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UNDP /AFRICA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT ADVANCER
STORY: UNDP / AFRICA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT ADVANCER
TRT: 5.13
SOURCE: UNDP
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: RECENT / FILE RECENT, NAIROBI, KENYA NIGER / CHAD / MAURITANIA / AMBOUSELI, KENYA /NEW YORK / HOUSTON, TEXAS
FILE – RECENT, NAIROBI, KENYA
1. Various shots, roads
2. Wide shot, building under construction
2 MAY, 2012, NEW YORK
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Tegegnework Gettu, Director of UNDP Africa Bureau:
“There has been rapid economic growth the last 10 years in Africa. On average 6-5 percent growth. This has been persistent even during the time of the financial crisis and global recession Africa continued to grow economically but that isn’t matched with food security.”
FILE - RECENT, MALI
4. Various shots, women on horse drown carriage in recent Sahel food crisis
RECENT, NEW YORK
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tegegnework Gettu, Director of UNDP Africa Bureau:
“We simply can't afford asking for food aid or begging for food for, at this stage of human development.”
FILE - RECENT, NIGER
6. Med shot, carcasses of cows in recent Sahel food crisis
FILE - RECENT, MALI
7. Med shot, malnourished child in recent Sahel food crisis
FILE - RECENT, CHAD,
8. Various shots, malnourished baby being fed in feeding center in recent Sahel food crisis
FILE – RECENT, NAMELOK VILLAGE, KENYA
9. Various shots, Maasai women picking tomatoes
10. SOUNDBITE (Maasai) Motialo Kiserian, farmer:
"We came together as a group so we’d be stronger."
11. Med shot, Maasai women farming
12. SOUNDBITE (Maasai) Motialo Kiserian, farmer:
“We’ve been able to get this bigger farm and as a result our profits are bigger."
13. Wide shot, women farming
2 MAY, 2012, NEW YORK
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator:
“One of the most basic needs of human beings is to have food, and most importantly for our development as people, we need nutritious food. If we don’t have those basic building blocks, it’s very hard to progress human development. A hungry child cannot learn. Hungry adults cannot be productive. They can’t be engaged in their society, so meeting people’s needs for food, nutritious food, is so basic to human development.”
FILE – RECENT, NAMELOK VILLAGE, KENYA
15. Various shots, tomatoes being packed
RECENT, NEW YORK
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Calestous Juma, Harvard University:
“The first step being able to address its current food crisis is recognizing that it has abundant arable land, but this land is not in production, mostly because of lack of adequate infrastructure. So I think that the first step in expanding Africa’s food security is going through expansion of rural infrastructure particularly
FILE – RECENT, NAMELOK VILLAGE, KENYA
17. Various shots, women farming
1 MAY 2012, HOUSTON, TEXAS
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President, Liberia:
“The role of women in food security particularly in Africa, is profound and is critical. Women are the producers, the marketers, the preservers of food. If women, as studies have clearly shown, have the same level of education, the same level of access to food assets, to productive assets, the yield in full crops is likely to be 20% higher”
FILE – RECENT, NAMELOK VILLAGE, KENYA
19. Various shots, women eating tomatoes
20. Wide shot, corn fields and Mt. Kilimanjaro
2 MAY 2012, HOUSTON, TEXAS
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator:
The solutions have to be coordinated. It’s not any one thing. What if you grow a whole lot more food but then you can’t store it and get it to market? The extra food isn’t going to feed anybody extra, so we need to be looking at the whole chain of production, supply, and distribution here. We need to be looking at the empowerment of the woman farmers. We need to be looking at the level of resilience communities have to what are increasingly frequent and severe climate events.
FILE – RECENT, NAMELOK VILLAGE, KENYA
22. Various shots, corn fields and Mt. Kilimanjaro
Sub-Saharan Africa cannot sustain its present economic resurgence unless it eliminates the hunger that affects nearly a quarter of its people, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) argues in the newly released Africa Human Development Report 2012: Towards a Food Secure Future.
“There has been rapid economic growth the last 10 years in Africa. On average 6-5 percent growth. This has been persistent even during the time of the financial crisis and global recession Africa continued to grow economically but that isn’t matched with food security. “Tegegnework Gettu, Director of UNDP Africa Bureau said.
With more than one in four of its 856 million people undernourished, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s most food-insecure region. At the moment, more than 15 million people are at risk in the Sahel alone – across the semi-arid belt from Senegal to Chad; and an equal number in the Horn of Africa remain vulnerable after last year’s food crisis in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.
Hunger and extended periods of malnutrition not only devastate families and communities in the short term, but leave a legacy with future generations which impairs livelihoods and undermines human development.
Food security, as defined by the 1996 world leaders’ Food Summit, means that people can consistently access sufficient and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life at a price they can afford.
Freedom from hunger enables people to live productive lives and realize their full potential. In turn, higher levels of human development can further improve the availability of food, creating a virtuous cycle for all
Arguing that action focused on agriculture alone will not end food insecurity either, the Report calls for new approaches covering multiple sectors; from rural infrastructure to health services, to new forms of social protection and empowering local communities. Ensuring that the poor and vulnerable have greater voice through strengthened local government and civil society groups is also needed to ensure food security for all.
The quickening pace of change and new economic vitality on the continent make this an opportune time for action, the Report says.
For the Maasai living in Kenya, traditional livestock-rearing is becoming increasingly difficult, because there is less grazing for their animals, making them more vulnerable to drought and disease. Climate change may also a factor. In 2009, an unusually long dry season wiped out whole herds belonging to families here.
But the area around Amboseli, on the plains near Kilimanjaro, has ample water sources. As a result, irrigation-based agriculture has increased significantly in this area, with tomatoes, bananas, maize and onions being farmed for sale, both by the local Maasai communities and by other Kenyans who have come here to lease or buy land from the Maasai for farming.
To protect the interests of the Maasai, the communities here have set up Group Ranches to manage the land. Parts of the land are set aside for cultivation, others are left for cattle-grazing, and the rest is leased to a conservation organization, to provide a migration corridor to the animals in the park.
A small local charity called Oloip Lenkerai - Maasai for ‘Shade of the Child’ - has helped an existing women’s cooperative to lease 2 acres of land, sink a shallow well to irrigate it, and start planting tomatoes, bananas and beans. The income from the twice-annual harvest can make the difference between a child going to school or staying at home; between a family being able to hold onto the few animals that they own or being forced to sell them.
Motielo Kiserian, one of the group’s 12 members, earns between 2000 and 4000 shillings (25-50 US dollars) a month buying and selling goats. Her husband is mostly absent and provides little or no money to sustain her and their four children.
"We came together as a group so we’d be stronger. “We’ve been able to get this bigger farm and as a result our profits are bigger." Kiserian said.
The group’s last harvest brought in 38,000 Kenya shillings (475 US dollars), a lot less than the on average 100,000 that most 1-acre farms yield per harvest, but more money than most of these women have seen in their lives. The cash was not distributed equally between the women, but according to who needed it most.
UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said that Food is the most basic need for people.
“One of the most basic needs of human beings is to have food, and most importantly for our development as people, we need nutritious food. If we don’t have those basic building blocks, it’s very hard to progress human development. A hungry child cannot learn. Hungry adults cannot be productive. They can’t be engaged in their society, so meeting people’s needs for food, nutritious food, is so basic to human development.” Clark added.
Harvard Professor, Calestous Juma, added that a community that has adequate access to nutrition will have the ability and energy to produce more food but also to diversity their activities into other economic areas.
“The first step being able to address its current food crisis is recognizing that it has abundant arable land, but this land is not in production, mostly because of lack of adequate infrastructure. So I think that the first step in expanding Africa’s food security is going through expansion of rural infrastructure particularly” Juma Said.
Liberian President, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson said that the solution to the African food security issues must involve the empowerment of women.
The role of women in food security particularly in Africa, is profound and is critical. Women are the producers, the marketers, the preservers of food. If women, as studies have clearly shown, have the same level of education, the same level of access to food assets, to productive assets, the yield in full crops is likely to be 20% higher” President Sirleaf Johnson added.
With a population projected to exceed two billion sometime after 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will need to produce substantially more food, while mitigating the stresses which agricultural production places on the environment.
Ending decades of bias against agriculture and women, countries must put into place policies which provide farmers with the inputs, infrastructure, and incentives which will enable them to lift productivity.
Encouraging the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of Africa’s growing youth population to further stimulate rural economies is particularly important.
With two-thirds of working Africans making a living off the land, policies promoting agricultural productivity would stimulate economic growth, pulling people out of poverty through job and income creation, and increasing their capacity to save and invest in the future. This will also enable a more sustainable use of land and water resources.
Such action can make a difference. Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan African country to achieve the Millennium Development Goal One on halving hunger by 2015, partly by focusing on policies which encouraged cocoa farmers to boost output. Malawi transformed a food deficit into a 1.3 million tonne surplus within two years, thanks to a massive seed and fertilizer subsidy program.
On the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro the farming group that Motialo Kiserian belongs too has had a good year. The group’s last harvest brought in 38,000 Kenya shillings (475 dollars), less than the average 100,000KHS that most 1-acre farms yield per harvest, but more money than most of the women have seen in their lives. The cash was not distributed equally between the women, but according to who needed it most.
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