3-degree C rise in temperatures will likely occur. The damage from this level of warming could be substantial, placing billions more people at risk of water shortage and millions more at risk of coastal flooding. To avoid such damage will require massive investment in adaptation, such as improving water supply and storage, and protecting low-lying settlements from rising seas.
A final cautionary note: "The true sensitivity of the Earth system may well be higher, implying that any temperature-based target will become progressively harder to maintain as slower feedbacks kick in," write Gavin Schmidt, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and David Archer of the University of Chicago in short article in Nature Wednesday.
"The bottom line? Dangerous change, even loosely defined, is going to be hard to avoid," they said.
Like an oil spill, it is far better and cheaper to avoid making the mess in the first place, they conclude
That 2-degree C climate balloon has a maximum capacity of less than 1,400 gigatonnes of CO2 total emissions from the year 2000 to 2050, Malte Meinshausen and colleagues report in the current issue of Nature. The European Union and others consider a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees C as dangerous and potentially catastrophic. Temperatures are already 0.8 C warmer than the pre-industrial period.
The reality is that global emissions for the last seven years amounted to almost 250 gigatonnes of these long-lived greenhouse gases, meaning that the current and growing rates of fossil fuel emissions would burst the balloon in about 20 years – or less. Even if emissions are held to 1,400 gigatonnes maximum for the next 40 years, there is still a 50-percent probability of exceeding 2 degrees C, said Meinshausen, lead author of the study and climate researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Indigenous peoples from around the world also called for a phase-out of fossil fuels at the conclusion of the first Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change in Anchorage, Alaska, that concluded last week.
"That call is well-supported by the evidence in this study," Meinshausen told IPS.
However, the world's future global carbon budget is likely less than 1,400 gigagtonnes. When other short-term warming gases like methane are included, then the total 'forcing', i.e. warming, could be 10 to 40 percent greater by the year 2100, said Meinshausen.
And some climate feedbacks - changes that will amplify or accelerate the warming - are absent from computer models. "Our modeling cannot account for emissions in methane from melting permafrost," he said.
Permafrost - permanently frozen bog and peatland - contains enormous amounts of organic carbon, perhaps enough to triple the amount currently in the atmosphere.
"Only a fast switch away from fossil fuels will give us a reasonable chance to avoid considerable warming," said Meinshausen. "We shouldn’t forget that a 2-degree C global mean warming would take us far beyond the natural temperature variations that life on Earth has experienced since we humans have been around."
This will be a serious challenge, he said, because there is plenty of carbon left in the ground. Proven reserves of oil, gas and coal represent four times the amount of carbon that would burst the 2-degree climate balloon. Burning just one quarter of what's left in the ground will bring humanity to the 50-50 point of tipping into dangerous climate change.
Delay is not an option when it comes to the fossil fuel phase-out, scientists stress. Even though a tonne of carbon is a tonne of carbon, whether released today or in 50 years' time, there is only so much the atmosphere can take before a 2-degree rise or more is inevitable, Meinshausen, Myles Allen of the University of Oxford and others write in a Nature Reports Climate Change commentary.
"Emitting CO2 more slowly buys time, perhaps vital time, but it will only achieve our ultimate goal in the context of a strategy for phasing out net CO2 emissions altogether," they conclude.
"Climate policy needs an exit strategy: as well as reducing carbon emissions now, we need a plan for phasing out net emissions entirely," Allen said in a release.
So what are the targets for the negotiators United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the Copenhagen this December?
If negotiators heed the scientific evidence, then a new global agreement's goal will be to reduce global emissions by 50 percent compared to 1990 and do that by 2050. To achieve this, the current three-percent annual growth in carbon emissions must flatline by 2015 and start the decline by 3 percent per year, reports Martin Parry of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London in another Nature study.
"If we do this it leaves an even chance of exceeding 2-degree C of warming," Parry and colleagues write.
If mitigation efforts are not substantial enough and emissions peak in the year 2025, then a 3-degree C rise in temperatures will likely occur. The damage from this level of warming could be substantial, placing billions more people at risk of water shortage and millions more at risk of coastal flooding. To avoid such damage will require massive investment in adaptation, such as improving water supply and storage, and protecting low-lying settlements from rising seas.
A final cautionary note: "The true sensitivity of the Earth system may well be higher, implying that any temperature-based target will become progressively harder to maintain as slower feedbacks kick in," write Gavin Schmidt, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and David Archer of the University of Chicago in short article in Nature Wednesday.
"The bottom line? Dangerous change, even loosely defined, is going to be hard to avoid," they said.
Like an oil spill, it is far better and cheaper to avoid making the mess in the first place, they conclude
Friday, May 1, 2009
World Bank Provides Support to Improve Afghanistan’s Financial Sector
The World Bank approved a US$8 million grant to help improve access to formal banking services in Afghanistan as well as strengthen Da Afghanistan Bank’s core function of banking supervision and regulation on April 30, 2009.
In 2002 after the fall of the Taliban regime, the formal financial sector in Afghanistan was almost inoperative and the legal framework was virtually non-existent. Since then, Afghanistan’s financial sector has gone through two phases of development. During the first phase (2002-04), a basic legal and institutional framework for a modern financial sector was introduced, which laid the foundation for the re-establishment of Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) as the central bank with autonomous regulatory authority to implement monetary policy and banking regulation and supervision.
In the second phase (2005-present), formal financial services emerged and a number of private commercial banks were established. Currently, there are 17 commercial banks operating in Afghanistan, which include 2 state-owned commercial banks, 10 private commercial banks, and 5 branches of foreign commercial banks. Despite these achievements, a weak financial sector still remains one of the major binding constraints to private sector development in Afghanistan.
The Financial Sector Strengthening Project supports Afghanistan National Development Strategy’s vision to establish a modern and competitive financial sector. The project will specifically strengthen the capacity of Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) in the areas of banking supervision, accounting, internal audit, and human resource management. It will also develop necessary financial infrastructure such as public credit registry, collateral registry and Afghanistan Institution of Banking.
"The legal and regulatory framework of Afghanistan’s financial sector has improved significantly. But many challenges remain, notably increasing access to financial services as well as ensuring sustainability of the sector,” said Md. Reazul Islam, World Bank Senior Private Sector Development Specialist and Project Team Leader. “To overcome these challenges, the government needs to enforce implementation of rules and regulation. The World Bank remains committed to provide technical as well as financial resources necessary to build a sustainable and accountable financial sector in Afghanistan.”
The project also supports some of the key areas that have been agreed by the Government of Afghanistan and its development partners at the Enabling Environment Conference Road Map in 2007.
The total cost of the project is estimated around US$9.46 million. In addition to IDA’s US$8 million grant, International Financial Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has provided US$0.59 million in technical support. Some US$0.87 million have been contributed through counter funding by Da Afghanistan Bank, Afghanistan Bank’s Association and Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA).
For more information on the Bank’s work in Afghanistan, please visit: http://www.worldbank.org.af
In 2002 after the fall of the Taliban regime, the formal financial sector in Afghanistan was almost inoperative and the legal framework was virtually non-existent. Since then, Afghanistan’s financial sector has gone through two phases of development. During the first phase (2002-04), a basic legal and institutional framework for a modern financial sector was introduced, which laid the foundation for the re-establishment of Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) as the central bank with autonomous regulatory authority to implement monetary policy and banking regulation and supervision.
In the second phase (2005-present), formal financial services emerged and a number of private commercial banks were established. Currently, there are 17 commercial banks operating in Afghanistan, which include 2 state-owned commercial banks, 10 private commercial banks, and 5 branches of foreign commercial banks. Despite these achievements, a weak financial sector still remains one of the major binding constraints to private sector development in Afghanistan.
The Financial Sector Strengthening Project supports Afghanistan National Development Strategy’s vision to establish a modern and competitive financial sector. The project will specifically strengthen the capacity of Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) in the areas of banking supervision, accounting, internal audit, and human resource management. It will also develop necessary financial infrastructure such as public credit registry, collateral registry and Afghanistan Institution of Banking.
"The legal and regulatory framework of Afghanistan’s financial sector has improved significantly. But many challenges remain, notably increasing access to financial services as well as ensuring sustainability of the sector,” said Md. Reazul Islam, World Bank Senior Private Sector Development Specialist and Project Team Leader. “To overcome these challenges, the government needs to enforce implementation of rules and regulation. The World Bank remains committed to provide technical as well as financial resources necessary to build a sustainable and accountable financial sector in Afghanistan.”
The project also supports some of the key areas that have been agreed by the Government of Afghanistan and its development partners at the Enabling Environment Conference Road Map in 2007.
The total cost of the project is estimated around US$9.46 million. In addition to IDA’s US$8 million grant, International Financial Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has provided US$0.59 million in technical support. Some US$0.87 million have been contributed through counter funding by Da Afghanistan Bank, Afghanistan Bank’s Association and Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA).
For more information on the Bank’s work in Afghanistan, please visit: http://www.worldbank.org.af
World Bank Provides More Support to India’s Small and Medium Enterprises
The World Bank approved a US$400 million additional financing loan to the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) on April 30, 2009, designed to improve access to finance for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This additional financing will help scale up the fully disbursed original project which had been approved by the World Bank on November 30, 2004.
Access to adequate and timely financing on competitive terms, particularly longer tenure loans remains a challenge for Indian SMEs. This problem has been exacerbated by the current global financial crisis, the ensuing liquidity constraints and the slowdown in credit growth in the Indian financial sector. In particular, credit growth to SMEs has declined over the last year, which has held back the growth of SMEs and impacted overall growth and development.
"This Project is part of a larger program of support in response to the Government of India request for funding in light of the financial crisis. It is targeted particularly at SMEs, to help address the credit slowdown that has resulted from the financial crisis,” said Roberto Zagha, World Bank Country Director for India. “Achieving and sustaining growth and employment will require a sharp step up in industrial and services growth. This needs to be spurred by SMEs which have the greatest potential to provide employment.”
The credit facility supported by the Project will channel long-term and working capital loans for SMEs in geographical areas beyond those that were covered in the original Project. This includes expanding to new geographical areas, possibly to India’s low-growth states, thereby promoting inclusive growth.
Under the credit facility SIDBI will also explore refinancing other banks and financial institutions for on-lending to SMEs. In addition, this Project will build linkages with an on-going DFID financed technical assistance component which is helping banks enhance the quality of their SME loan portfolios, strengthening business development services and building market linkage programs. “This integrated Project will help SMEs improve their profitability and competitiveness, and become more creditworthy,” said Niraj Verma, World Bank Senior Financial Sector Specialist and project team leader.
Finally, the Risk Sharing Facility supported by the Project will expand the coverage of this innovative initiative launched under the parent Project.
The lending from the original project has covered 927 SMEs spread across 10 Indian states. A survey showed that nearly two-thirds of the SMEs financed upgraded their technology, which helped increase productivity.
The loan, from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), is backed by a Republic of India guarantee. It has a 15 year maturity which includes a 5-year grace period.
For more information on the Bank’s work in India, visit http://www.worldbank.org.in
Access to adequate and timely financing on competitive terms, particularly longer tenure loans remains a challenge for Indian SMEs. This problem has been exacerbated by the current global financial crisis, the ensuing liquidity constraints and the slowdown in credit growth in the Indian financial sector. In particular, credit growth to SMEs has declined over the last year, which has held back the growth of SMEs and impacted overall growth and development.
"This Project is part of a larger program of support in response to the Government of India request for funding in light of the financial crisis. It is targeted particularly at SMEs, to help address the credit slowdown that has resulted from the financial crisis,” said Roberto Zagha, World Bank Country Director for India. “Achieving and sustaining growth and employment will require a sharp step up in industrial and services growth. This needs to be spurred by SMEs which have the greatest potential to provide employment.”
The credit facility supported by the Project will channel long-term and working capital loans for SMEs in geographical areas beyond those that were covered in the original Project. This includes expanding to new geographical areas, possibly to India’s low-growth states, thereby promoting inclusive growth.
Under the credit facility SIDBI will also explore refinancing other banks and financial institutions for on-lending to SMEs. In addition, this Project will build linkages with an on-going DFID financed technical assistance component which is helping banks enhance the quality of their SME loan portfolios, strengthening business development services and building market linkage programs. “This integrated Project will help SMEs improve their profitability and competitiveness, and become more creditworthy,” said Niraj Verma, World Bank Senior Financial Sector Specialist and project team leader.
Finally, the Risk Sharing Facility supported by the Project will expand the coverage of this innovative initiative launched under the parent Project.
The lending from the original project has covered 927 SMEs spread across 10 Indian states. A survey showed that nearly two-thirds of the SMEs financed upgraded their technology, which helped increase productivity.
The loan, from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), is backed by a Republic of India guarantee. It has a 15 year maturity which includes a 5-year grace period.
For more information on the Bank’s work in India, visit http://www.worldbank.org.in
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