Agencies' emergency assistance to nearly 6 million people across the Sahel is less than one third funded - Pix: Oxfam |
A
group of African experts have explored another dimension of making sure
that economic growth is more evenhanded.
The
Annual Progress Report “Jobs, Justice and Equity: Seizing Opportunities in
Times of Global Change”, issued last week by the African Progress Panel said
“there are 70 million more youth younger than 14 than there were ten years
ago.”
Underscoring
the coming “demographic shift” is this large youth bulge, who will need
education, jobs and opportunities, the panel said.
“If
current and future economies cannot provide this, there may be some negative
consequences,” they warn.
“A
demographic disaster marked by rising levels of youth unemployment, social
dislocation and hunger,” could be preventable with more equitable
growth, the Panel's report indicates.
Halving poverty
The
current pattern of trickle-down growth of economies in the world is not
benefiting many people who find themselves in a spiral of poverty. While
benefits measured by poverty reduction, maternal mortality and child hood
survival fall far short of what Africans expect.
The
agency, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said about 600 million children
live on less than $1 per day, while a child dies of starvation every 3.6
seconds in developing countries. The agency said tackling food insecurity and
income inequality will be essential to meeting such Millennium Development
Goals as halving global poverty and reducing child mortality by two-thirds by
2015.
Hunger
With
a full blown food crisis already extant in sub-Saharan Africa, another UN
agency, the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), said about 214 million people, that
is, one in four sub-Saharan Africans, goes hungry every day.
It warns
on Tuesday that “countries in the region cannot sustain current levels of
economic growth without reaching out to their most marginalized inhabitants.”
“15 million of these vulnerable people live in
the drought-struck, semi-arid belt of the Sahel, which stretches across West
and Central Africa. There, malnutrition is threatening the lives of one
million children,” UNDP said in its “Africa Human Development Report 2012: Towards a Food
Secure Future.”
Child deaths
The same
report projected that more than a million children in the Sahel region are at
risk of dying because they don't have enough to eat.
In
Africa, growth in economy, education and life expectancy have not been met with
stabilization in food security for all. Inequalities continue to put the future
of many children and families at risk.
The
report added: “Across sub-Saharan Africa, rural infrastructure has
deteriorated, farming has languished, gender and other inequalities have
deepened and food systems have stagnated.”
This
is further justified by the fact that many sub-Saharan African countries have
Gini index (a measure of income inequality used by some economists)
measures between 0.35 and 0.6.
On
the index, a score of “1” indicates perfect inequality (hypothetically all of
the wealth is concentrated), while a score of “0” indicates perfect equality
(hypothetically, all wealth is shared equally among the population) – the UNDP
explains. Current food crisis hit
countries like Niger, has a Gini index of about 0.35, Mali has a Gini
coefficient of about 0.33 and Mauritania has an income inequality level of
about 0.41.
Dehumanizing
“Uneven
human development continues to be influenced by the inequitable distribution of
land and productive resources based on gender, ethnicity and geographical
location. These power imbalances trap women and children in the poverty cycle,”
the UNDP report noted. “Women’s lack of
control over land resources is one example of how power structures have impeded
food security. But if women had the same access to resources as men, UN
estimates show that they could produce enough food to lift 100-150 million more
people out of a state of hunger.”
On
this backdrop, the 2012 UNDP report exhorts for improved food security through
such measures as investments in agricultural productivity, better nutrition,
social safety nets to build resilience to crises, gender equality and
empowerment programmes for poor rural-dwellers.
The 2012
Human Development Report for Africa “Towards a Food Secure Future” also
examines “why dehumanizing hunger remains pervasive in the region, despite
abundant agricultural resources, a favorable growing climate, and rapid
economic growth rates.”
It
also emphasise that food security, the ability to consistently acquire enough
calories and nutrients for a healthy and productive life, is essential for
human development.
However,
it argues that to boost food security, action must be taken in four
interrelated areas: agricultural productivity, nutrition, access to food, and
empowerment of the rural poor. It state: “Increasing agricultural productivity
in sustainable ways can bolster food production and economic opportunities,
thereby improving food availability and increasing purchasing power.”
Written by
Modou S. Joof
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