The drought follows four consecutive failed rainy seasons, and the fear is the number could jump to 20 million if the current below-average rains fail.
Imagine having to choose between feeding your child or sending them to school.
Communities I met in Turkana County, #Kenya today, are facing these impossible choices every day due to drought in the #HornOfAfrica.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths was in the region this week on a two-day mission to Kenya to raise awareness of this climate-induced emergency, which is happening at a time when global attention is focused on numerous crises.
Last month, he released $12 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to respond to the drought, while another $17 million was allocated from the Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund.
Families in misery
The relief chief was in remote Turkana county, northern Kenya, on Thursday to show solidarity with local communities and underline the need for more funding and food aid.
The UN and partners require $480 million to support the humanitarian response through October.
“The world’s attention is elsewhere, and we know that,” he said. “And the world’s misery has not left Turkana. And the world’s rains have not come to Turkana.”
Mr. Griffiths spoke to families in Lomoputh who have nothing left. Their animals have died and there is no way to make money.
‘Impossible choices’
Although children can sometimes get food at school – often the only thing to eat available – this requires walking six kilometres to fetch water for the children to take with them.
As a result, mothers are being forced to make “impossible choices”, he said.
“One of them said to us that some of them even have children who are of the age to go to secondary school… but to pay the fees to go to a secondary school in this area, you need to sell livestock. Sell a goat, as she said. There’s no more goats. There’s no more livestock. They’ve gone.”
Malnutrition and migration
Some 3.5 million people in Kenya are severely food insecure and acute malnutrition rates in some areas are more than double the emergency threshold, according to the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, which Mr. Griffiths heads.
Across the three countries, roughly 5.7 million children are acutely malnourished,
Additionally, more than three million livestock—which pastoralist families rely on for sustenance and survival —have died.
Mr. Griffiths concluded his mission to Kenya on Friday, meeting virtually with people in Ethiopia’s Somali region.
The severe drought is affecting more than eight million people across the country. More than 7.2 million need food aid, and some four million require water assistance.
At least 286,000 people have migrated in search of water, pasture, or assistance, but others, often the elderly or the sick, have remained behind.
In a post on Twitter, Mr. Griffiths urged the international community not to ignore the rapidly escalating crisis in the Horn of Africa.
“We need urgent action to help these communities survive now, and increased investment in their ability to withstand future shocks,” he wrote. “We need to give them a future.”
Caught in a web of deceit, a human trafficking survivor from Ghana tells her story. Credit: Tim Tebow/Unsplash
by Jamila Akweley Okertchiri (accra)
Inter Press Service
Accra, May 10 (IPS) – “It feels like yesterday when I was deceived by one man who claimed to be a travelling agent. He promised me a work opportunity and a good salary,” says 25-year-old Cissy, as she prefers to be called. “As a young lady coming from an average family who really needed help, I fell for his lies.”
Cissy says although she was a bit sceptical about the offer and afraid of her destination country, the so-called travel agent convinced her that she had nothing to worry about.
“He said I had a host mom who would receive me at the airport. In fact, she was the one sponsoring my trip, and I am supposed to work for her, and he claimed the work was legitimate,” Cissy adds.
However, the story changed when she arrived at the airport of her destination country.
“A man came to pick me up and collected my passport. I was taken to a house where I saw other young African women kept in the room, some having price tags. It was at that time I realised what I had gotten myself into,” she narrates.
She and the other women were later smuggled illegally into Iraq to work as domestic workers.
“I saw how my own African sisters were physically and mentally abused. Some were sexually harassed and subjected to forced labour on an empty stomach,” Cissy says.
She wanted to return to Ghana but was unable to until several months later.
After countless failed escape attempts, which left her fighting for her life, she finally had a breakthrough and was able to return home with the help of a good Samaritan and the authorities.
Since she returned last November, Cissy has devoted her time to irregular migration advocacy activities.
“I am happy to be alive today to tell you my story but not all the young ladies who travel out get the chance I got to return home to their families,” she says.
Assistant Superintendent of Police William Ayaregah says human trafficking is multifaceted and covers several situations from debt bondage, exploitation, and organised crimes.
Issues of human trafficking continue to be a human right violation and cancer in Ghanaian society because it is a country of origin, transit, and destination for victims of human trafficking, Ayaregah, who is the Deputy Director of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit in the Criminal Investigation Department.
Likewise, the Gulf of Guinea is characterised by cross-border and irregular migration, human trafficking, and child exploitation.
ASP Ayaregah says recently, the unit, with a Non-Governmental Organisation, End Modern Slavery (EMS), and the Social Welfare Department, rescued four children, two boys and two girls, from a trafficker and reunited them with their families.
He reveals that the two boys, aged 10 and 13, were trafficked by a family friend identified as Rose, a trader from Berekum-Senase in the Bono East Region of Ghana. She said the children would attend school while staying with her in Accra.
Instead of sending the children to school, as she promised, she sent the boys onto the streets to hawk.
Ayaregah says the suspect, upon her arrest and investigation, claimed that she has been sending Ghc30 (about 4 US dollars) to the boys’ parents in Berekum every month.
In another case, two girls, aged 13 and 17, were brought from Akim-Aboabo in the Birim Central Municipality and Adeiso to engage in ‘gari’, a dried cassava business at Amanase in the Ayensuano District in the Eastern part of the country.
The Director of Operations of End Modern Slavery, Afasi Komla, explains that “many victims of human trafficking have had traumatic post-rescue experiences during interviews and legal proceedings.
“In their attempts to get help, they have experienced ignorance, misunderstanding, victimisation, and punishment from offences their traffickers had them commit,” he says.
He adds that through the foundation, they have been able to help in identifying and saving hundreds of victims and supporting their rehabilitation.
Deputy Minister For Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hajia Lariba Abudu, says the country has responded to the issues of human trafficking in diverse ways. It passed the Human Trafficking Act, 2005 Act 694 to prevent, reduce and punish human trafficking offences and for the rehabilitation and reintegration of trafficked persons and related matters.
“The Ministry, together with our partners, we embark on community advocacy and engagements to educate the public on the dangers of human trafficking,” she says.
Abudu further indicates that together with the law enforcement officers, Social Workers and NGOs, the country in 2021 rescued 842 victims of human trafficking, gave comprehensive trauma-informed care, and reintegrated 812 of them.
“On the 1st of February 2019, the adults’ shelter was opened, and 178 adult female victims of trafficking have been cared for, and we are still receiving and caring for victims at the shelter now,” she says. “The Children’s Shelter was also fully operationalised in August 2020 and has cared for 98 child victims.”
She adds that the department received and investigated 108 cases, 42 being sex trafficking, 60 labour trafficking and six related cases that started as human trafficking offences.
“Thirty–four cases were sent to court for prosecution. Out of those, 22 cases were prosecuted involving 37 defendants, and we have gained 17 convictions for the country,” she adds.
Abudu says that even though a lot has been achieved, it is still not enough and calls for stronger partnerships to reduce human trafficking incidences, strengthen government institutions, and increase public knowledge.
This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which “takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms”.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.
At least 38 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the attacks carried out by the Coopérative pour le développement du Congo (CODECO) at the Blakete-Plitu mining site.
More civilians were displaced and reported missing when the attackers set fire to nearby Malika village, where they also reportedly raped six women.
The UN mission in the country, known by the French acronym MONUSCO, conducted a medical evacuation on Monday, transporting severely injured civilians to medical facilities in the provincial capital, Bunia.
Allow UN access
The Secretary-General has expressed his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wished a swift recovery to the injured, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.
“He calls on the Congolese authorities to investigate these incidents and bring those responsible to justice. The Secretary-General also urges the authorities to ensure MONUSCO’s immediate, free and unimpeded access to the areas of the attacks to facilitate efforts to protect civilians,” it said.
The UN chief has also called for all armed groups in the DRC to halt their “callous attacks” on civilians.
Combatants were also urged to participate unconditionally in the political process in the country, and to lay down their weapons through the Disarmament, Demobilization, Community Recovery and Stabilization programme.
Mr. Guterres underlined the UN’s continued support to the Congolese Government and people in their efforts towards peace and stability.
Journalist Jeffery Moyo, with his lawyer, Doug Coltart, outside the Magistrate’s Court, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Moyo faces charges of violating Section 36 of the Immigration Act. His sentencing is expected on May 31, 2022. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
by Busani Bafana (bulawayo, zimbabwe)
Inter Press Service
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, May 09 (IPS) – For international journalist Jeffery Moyo, doing his job could land him in prison if Zimbabwe authorities have their way.
“Journalism is a crime in Zimbabwe, and the regime is reactive to independent journalism,” says Moyo, an international correspondent for the New York Times and the Inter Press Service (IPS).
Criminalising journalism
Moyo (37) has been charged with violating Section 36 of the Immigration Act, based on allegations he made a false representation to immigration officials. This pertains to the accusation of him obtaining media accreditation for two of his colleagues, Christina Goldbaum and Joao Silva, from the New York Times. He faces ten years in jail if convicted of breaching Zimbabwe’s Immigration Act by helping two US newspaper journalists work in the country.
Arrested in May 2021 and detained for 21 days at Bulawayo Prison before being released, Moyo was initially denied bail on the grounds he was a threat to national security.
“I am living in perpetual fear because I don’t know what the regime is plotting against me,” Moyo told IPS in an interview before he was due in court in Bulawayo. “If you are an independent journalist in Zimbabwe, you should always watch your back because somebody might be following you intending to harm you because of your work.”
Moyo lamented that his continued now year-long court ordeal has meant he has little productive time doing his job, which means lost income.
“Any regime that projects itself in this manner has skeletons in its closet. I fear they might at some point harm me at a time the world would have forgotten about me because this is a regime that sees shadows everywhere around itself,” Moyo added.
The journalist’s trial resumed at the Bulawayo’s Magistrate Court last week after the State rejected an application to dismiss his case early this year. The trial started in the week that the world commemorated World Press Freedom Day.
Moyo was charged with contravening a section of the Immigration Act and that he had produced fake media accreditation cards for the New York Times journalists. The defence had applied for the case discharge noting that the State’s case against Moyo was on “shaky grounds”, but a Bulawayo Magistrate ruled that the State had sufficient evidence against Moyo. The court sought to cross-examine Moyo, and he chose to remain silent.
Moyo’s lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, told the court that her client chose to remain silent because the Magistrate had already found that the accreditation cards were fake without referring to any evidence on which the application for dismissal was based.
Mtetwa commented that whether or not Moyo testified, the Magistrate had decided that the accreditation cards Moyo allegedly obtained for two foreign journalists were fake and wanted Moyo to implicate himself – which is against the law.
“He had no onus to testify, and the Constitution says you have a right to remain silent and even the attempt to put questions to someone who has said ‘I wish to remain silent’, for me, is an exercise in futility. If he wants to find him guilty, let him find him guilty on the evidence that the State has led, which in his ruling he (the Magistrate) has completely ignored,” Mtetwa told IPS.
Moyo has pleaded not guilty, and he will be sentenced on May 31, 2022.
Zimbabwe has enshrined freedom of the press in its Constitution, but media advocacy groups say freedom is not guaranteed.
The media rights advocacy group, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe, recorded at least 27 violations in 2021, a decline from the 52 a year earlier.
“When the Constitution is violated, especially by the police who are supposed to enforce the law, then it presents a challenge … to uphold the constitution,” said Tabani Moyo, MISA Zimbabwe Executive Director. He added there was a need for continued consultation with law enforcement agencies in Zimbabwe to come up with workable interventions to prevent harassment of journalists.
More rhetoric, fewer reforms
Despite the government’s commitment to promoting press freedom and the freedom of expression, the continued harassment of journalists and the muzzling of critics tells a different story.
The arsenal of punitive laws meant to restrict fundamental rights of free expression and association point to repression rather than the freedom that the Zimbabwe government espouses.
For example, Zimbabwe repealed the draconian Access to Information and Privacy Act (AIPPA). However, journalists are still harassed and threatened, casting a long shadow on the Zimbabwe government’s commitment to free expression.
“We no longer have serious cases where journalists are harassed, beaten up or killed in this country. What we have is a robust exchange of ideas with journalists,” Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Kindness Paradza, told a World Press Freedom Day commemoration event in Bulawayo last week.
“There is a lot to celebrate in Zimbabwe because we have done away with AIPPA, which was a bad law. In its place, we have put the Freedom of Information Act, the Zimbabwe Media Commission Act,” said Paradza. He added that the Zimbabwe Media Practitioners Bill is also on the cards.
The World Press Freedom Index notes that there has been an opening of the media landscape in African countries like Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, which moved seven points down the Index ranking from 130 in 2021 to 137 in 2022.
“The media situation in Zimbabwe has improved slightly since the dictator Robert Mugabe’s ouster in 2017. Access to information has increased, and self-censorship has declined,” the Index observed in an analysis of Zimbabwe’s press.
The Index noted that while levels of violence against journalists had declined significantly under the Mnangagwa administration, they remain alarmingly high, and self-censorship is routinely practised to avoid reprisals.
“Acts of intimidation, verbal attacks, and threats (especially on social media) are all still common practices. Cases of journalists being imprisoned and prosecuted are nonetheless now rarer, the most notable case being that of Hopewell Chin’ono, an investigative journalist who spent almost a month and a half in prison in 2020,” according to the World Press Freedom lndex.
Extremely harsh laws are still in effect, and, when new laws have been adopted, their provisions are just as draconian as those they replaced, the Index noted, citing that the amended penal code, the Official Secrets Act and the new Cyber Security and Data Protection Act continue to hamstring journalism in Zimbabwe.
Commenting on the press freedom in Zimbabwe, Mtetwa said the government indicates right but turns left. She explained that what the government says about complying with the niceties of the law and being seen to be complying with international best practices is different from what is happening on the ground.
“We have had many, many journalists arrested under the second republic. Why is this happening? They are abusing the criminal justice system to harass journalists,” Mtetwa told IPS.
“They arrest you and look for something in the criminal law, knowing there is no case. You have seen the Hopewell Chin’ono cases,” she says. Two of the cases against Chin’ono have been dismissed, but one case is still awaiting a trial date. He denies the charges.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will effect food security on the continent, both through availability and pricing of imported food, along with rising uncertainties in global financial markets and supply chains.
Russia and Ukraine, both often referred to as the world’s breadbasket, are major players in the export of wheat and sunflower to Africa.
Between them, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan and South Africa, account for 80 per cent of all wheat imports, which are projected to reach 76.5 million tonnes by 2025.
‘Immense discontent’
At a media briefing in Geneva on the impacts on Africa of the war in Ukraine, Ahunna Eziakonwa, Director of the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Africa bureau, said that the COVID-19 pandemic had already created “immense discontent” across the continent.
COVID has pushed tens of millions of people into poverty and “pushed back” democracy in parts of Africa, she added.
Greatest challenges
The pandemic has also complicated efforts to overcome insecurity and violence, the UNDP regional director continued, referring to the violent extremism and climate shocks that have destabilized vast areas of the Sahel region in recent years.
Drawing attention to the “global pandemic that upended the world and changed it forever, the bureau chief said, “we have never experienced greater pressure and challenge in our ability to sustain peace and development and a healthy planet, as we experience today.”
“We saw how COVID-19 complicated the effort to maintain or to overcome the insecurity that’s created by many forces including violent extremism and the impact of this, the consequence, affected live and livelihoods but also creating an immense discontent about the population which is led to a regression in democracy”.
It has also resulted in a surge of “pre-existing conditions, rising poverty and inequality,” she added.
‘Unprecedented crisis’
UNDP’s senior Africa economist Raymond Gilpin, noted that the continent’s dependence on imports of food, fuel, medicines and consumer goods made it particularly vulnerable to rising global inflation.
Describing the situation as an “an unprecedented crisis for the continent, he explained that Africa is facing a trifecta of “ongoing effects of COVID…newly felt effects of the Russia-Ukraine war and…climate related challenges and pressures”.
“As the cost of fuel becomes more expensive, energy sources, energy prices, don’t fall in African countries, we are going to see millions of households going back to unsustainable energy sources, and this in many fragile environments, in particular looking at places like the Sahel,” Mr. Gilpin said.
“We are going to see a lot more deforestation and a roll back of a significant progress that had been made in the greening of the Sahel.”
Moreover, tensions would likely rise, with a “distinct possibility” of spilling over into violent protests, he added.
UN chief’s visit
Meanwhile, during a visit to Senegal last Sunday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “when discussing the socio-economic situation, it is impossible not to mention the war in Ukraine and its impact on Africa,” which was aggravating a “triple food, energy and financial crisis” across the African continent.
A variety of insect-based delicacies. It is estimated that 2.5 billion people around the world eat insects as part of their regular diet. Encouraging the eating of insects could have health and climate change benefits. Credit: icipe
by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
Nairobi, May 06 (IPS) – Growing up in Samoya Village of Bungoma County in the Western part of Kenya, Elvis Wanjala has fond childhood memories of the rainy season, chasing and catching black-bellied winged termites in the rain.
“The termites would also come inside the house, attracted by the light late in the evening. My mother would sun-dry the termites and pan-fry them. We would then eat the crunchy termites with ugali (posho) and a serving of traditional vegetables,” he recounts.
“I grew up believing that everybody ate termites. At 11 years, I visited my uncle in Nairobi and was shocked to find that termites were more of a nuisance than food. One morning after a heavy downpour, I watched in awe as women and girls swept termites from their doorsteps and threw them in the bin.”
Beatrice Karare from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries tells IPS termites, and other insects such as grasshoppers, locusts, black and white ants, and crickets are part of traditional diets in Western Kenya, but not so in other parts of the country.
But with rising inflation, scientists at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) say edible insects are a low-cost alternative to more expensive foods. The Kenyan ‘food basket’ indicates that food inflation rose by 20 percent in January 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.
Pan-dried desert grasshoppers. Credit: icipe
Dr Saliou Niassy, a scientist from icipe, tells IPS edible insects contain high-quality protein, vitamins, fibre, calcium, iron, B vitamins, selenium, zinc, and amino acids and are also an excellent source of healthy fats.
Insect oil produced through an icipe research project from two edible insects – the desert locust and the African bush-cricket – was richer in omega-3 fatty acids, flavonoids, and Vitamin E than the plant oil.
Niassy says as this East African nation grapples with increasing threats to food security such as “climate change, landscape degradation and pest invasion, edible insects are a viable and affordable alternative.” It is projected that Africa’s annual food import bill of $35 billion could rise to $110 billion by 2025.
A survey conducted by icipe shows there are an estimated 500 species of edible insects in African communities. The Central African region is home to approximately 256 edible insect species. East Africa hosts about 100 species, and about eight species are available in North Africa. An estimated 17 primary species are used for feed and food in Kenya.
“We have had two main challenges as far as increasing consumption of insects is concerned, a lack of legislation around the production, packaging, and marketing of insects for food and strong perceptions that dictate what is culturally acceptable as food. There are also strong beliefs that you must be very poor to eat insects,” Karare explains.
Karare says some of these issues were resolved in December 2020 when Kenya became the first African country to develop national standards regulating the production, handling, and processing of insects for food and feed.
Included in the regulation are stipulations of the necessary minimum infrastructural and environmental requirements necessary for the ideal production of edible insects, including how they are packaged and presented.
Wanjala, now a teacher based in Nairobi, says communities that do not eat insects and children could be slowly introduced to insect products such as biscuits “so that the idea of eating insects can slowly sink in. When it comes to eating whole insects, I find that people are also more likely to try dry-fried, crunchy insects.”
Despite the challenges of creating a viable and attractive market for insects, Karare is convinced that insects can be part of the diet in many homes, drawing parallels with the journey of Kenyans embracing traditional vegetables.
“A few years ago, highly nutritious traditional vegetables were eaten by a few communities. In Central Kenya, for instance, Amaranthus was considered to be food for poor people. Today, Amaranthus is a popular delicacy and part of the menu in five-star hotels. The same with pumpkin leaves,” Karare observes.
“We need to educate the people that edible insects can add nutrients to a plant-based meal. More importantly, insects can even nutritionally replace meat.”
These are pan-dried nsenene. Researchers say edible insects provide low-cost alternative protein. Credit: icipe
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an estimated 2.5 billion people eat insects as part of their regular meals, whole or in processed food products such as snacks and pasta. Karare says the global edible insect market estimated at $112 million in 2019, could reach $1.5 billion by 2026.
There are approximately 1,900 edible species globally, including butterflies, cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers, ants, bees, dragonflies, beetles, domestic silk moths, centipedes and locusts.
According to FAO, turning to insects is not only good for the body but highly environment friendly and could contribute to reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases. The livestock sector contributes significantly to climate change as total emissions from global livestock represent 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
Cattle reared for beef and milk and inedible outputs such as manure and draft power account for 65 percent of the livestock sector’s emissions. Producing insects for food is yet another alternative to reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases, the FAO says.
Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and half as much as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Additionally, insect-based products are found to have a much smaller carbon footprint in comparison to conventional livestock.
With these revelations, Niassy says there is a lot more to learn and benefit from, “we have just scratched the surface in terms of sustainable access to biodiversity for resilience, livelihood, food and nutritional security in Africa.”
The 27 trucks delivered nearly 1,000 metric tonnes of food and other essential items to the city of Mekelle, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists in New York.
This was the fourth humanitarian convoy to reach Tigray since the transportation of aid resumed at the beginning of April, following more than three months of interruption.
Critical operations expanded
Since then, 169 trucks have reached Tigray, transporting some 4,300 metric tonnes of supplies.
Mr. Dujarric said food and other aid has been dispatched from the regional capital Mekelle, to priority areas across Tigray for onward distribution, while fuel that has recently arrived is allowing for critical humanitarian operations to be expanded.
“The rate at which aid is arriving into Tigray, however, remains a small fraction of what is needed. Essential services including electricity, communications networks and banking services, remain largely cut off,” he said.
Urgent scale-up needed
The UN and its partners continue to work with the authorities to urgently scale up deliveries of relief supplies, including seed and fertilizer ahead of the critical summer planting season.
The deadly conflict between Ethiopian troops and local defence forces in Tigray broke out in November 2020, after months of rising tension.
Fighting has spilled over into neighbouring regions and caused wide displacement across northern Ethiopia and into Sudan.
Mr. Dujarric said the UN is also working with authorities to expand much-needed assistance in areas of two affected regions in the north, Afar and Amhara.
Over the past week, food partners reached some 56,000 people in Amhara. Since late December, more than 10 million people have received food assistance from the Government, the UN, or aid partners.
This is Ouallam district one of the hottest places in Niger, in one of the hottest countries in Africa, where rain falls rarely and sparingly but where shattered communities can find a refuge from the increasing acts of violence and terrorist activity which have struck the region.
Ouallam and two other neighbouring districts in northern Niger currently shelter some 28,000 people who have fled their homes because of violence, including terrorist acts, in the volatile wider Sahel region of Africa. Around 8,000 have left as refugees from neighbouring Mali to the north and another 20,000 have been displaced from 18 nearby villages and towns.
One of them is Zakou Siddo, a teacher who fled from a village called Mogodiougou, some 80 kilometres from Ouallam.
“Twelve people were killed when my village was attacked on 14 November 2020. Livestock was stolen and our grain stores and some houses set on fire,” adding that “we then decided to flee to Ouallam which is considered safe.”
In Ouallam, Mr Siddou came together with other displaced communities from around the region, who left villages and towns standing empty and schools unattended. Many children had not been to class since 2017.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson
Aminata Walet Issafeitane, who is from Mali, has lived in Ouallam for ten years.
And they met refugees from Mali, including Aminata Walet Issafeitane, who is president of a Women’s Refugee Committee in Ouallam, and who fled the country of her birth ten years ago.
She tells a similar story of theft and violence. “We are a nomadic and pastoral people and our destiny was changed when armed groups stole our livestock.”
Like many refugees and displaced people, her community faced unprecedented changes. “We have had transform ourselves into sedentary people; we are trying to adapt in spite of the severe drought and lack of water which stops us from growing food; the few animals we have now are unable to find pasture. This makes us all suffer from a lack of food.”
Across Niger, some 80 per cent of Niger’s population of 25 million depend on agriculture to survive.
Microcosm of challenges facing Niger
Ouallam and its surrounding districts is a microcosm of the challenges facing Niger, a landlocked West African country where, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), some 264,000 Nigeriens are internally displaced due to a series of factors including deteriorating security and the effects of changing climatic conditions as well as overgrazing and deforestation.
UNICEF Niger/Phillipe Kropf
Some 28,000 displaced people live in Ouallam and neighbouring districts.
UNHCR says there are also over 250,000 refugees from neighbouring countries in Niger. In March 2022 alone, UN partners reported that more than 17,600 people were displaced into Niger, mostly Nigeriens returning home, but also Malian refugees.
UN agencies and their partners are providing a range of humanitarian and development support across Niger. It’s estimated that 6.8 million people are chronically food insecure and do not get enough to eat, year by year. Low rainfall and attacks in agricultural production areas have once again combined to reduce and limit the amount of food that is grown by farmers.
Despite the combination of crises, the 2022 humanitarian response plan for Niger is only 8.7 per cent funded.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
UN Secretary General, António Guterres, speaks to displaced women in Ouallam.
‘Spokesperson’ for the displaced
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, visited displaced people and refugees from Mali in Ouallam, to demonstrate his and the UN’s solidarity with those who have been driven from their homes.
Speaking directly to them, Mr Guterres said that he would do everything he could to support improvements to their lives. “I will be your spokesperson and will demand that the international community not only provides the humanitarian aid you need but also supports development, because it is with education, health and the creation of jobs, that terrorism can be beaten.”
And he warned that “there are terrorists who say they are acting in the name of God; it is a false claim,” adding that “in all the sacred texts of Islam, there is a condemnation of violence and any war waged by one Muslim against another Muslim.”
He once again appealed for the international community to support Niger calling it “a democratic country with good governance,” but one which “is not sufficiently equipped” to counter terrorism.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 03 (IPS) – Capital flight from the global South is immense, with widespread adverse effects. A new book proposes measures to curb, even reverse capital flight from Africa. It also offers pragmatic lessons for many developing countries.
Out of Africa
On the trail of capital flight from Africa extends pioneering work begun much earlier. The editors – Leonce Ndikumana and James Boyce – estimate Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has lost more than US$2 trillion to capital flight in the last half century!
Leonce Ndikumana
SSA currently loses US$65 billion annually – more than yearly official development assistance (ODA) inflows. The book’s studies carefully investigate natural resource exploitation – of South African minerals, Ivorian cocoa, and Angolan oil and diamonds.
Such forensic country analyses are crucial to more effectively check capital flight. Outflows since the 1980s from the three countries have been massive: US$103 billion from Angola, US$55 billion from Cote d’Ivoire, and US$329 billion from South Africa in 2018 dollars.
Capital flight has been much more than cumulative external debt. Annual outflows were between 3.3% and 5.3% of national income. Nigeria, South Africa and Angola account for the most capital outflows from SSA, with Cote d’Ivoire seventh.
Resource booms
As governments get more revenue from natural resources, the fiscal ‘social contract’ is eroded. When people pay taxes, they expect state spending to benefit the public. But with more revenue from resources – via state monopolies, royalties and taxes – governments become less accountable to their own citizens.
Gaining and maintaining access to foreign credit has similar effects. Developing country governments then focus on ingratiating themselves with friendly foreign donor governments to get ODA, and on enhancing their credit ratings.
Hence, such regimes have less political need to provide ‘public goods’, including services, let alone accelerate social progress. Thus, erosion of the fiscal ‘social contract’ undermines not only public wellbeing, but also state legitimacy.
James K. Boyce
To secure power, ruling cliques often rely on ‘clientelism’ – patronage or patron-client relations – typically on regional, ethnic, tribal, religious or sectarian lines. Their regimes inevitably provoke dissent – including oppositional ethno-populism and civil unrest, even armed insurgencies.
Unsurprisingly, such regimes believe their choices are limited. Another option is repression – which typically rises as the status quo is threatened. The resulting sense of insecurity spreads from the public to the elite, worsening capital flight.
Exploiting valuable natural resources not only generates export earnings, but also attracts foreign investments. One result is ‘Dutch disease’ as the national currency rises in value – reducing other exports and jobs, inevitably hurting development prospects.
Thus, vast private fortunes have been made and illicitly transferred abroad. Ruling elites and their allies rarely only rely on either state or market to become richer. The book shows how both state and market strengthen private and personal power and influence.
Plundering Africa
The book’s case studies show how resource extraction has been central to capital flight. In all three countries, the efficacy of fiscal policy tools – especially to foster investments for development – has been undermined.
Outflows have increased with economic liberalization, as unrecorded financial outflows – via the current account – grow with freer trade. Thus, trade-related financial transactions enable corruption and capital flight.
In Côte d’Ivoire – the world’s top cocoa producer – rents initially came from supply chains connecting farmers to consumers. Corrupt partnerships – connecting domestic elites to foreign businesses – have been crucial to such arrangements.
Thus, natural resource primary commodity exports have enabled illicit capital flows. Ivorian cocoa exports have been consistently under-reported – with trade statistics of major importers showing massive under-invoicing by exporters.
Post-colonial political settlements have given a few privileged access to resource rents. With capital flight thus enabled, successive Ivorian regimes have been less obliged to spend more on development or public wellbeing.
Due to the cocoa boom, the post-colonial ‘Ivorian miracle’ ended when prices fell. The bust triggered a political crisis, culminating in civil war. But the crunch also meant the country could no longer service its foreign debt.
In Angola too, natural resources worsened its protracted civil wars. After these ruinous conflicts, oil rents enriched the triumphant nepotistic regime. This enabled the control to gain control of more, even as most Angolans continued to live in destitution.
Angola’s massive oil exports mainly benefited the small elite of cronies around the president. They failed to develop the economy or improve most lives. All this has been enabled by ‘helpful’ professionals who have enriched themselves doing so.
While benefiting its elite and foreign transnationals, Angola’s ‘oil curse’ has blocked balanced and sustainable development of its economy. Despite rapidly depleting its oil reserves, Angola and most Angolans have benefited little.
South Africa – SSA’s second largest economy after Nigeria – seems less reliant on natural resources. Post-apartheid economic liberalization has enabled capital flight as private corporate interests – especially the influential minerals-energy complex – quickly took advantage of the new dispensation.
By under-invoicing their exports, mineral interests have been engaged in massive capital flight and tax evasion. Meanwhile, business cronies have enriched themselves in new ways, e.g., in the state’s electric power sector. Such abuses were exposed by the Gupta family scandal, leading to then President Jacob Zuma’s downfall.
Stemming capital flight
‘State capture’ by politically influential nationals have undermined government regulatory capacities with help from transnational enablers. Ostensible ‘good governance’ reforms have enabled capital flight and tax evasion – by undermining ‘developmental governance’, including prudential regulation.
Institutional environments, mechanisms and enablers facilitate capital flight, tax evasion and wealth accumulation offshore. With often complex, varied and changing facilitation, capital flight has shifted massive wealth abroad for elites.
Transnational financial networks have eased capital outflows – at the expense of productive investments, good jobs and social wellbeing. Capital flight has worsened financing, including budgetary gaps – aggravating related social deprivations.
Wealth creation enhances the economic pie, but distribution depends on who appropriates it. Improved understanding of such varied and ever-changing relations of appropriation is crucial to effectively curb this haemorrhage.
Greater awareness should inspire and inform better measures to check capital flight from the global South. Instead of the Washington Consensus ‘good governance’ mantra, a developmental governance agenda is needed.
Hence, curbing capital flight is crucial for financing sustainable development. Checking capital flight and related abuses – such as trade mis-invoicing, money laundering, tax evasion and public asset acquisition by elites – requires well-coordinated efforts at both national and international levels.
All researchers, policymakers and regulators will gain from the book’s forensic analyses of financial, fiscal and other such abuses. International financial institutions now have little excuse for continuing to enable the capital flight and tax evasion still bleeding the global South.
Speaking in Dakar, the capital of the West African country, Senegal, on his first visit to the continent since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Guterres said, “when discussing the socio-economic situation, it is impossible not to mention the war in Ukraine and its impact on Africa.”
The UN chief made the remarks after meeting the country’s President Macky Sall, who said that the war in Ukraine was “a human tragedy” which can have “a dramatic impact on economies, in particular, those of developing countries.”
The conflict in Ukraine is driving up global food and fuel prices; senior UN officials are concerned that rising costs will push more people into hunger and could lead to political instability and social unrest in some parts of Africa, where food prices have increased by a third since last year.
Before the Russian invasion began in February, the combination of climate change, conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic, was already impacting the socio-economic situation in Africa, especially in the Sahel region which includes Senegal.
Vaccine equity and sovereignty
Earlier Mr. Guterres and President Sall had toured a new hi-tech vaccine production facility, currently being built by the Institut Pasteur in Dakar. When completed, it will be able to produce a range of vaccines including Pfizer-BioNTech, one of the most widely used immunizations against COVID-19. It will also be able to manufacture experimental vaccines against malaria and tuberculosis.
UNICEF/Vincent Tremeau
A Senegalese man holds up his COVID-19 vaccination card
Speaking at the end of World Immunization Week, Mr. Guterres said that it was necessary to “build true vaccine equity across the world,” and that it was “unacceptable” that close to 80 per cent of Africans are not vaccinated against COVID-19; a situation which he called a “moral failure.”
President Macky Sall has called for pharmaceutical sovereignty by supporting the emergence of an African pharmaceutical industry capable of meeting basic needs and coping with pandemics.
As part of the COVID-19 recovery plan, Senegal is strengthening its drugs manufacturing sector. It’s expected that the vaccination facility will produce at least 50 per cent of the country’s needs.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson
The vaccine production facility in Dakar, Senegal, will make COVID-19 and other vaccines.
Mr. Guterres added that the world’s “wealthiest countries and pharmaceutical companies should accelerate the donation of vaccines and invest in local production,” of the type seen at Institut Pasteur facility.
I thank President @Macky_Sall and the people of Senegal for the warm welcome, particularly on the eve of #EidAlFitr.
The @UN is committed to continue strengthening our partnership with Senegal as we tackle the consequences of conflict, terrorism & the climate crisis. pic.twitter.com/3ww4YGks1I
Increased investment is part of a global strategy to support developing countries facing what the UN has called “cascading crises.” In March 2022, the UN Chief established the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance (GCRG) set up in response to the crisis provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying that the invasion was producing alarming effects on a world economy already battered by COVID-19 and climate change.
President Macky Sall is one of six eminent world leaders who have been named as Champions of the group and who are supporting the Secretary-General’s call for immediate action to prevent, mitigate and respond to the crisis. He is also the Chairperson of the African Union for 2022.
The GCRG, calls on countries to find creative ways to finance increased humanitarian and development recovery needs worldwide and to give generously and immediately release funds that they have already pledged.
Food, energy and finance
Talking to reporters in Dakar, Mr Guterres said “we must ensure a steady flow of food and energy in open markets, removing all unnecessary export restrictions,” adding that “countries must resist the temptation to hoard and instead release strategic stocks of energy.”
The UN estimates that a quarter of a billion people could be pushed into extreme poverty this year, caused by the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine. International financial institutions have a key role to play and “must urgently provide debt relief by increasing liquidity and fiscal space,” the UN Chief said, “so that governments can avoid default and invest in social safety nets and sustainable development for their people.”
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