MYTHS AND REALITIES ASSOCIATED WITH DEVELOPMENT, POVERTY AND FOOD SECURITY IN

AFRICA

Prof. Dr. Emmanuel BoonInternational Centre for Enterprise and Sustainable Development

(ICED),Accra, Ghana

September 2011

Outline

• Introduction• Food Security• Poverty • Myths associated with development, food security

and poverty • Specific myths associated with Africa• Realities of Africa’s development• Conclusion: Redressing the development imbalance

Introduction

• The term development often carries with it an assumption of growth and expansion.

• During the industrial era, development was strongly connected to increased speed, volume and size.

• Today, many people are questioning the concept of growth for numerous reasons.

• Community development is a "grassroots" process by which the community members become– more responsible;

– organize and plan together;– develop healthy options; – empower themselves; – reduce ignorance, poverty and suffering; – create employment and economic opportunities; and– achieve social, economic, cultural and environmental goal.

Introduction (1)• The most important thing about community

development is whether it is sustainable.

• A first implication of this question relates to the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the poor, to which overriding priority should be given.

• Secondly, the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

Introduction (2)• In today’s interdependent world, many aspects of

sustainable development are international or even global.

• Many decisions taken at the national or even local level actually have international consequences– economic, social, and environmental.

• For example, emissions of greenhouse gases, generated mainly by highly industrialized countries, lead to global warming and flooding of certain low-lying islands—resulting in the displacement and impoverishment of entire nations.

• Thinking of the world as a system enables us to understand that air pollution from Europe affects the weather and air quality in Africa.

Food Security

• Food security is a multi-faceted concept.

• UN defines food security as "all people at all times having both physical and economic access to the basic food they need."

• Food security has three dimensions:

– availability

– accessibility

– affordability

Food Security (1)• Food insecurity in Africa results from:

– climate change – urban development – rapid population growth and poverty– unfavorable terms of trade

Poverty

• It is generally agreed that there is no universally accepted definition of poverty.

• The World Bank Development Report (1990) used $370 per person per year (or US$1 a day) as the absolute poverty line.

• The OECD (2001) describes poverty as an unacceptable human deprivation in terms of economic opportunity, education, health and nutrition, lack of empowerment and security.

• For UNDP, poverty is “being deprived of those opportunities and choices that are essential to human development”.

• In general, poverty is the inability of people to meet economic, social and other standards of well-being.

Myths associated with development, food security and poverty

• Contextually, a “myth” is an illusion or falsehood.

• Hence, “development myths”; “poverty myths”; and “food security myths” are basically wrong or ill-conceived ideas, philosophies or concepts, society holds about them.

• A “reality” on the other hand is a truth or certainty society should brace itself to uphold or accept.

MYTH REALITY

TYPE DESCRIPTION

1 Poor People do not Work

Regional rates of unemployment illustrate further the falsity of this assumption. The unemployment rate in sub-Saharan Africa, the overall poorest region in the world, with 751 million people, was 10.9% in 2003. Since most of the world's population is concentrated in poor countries, one would perhaps expect a greater percentage of the populations of these poor regions to be unemployed, but considering the large number of people living there, the rates are rather low.

2Globalization is

Potentially Useful in Reducing Poverty in

Developing Countries whilst Increasing the

Wealth of the Developed Ones

Globalization focuses on consumerism (selling products to people through international trade); denies people in traditional cultures the ability to support themselves by growing their own food, making their own clothing and otherwise providing for themselves. When corporations and industries take land from self-sustaining cultures, they push those people into poverty by depriving them of the resources they need to survive.

3The Poor are

Dangerous, Criminals, or Mentally Ill

Poverty is not the result of personal failings, nor is it only a matter of income. Poverty is directly related to health, education, housing, political opportunities, and other factors. Likewise, poverty worsens people's social status and diminishes their involvement in their communities and in the larger sphere. Additionally, there are political and economic policies that can contribute to impoverishment. Most of the explanations are, however, as problematic as poverty itself.

Some Common Development-related Myths and Realities

Some Common Rural Poverty-related Myths and Realities

MYTH REALITY

TYPE DESCRIPTION

1 The majority of the poor live in inner-city (urban)

neighborhoods

Overall, poverty rates in rural areas have been and continue to be consistently higher than those found in urban areas, which includes inner cities.

2Poverty in rural areas

looks much like that found in urban areas

While poverty exists in both urban and rural areas, the characteristics of those living in poverty in these two places are distinctly different. Rural areas do not only have consistently higher rates of poverty than urban places, but also have higher rates of persistent poverty and they are dispersed over a larger geographic area.

3Most people are poor

because they do not want to work

Many of those living in poverty are not of working age. Many of the poor are elderly and even more are children or have a work - disability.

4Rural equals agriculture The rural population can be empowered through capacity -

building and microfinance support to undertake a wide-range of supplementary, income - generating off-farm activities.

MYTH REALITY

TYPE DESCRIPTION

1 Not Enough Food to Go

Around

Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world's food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most "hungry countries" have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.

2 Nature is to Blame for Famine

It's too easy to blame nature. Human-made forces are making people increasingly vulnerable to nature's vagaries. Food is always available for those who can afford it - starvation during hard times hits only the poorest. Natural events are simply the final push over the brink. Human institutions and policies determine who eats and who starves during hard times. The real culprits are an economy that fails to offer everyone opportunities, and a society that places economic efficiency over compassion.

3 More Aid Will Help the Hungry

Most aid-interventions work directly against the hungry. Foreign aid can only reinforce, not change, the status quo. Where governments answer only to elites, aid not only fails to reach hungry people, it shores up the very forces working against them. Aid is used to promote exports at the expense of food production, etc. It creates a foreign - debt burden that forces most Third World countries to cut back on basic health, education and anti-poverty programmes.

Some Common Food Security (Hunger)-Related Myths and Realities

MYTH REALITY

TYPE DESCRIPTION

4 There are too many people

Birth rates are falling rapidly worldwide; nowhere does population density explain hunger

5 It’s a trade-off: the environment or food

Industrial agriculture is degrading soil and undercutting our food production sources. Environmentally sound alternatives can be more productive than destructive ones.

6 The Green Revolution is the answer

The Green Revolution did increase productivity in the 1960s and 1970s. But technology cannot challenge inequality as the root cause of hunger

Some Common Food Security (Hunger)-Related Myths and Realities

(1)

Some Common Food Security (Hunger)-Related Myths and Realities

(2)

MYTH REALITY

TYPE

DESCRIPTION

7 We need large farms

Small farmers achieve four-to-five times more output per acre; land reform can increase production

8 The free market can end hunger

The market only works when poor people have money to buy food

9 Free trade is the answer

In many poor countries exports of food crops have boomed, squeezing out food for local production, while hunger has continued

10 The victims are too hungry to fight for their rights

Wherever people suffer needlessly they are also fighting for their rights. People in the rich world can help to remove the obstacles to those rights.

11 All we need is more aid

Foreign aid reinforces the status quo and undercuts local food production in the recipient country.

Specific myths associated with Africa

• Fundamental myths associated with Africa:

• Africans are poor and hungry• Suffering from several forms of diseases.• Cannot do without borrowing or

receiving aid from the North.• “Less developed”, • “Under-developed”• “Dark continent”

Specific myths associated with Africa (1)

• Intellectual inferiority and low intelligent quotient

• Laziness

• Lovers of money and sex

• Too many people in Africa

• Too hungry to focus on productivity

Realities of Africa’s development

• The reality of development in Africa is, if not far, somewhat different from what most people in the West think.

• Although contemporary Africa is still characterised by numerous challenges, external observers either overestimate or underestimate the problems to serve reasons best known to them.

• Western countries have only promoted their interests in Africa and this constitutes a major challenge to eliminating poverty and food insecurity and promoting sustainable development.

• Some African observers have attributed these challenges to colonialism rather than a lack of a common African identity and attitudes and beliefs of the people that have often impacted intra-African cooperation.

• African societies were not based on urbanization and what the West terms as modernity.

Realities of Africa’s development (1)

Key Challenges

• Unfair global trade and economic system

• Change in African social systems

• Modernization and monetization of African society

• Emergence of destructive conflicts

• Cost of foreign aid

Conclusion: Redressing the development imbalance

• Challenges Africa is facing are complex and serious and should not be addressed in the same way they were created.

• The fight against poverty, underdevelopment and hunger has to be won and won quickly.

• Working together, we can end food insecurity, poverty and underdevelopment.

• Much more attention should be paid to supporting existing social practices that have widespread legitimacy rather than trying to import expensive solutions from the west to replace the African way.

Conclusion: Redressing the development imbalance (1)

• Africa is the responsibility of everyone - those who have benefitted from the riches of this continent and Africans who live on the continent.

• There is also an urgent need to stop the international supply of arms and ammunition to Africa.

• Meaningful development in Africa is possible and sustainable only through the integration of the social, physical and spiritual worlds of local actors.

Thank You

Make the World Fairer!!