Regional Ties

                 Downloaded from http://whydtinogo.blogspot.com on 5 September 2011

The two African countries receiving press these days are Libya and Somalia. The standoff between Muammar Gadhafi and his opposition that began in Benghazi and spread westward in Libya receives a good amount of attention from the press and Western policy makers. Somalia, too, has its share of political turmoil as a central authority has been absent for the past twenty years and the only groups able to make headway in the fighting are pan-Islamist fundamentalists like Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (often shortened to Al Shabaab). Somalia also experienced a drought this year. This, in combination with its on-going civil strife, is exacerbating conditions of famine, Diaspora, and the spread of disease.

Problems such as these, however, do not remain separate from each other or uniform over space. Libya is certainly in a state of disrepair but so are its neighbours: Algeria, Mali, Niger and Chad. Algeria is silently supporting Gadhafi and suppressing any forms of dissidence as the Bouteflika administration is fearful that the ‘Arab Spring’ will reach its territory. Mali, Niger and Chad are witnessing large crowds of people coming from Libya who left because of the turmoil or because their previous relationship with the Gadhafi regime will foster acts of revenge if the rebels should succeed in ousting Gadhafi. These groups place strains on the limited infrastructure, food resources, and health services that are in place. Chad is right now trying to contain cholera and measles outbreaks in addition to their grain reserves quickly depleting.

The events in Somalia also influence the stability of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. Somali groups live in the first three of these countries. While the drought was most severe in the southern central region of Somalia, kinship ties allow large movements of people around East Africa where water resources were sufficient for local populations before, but now are strained through the arrival of more consumers. Such depletion leads to the use of contaminated water and poor sanitation. Kenya and Ethiopia are fighting outbreaks of cholera and malaria at the moment.  Tanzania is an interesting case as certain regions in its territory were affected by poor rains this year but the country still produced enough food for its population. The concern, however, is in Tanzanian grain being smuggled north to Kenya and Somalia where returns will be higher. Regional ties exist, they are strong, and a crisis in one country is influential on many neighbouring countries.

This said, it should be noted there are countries, and regions, experiencing the same turmoil as Libya and Somalia at the moment that receive little or no attention from the press and Western policy makers. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zimbabwe are obvious examples that experience crises affecting the food security, health, and human rights of populations in these countries as well as those in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi in the case of the DRC and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique when talking of Zimbabwe. People, commodities and ideas move easily over all parts of Africa. So too, do crises and the escalation of problems when focus is placed on only one or two states.

                                                                     Photo by James Natchwey, 2011



Cures Instead of Prevention

Policy makers are frustrated with the lackadaisical to non-existent relationship they share with pastoralists in Sub-Saharan Africa when it comes to many issues but especially with veterinary care. In general, pastoralists only come to veterinarians and immunize their flocks as a secondary or last  resort. They evade these government agents and programs because of the cost, the mixed in results in disease prevention, and because the veterinarians and medicines are viewed with suspicion. Pastoralists instead prefer customary African practices that aid in prevention because they cost little to no money, are learned over time from contact with their parents and other relatives, and the results are often acceptable and factored into the maintenance of their flocks. Western science and pharmaceutical cures fall short of such expectations.

To bring pastoralists into the fold, policy makers are now lowering the prices of drugs, vaccinations and making access easier to diagnostics and other forms of veterinary care. As benign as this may seem, it is not given the history. Veterinary care in Sub-Saharan Africa is rooted in colonialism where such practices cloaked efforts to control and bring pastoral groups into submission. Campaigns to eradicate trypanosomosis (sleeping sickness), rinderpest (steppe murrain), foot and mouth disease, and other infectious diseases are often short-lived as newer strains that are resistant to such medications and immunizations take their toll on flocks. If policy makers are sincere in their efforts to integrate pastoralists into their respective states, a suggestion is made to integrate pastoral customary practices into veterinary care and veterinary research. Otherwise pastoralists will continue their aversion to veterinary care, in addition to other dimensions of society that they have no stake in.  

Going it alone in a Changing Global Climate

For some time now proponents of the global economy coming from the industrialized world, pushed people from Africa, Asia and Latin America into dependency on global commodities. Products like corn, wheat, rice, coffee, tea, powdered milk, and vegetable oils are produced in Europe, North America and Australia and flood the markets of the developing world in both times of crises and times of stability. In times of crisis, these bulk goods are called aid and are meant to provide humanitarian relief to people who are facing famine or malnourishment. And in normal times, the governments of industrialized nations and international loan agencies like the World Bank and IMF dictate the terms of trade through pressuring the national governments in the developing world to remove protective tariffs for local food industries while simultaneously flooding their markets with the industrialized world’s bulk foods. With agribusinesses in the industrialized world receiving subsidies for their crops and the developing world slashing protective tariffs to their local food companies, this undermined the development of local food companies in the developing world and removes incentive for local producers to engage in agriculture. It is a subservient relationship that the developing world has with the industrialized world, one that keeps countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America vulnerable to food crises.

Lately, political international organizations are calling upon the developing world to establish national climate change policies in order to reduce the risks to natural hazards like drought, floods, and earthquakes when they occur. Despite the dilemma that most voicing this need are geopolitical agents coming from the industrialized world, there is also the expectation that the developing world will become ‘resilient’ to the natural hazards when they occur. The developing world already goes it alone when there are recessions in the world economy. This is one of the many factors that make a developing world country vulnerable when crises occur. But now they are expected to go it alone when a natural hazard takes its toll on regions and their citizens. There was a time when the industrialized world was there during a natural hazard with aid, granted tainted with the long-term problem of creating dependency on the commodities distributed, but still helping people and saving lives. Now with greater variations in global climate, the industrialized world is telling the developing world to prepare and go it alone when a drought, flood, earthquake or other natural hazard hits.

Aside from the problem that this is unjust given the entrenched dependency between the industrialized and developing world, there are two concerns to pushing countries in the developing world to plan out national climate change policies. One is whether or not countries that have well-written policies in place are favored in terms of receiving assistance and help when it is available from industrial countries while those that have poor policies or none at all are denied available aid. This is reflective of how development funds from the World Bank and IMF dictate development assistance in the past and present. The second is climate change is not restricted to the artificial boundaries of countries. Each country is likely to have their own ideas of mitigation and response during natural hazards that perhaps will be complimentary, but in all likelihood conflict if other countries do not have compatibility with their neighbors. In order to have an effective climate change policy in place, one that benefits and empowers the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, it is necessary for regional plans to be drafted and agreed upon by countries in the region. Any drafting of plans, too, needs the collaboration and input from the actual actors themselves, whether they are national or local. It is time to end the monopoly powerful actors from the industrialized world have over those from the developing world, and begin working towards equity in aid and development.