Africa Threatened With Starvation: No Objective Reason
There is no objective reason for hunger in Africa. African nations have abundant fertile land and many water systems that should enable them to be not only food self sufficient, but produce a surplus. With proper investment in infrastructure and planning, stockpiles of food would be available to feed the population during difficulty periods like the present COVID-19 pandemic. With manufacturing and agricultural processing sectors, people would have more job security, then living hand to mouth in the so called informal economy.
WFP Chief warns of grave dangers of economic impact of Coronavirus as millions are pushed further into hunger
Transcript as delivered of remarks by UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley to today’s virtual session of the UN Security Council, September 17, 2020.
“Five months ago, I warned the Council the world stood on the brink of a hunger pandemic. A toxic combination of conflict, climate change and COVID-19, threatened to push 270 million people to the brink of starvation. Famine was real. It’s a terrifying possibility in up to three dozen countries if we don’t continue to act like we’ve been acting…
“As COVID-19 pushed countries everywhere to lock down, the equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs have been destroyed, and remittances have collapsed. The impact has been felt hardest by the 2 billion people who work in the informal economy around the world – mainly in middle and low-income countries. Already only one day’s work away from going hungry, in other words living hand to mouth…
“Let me turn to the countries on today’s agenda. In the DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO, conflict and instability had already forced 15.5 million people into crisis levels of food insecurity. These are people on the brink of starvation. The latest assessment indicates that the upsurge in violence, coupled with COVID-19, has sent this total sky-rocketing to nearly 22 million people, an increase of 6.5 million people. And I should warn you these numbers assume WFP is able to maintain current levels of food assistance. If we are forced to scale back operations, the outlook is even worse
“NIGERIA: COVID-19 is also forcing more people into food insecurity. Analysis shows measures imposed to contain the virus reduced incomes in 80 percent of households. You can imagine the devastation with that alone.
“In the northeast of the country, 4.3 million people are food insecure, up by 600,000 largely due to COVID-19. While in the large urban area of Kano, the number of food insecure people during that lockdown period from March to June went from 568,000 to 1.5 million people – an increase of 1 million people. Very troubling.
“SOUTH SUDAN: The outlook there is similarly worrying, where even before the pandemic, 6.5 million people were expected to face severe food insecurity at the height of the lean season, made worse by the violence in Jonglei State in recent months. This has resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians, a large number of abducted women and children, and widespread loss of livestock and livelihoods. In addition, virus outbreaks in urban areas such as Juba could put as many as another 1.6 million people at risk of starvation.
Finally, even though it is not on today’s agenda, I also want to highlight the disaster unfolding in Burkina Faso, driven by the upsurge in violence. The number of people facing crisis levels of hunger has tripled to 3.3 million people, as COVID compounds the situation…displacement, security and access problems. For 11,000 of these people living in the northern provinces, famine is knocking on the door as we speak.
Read: WFP Warns Grave Economic Dangers From COVID-19
Food Is Now Up to 250 Percent More Expensive Across Africa
‘With crop reduction comes food scarcity, and prices go up with demand. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network found that Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, DRC, Mauritania, Nigeria, Guatemala and Haiti are the countries that have been most affected by the drop in crop production.
‘Then there’s the rising cost of sorghum – a drought resistant cereal grain that’s popular across the continent. In July, sorghum prices exceeded the five-year average by 150 to 250 percent in Sudan, 50 to 240 percent in South Sudan, 85 percent in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and 20 to 55 percent in Southern Somalia
Read: Food Up To 250% More Expensve in Africa
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in the economic development policy of Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com
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UN Chief: Virus Could Push Millions of Africans Into Poverty
May 20, 2020
United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, warns about the danger of the COVID-19 in Africa, both from the disease itself and causing increased levels of poverty.
“It will aggravate long-standing inequalities and heighten hunger, malnutrition and vulnerability to disease. Already, demand for Africa’s commodities, tourism and remittances are declining…. millions could be pushed into extreme poverty
“The U.N. said the low numbers could be linked to minimal testing and reporting, pointing to a World Health Organization warning that the pandemic “could kill between 83,000 and 190,000 people in 47 African countries in the first year, mostly depending on governments’ responses.”
“To help address the devastating economic and social consequences of the pandemic, Guterres said Africa needs more than $200 billion and “an across-the-board debt standstill for African countries” unable to service their debt, “followed by targeted debt relief and a comprehensive approach to structural issues in the international debt architecture to prevent defaults.”
“These are still early days for the pandemic in Africa, and disruption could escalate quickly. Global solidarity with Africa is an imperative – now and for recovering better. Ending the pandemic in Africa is essential for ending it across the world.
“I have been calling for a global response package amounting to at least 10 per cent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product. For Africa, that means more than $200 billion as additional support from the international community.
“I also continue to advocate a comprehensive debt framework — starting with an across-the-board debt standstill for countries unable to service their debt, followed by targeted debt relief and a comprehensive approach to structural issues in the international debt architecture to prevent defaults.”
Read: UN: Impact of COVID-19 in Africa
Read my earlier articles on COVID-19 in Africa:
- World Needs New Economic Platform to Fight COVID-19
- New Economic Order Required to Combat COVID-19 in Africa
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in the economic development policy of Africa for 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com
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WFP’s David Beasley Warns of Potential Famines in Africa & Mideast Due to COVID-19
May 12, 2020
The effects of COVID-19 on food supply chains in developing nations that are already suffering from hunger and acute food insecurity could be more deadly than coronavirus itself, according to David Beasley, Director of the World Food Programme (WFP). Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC on May 8, via teleconference, Beasley told his audience that, if economic conditions continue to deteriorate and endanger the production and distribution of food to impoverished nations, we could witness famines in Africa, and other parts of the world. “You could have 150,000 to 300,000 people die of starvation every day for several months—at a minimum,” he said. In a six-month period of time that equals between 27 to 54 million deaths. Beasley reported, as he did last month to the United Nations Security Council, that 821 million people around the world go to bed hungry and another 135 million are on the verge of starvation.
The fact that almost 1 billion of our fellow human beings are suffering from these levels of food insecurity is proof of the failure of globalization and an indictment of the current monetarist based financial system. With an abundance of fertile land, growing food and delivering food is a matter of investment in infrastructure. There are no valid objective reasons for any human being to go without food. The world needs a New Bretton Woods System, designed to lift all nations out of poverty, as President Franklin Roosevelt has intended. Nothing short of a global rebuilding of our world economy is required.
Watch video presentation below by World Food Programme Director, David Beasley
Reuters published on May 7, a graphic report: Virus exposes gaping holes in Africa’s health systems, which quantifies the shortages in Africa of physicians, ventilators, intensive care beds and tests for COVID-19. This deficit in healthcare infrastructure endangers millions of African, who are already suffering from food insecurity, poverty, lack of clean water, and lack of adequate electricity and other basic necessities of life. From March 30 to May 10, the number of COVID-19 cases in Africa has increased from 4,760 cases and 146 deaths to 64,214 cases and 2,344 deaths. That is an increase of 1300% and 1600% respectively in six weeks. If Africa is at the beginning of the coronavirus curve, and the virus grows exponentially, as it has in other nations, then Africa will not be equipped to handle the magnitude of the crisis.
Read my earlier articles on COVID-19 and Africa
- Ethiopian & Nigerian Leaders Want Debt Cancellation; UNGA President: Infrastructure for Food and Health
- Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed: Debt Cancellation for the World to Survive
- International Cooperation and Collaboration Needed to Save Lives in Africa From COVID-19
- Africa Manufacturing Must be Geared Up to Fight COVID-19
- Food Shortages and COVID-19 in Africa: Interviews With Lawrence Freeman
- World Needs New Economic Platform to Fight COVID-19
- New Economic Order Required to Combat COVID-19 in Africa
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in the economic development policy of Africa for 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com
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Ethiopian & Nigerian Leaders Want Debt Cancellation; UNGA President: Infrastructure for Food and Health
May 7, 2020
Human life in Africa is threatened more by the COVID-19 pandemic than any other continent due to the appalling living conditions for the majority of the population. During lock-down conditions, millions of Africans are faced with the choice of trying to just subsist day by day working in the informal economy to make enough money to feed one’s family or stay home and go hungry. However, the informal economy itself is part of the problem, since it no health insurance, no unemployment insurance, and income is precarious at best. The very existence of the informal economy is a malignancy that should have been eliminated decades ago, and replaced with an industrialized economy.
The International Labor Organization (ILO), estimates the total world labor force is 3.3 billion people, and about 2 billion of them, or 61% of the total, are working in the informal economy. The vast majority of such informal workers (93%) are to be found in the Third World. In the first month after the pandemic hit their countries, laborers in the informal economy suffered an average 60% drop in their income. Now, 1.6 billion of those 2 billion informal workers—almost 80% of all informal workers—have lost their jobs or are about to. Tragically, Africa has 86% of its labor force working in the informal economy-the highest of all continents.
RFI reports that Nigeria, with over 200 million people, has 40% of its population living in life threatening poverty. According to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), from September 2018, to October 2019, 82.9 million Nigerians earned less than 400 Naira-($1) per day. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which compromises the majority of the continent with almost 1 billion people, 41% live in extreme poverty-$1.90 per day or less. The NBS reports that poverty in Nigeria’s rural areas is more than 50 percent. The economic cruelties of life in Nigeria typify conditions throughout SSA.
Life is More Precious Than Debt
Prior to COVID-19 pandemic, African nations required a debt moratorium to save the lives of their people. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic intersecting the existent conditions of poverty, food insecurity and lack of healthcare infrastructure, Africa leaders are demanding debt cancellation, to prioritize addressing the economic and health needs of their nations. Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Ethiopia and Nigeria are asking for debt relief.
Following Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy’s op-ed in the April 30 edition of the New York Times, PM Abiy wrote on May 1, that there is an “urgent need for the Global Health Pledging Conference.” In his essay, “ PM Abiy: A Pledge to Combat COVID-19 in Africa, he outlines the urgency for debt cancellation.
“Up to now, there has been a huge disconnect between the rhetoric of rich-country leaders – that this is an existential, once-in-a-century global crisis – and the support for the world’s poor and developing countries [is more] than they seem willing to contemplate. Indeed, until last week, African countries were spending more on debt payments than on health care.”
“In 34 of Sub-Saharan Africa’s 45 countries, annual per capita health spending is below $200 – and barely reaches $50 in many of these countries. Such low levels of spending make it impossible to fund acute-care hospital beds, ventilators, and the drugs needed to confront diseases like COVID-19. Paying for doctors, nurses, X-ray technicians, and other health professionals, together with their equipment, can seem almost like a luxury.”
Nigerian President Mahammadou Burhari, echoed PM Abiy’s demand for debt cancellation, in a May 4 meeting with heads of state from the Non-Aligned Movement. President Buhari “urged official lenders to help cushion the pandemic fallout with outright debt cancellation,” according Alonso Soto of Bloomberg. The article reports that, “nearly half of Nigeria’s outstanding external debt is with multilateral lenders, led by the World Bank Group with $10.1 billion. Beijing-based Export-Import Bank of China is the second-biggest creditor with loans totaling $3.2 billion, while Eurobonds account for $10.86 billion or 39% of external debt.”
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the United Nations General Assembly, discussed how the spread of the coronavirus is a threat to those already suffering from poverty and food insecurity in a May 1, op-ed by published by Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. In his statement, Preventing a Pandemic Induced Food Emergency, Ambassador Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, head of the the Nigerian Mission to the UN, wrote: “two billion people did not have regular access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food prior to the outbreak of the Coronavirus. Indeed, hunger has been on the rise globally for the past four years
“The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating pre-existing inequalities, putting immense strain on tenuous systems; and plunging those in the most precarious contexts deeper into poverty and hunger.
“In many places, travel restrictions aimed at containing COVID-19 has reduced access to markets; and the purchasing power of millions of people has been decimated as a result of an exponential increase in unemployment rates. Moreover, school closures have disturbed the main source of nutrition for over 370 million children around the world.
“Those suffering from hunger are at greater risk of developing severe COVID-19 symptoms as a result of associated health conditions, such as malnutrition and non-communicable diseases, which compromise the immune system. Compounding this is the fact that those who are hungry are often trapped in poverty and do not have access to health services, water and sanitation facilities, or indeed the space to quarantine or practice social distancing.
“In both our rapid response to the pandemic, and our long-term planning, it is imperative that we link food security to health interventions and investment in infrastructure.” (emphasis added)
For more analysis of COVID-19 and Africa, read my previous posts below:
- Cancellation for the World to Survive
- International Cooperation and Collaboration Needed to Save Lives in Africa From COVID-19
- World Needs New Economic Platform to Fight COVID-19
- New Economic Order Required to Combat COVID-19 in Africa
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in the economic development policy of Africa for 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com
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Ebola Crisis: How Many Africans Must Die Before the World Acts?
August 2, 2019
Today is the one-year anniversary second eruption of Ebola in sub-Saharan Africa in five years. On August 1, 2018, an outbreak of Ebola was declared in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), when four cases of Ebola in town of Mangina were verified. After 426 cases of Ebola were confirmed, the World Health Organization-(WHO) on November 29, declared this to be the second largest outbreak of Ebola in history. The largest outbreak was from 2014-2016 in West Africa that caused 11,310 deaths. By May 3, of this year over 1,000 human beings had perished from Ebola. As of June 4, the number of cases exceeded 2,000. Yet, it wasn’t until July 17, 2019, after more than 1600 people had died from this deadly disease that the WHO declared a “public health emergency of international concern”. This declaration by the WHO is far short of what is required to combat this killer disease. To date, there are 2,593 infected with Ebola and more than 1,770 have died, according to the The New Humanitarian on line journal.
The fear of Ebola spreading to the city of Goma, a transportation center with a population of 2 million, bordering Rwanda, was realized on July 14, with Goma’s first confirmed case. July 30, health officials confirmed a second case, unrelated to the first. However, on August 1, two additional cases were discovered, of relatives to the second deceased, thus establishing the transmission of Ebola in Goma itself, as reported by AP. Thursday, BBC News reported that the border between Goma and its neighbor Rwandan city, Gisenyi, was closed in response. On June 11, Uganda reported the first of two deaths cause by Ebola.
The WHO should declare a full international health emergency, not “a matter of concern.” Although the WHO does not have the resources to fully combat this latest outbreak of Ebola, such a declaration would sound the alarm. This could mobilize international institutions like the World Bank, United Nations et al, along with forcing western nations to act. However, for such an emergency declaration to be issued more Africans must die to meet the criteria of at least 20 deaths in several countries. For now, the world is watching, as Ebola murders more and more Africans. The government of the DRC should also be making appeals to the rest of the world, including Russia and China, who have indicated their willingness to help, if approached officially by the DRC. A full scale emergency mobilization could potentially provide the impetus to expand the healthcare capacity of sub-Saharan Africa, which is urgently needed.
There is no time to waste. The population of the DRC exceeds 70 million, and it has one of the weakest infrastructure systems in the world. Is Africa, and the rest of the world willing to gamble with thousands, if not tens of thousands or more, lives?
The article below, by Debra Freeman, a public health specialist, provides a good overview of the Ebola crisis. She concludes:
“…stopping this latest outbreak and others like it requires more than vaccines and short-term measures…eradicating the threat of this most deadly of viruses, and others that may emerge in Africa, requires nothing less than an international crash-program mobilization to provide adequate economic conditions (sanitation, water, power, housing) along with the development and implementation of a first-class public health system.”
Read entire article: Ebola: World Health Emergency
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Not Fit For Public Office: Defeat Susan Rice For Her Genocide in Africa
Lawrence Freeman
December 1, 2012
Two of the clearest cases where Rice’s policies led to the deaths of millions, the weakening of nations’ sovereignty, are the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.), and Sudan, the two largest nations on the continent, before the break-up of Sudan in 2011. Rice’s policies resulted in permanent destabilization of the Great Lakes region and parts of the Horn of Africa.
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Genocide in the Horn of Africa is A Crime Against Humanity
Lawrence Freeman
November 23, 2011
Genocide in Africa is the intention of the financial empire presently headquartered in the City of London, along with its junior partner on Wall Street. Since the extension of the British East India Company through its various subsidiaries into Africa for more than two centuries, the Empire’s policy, right up to the present, has remained the same: Loot the resources and kill off the “excess” black population. For the last several decades, its control over the continent has been primarily through financial consortiums, commodities cartels, assassinations, and the almost “pre-determined” set-piece activation of ethnic-religious warfare
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Genocide: Millions Dead in Congo
Lawrence Freeman
December 24, 2004
Genocide: The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national or racial group
A just-released report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) documents that the worst case of ongoing genocide anywhere on the planet is occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R. Congo). Only the Nazi-implemented holocaust against the Jewish people was more horrific, although the number of deaths in the D.R. Congo may turn out to be greater. The IRC’s report, “Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from a Nationwide Survey,” painfully documents 3.8 million preventable deaths in excess of normal mortality, over the six-year period 1998-2004. That is most likely an underestimate, according to Dr. Rick Brennan, who presented the survey in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 10.
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Africa Suffers Far Worse Than Food Crisis
Lawrence Freeman
July 26, 2002
Africa is in the throes of the worst crisis it has faced since the 1960s “Winds of Change,” when nationalist movements emerged to force the colonialists to take down their flags. As the combined food and AIDS crisis striking the African continent today demonstrates, despite the removal of occupying troops, the colonialist looting polices are still firmly in place. At a recent Washington press conference of Ambassadors to the United States from Southern Africa, Malawi’s Tony Kandireo called the food shortage affecting Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the “worst food shortage crisis in over half a century.”
Upwards of 13 million inhabitants of those six countries face starvation due to a cereal deficit of approximately 4 million metric tons (mts). This alone would qualify as a humanitarian emergency, but when added to the devastating effects the spread of AIDS across Sub-Saharan Africa, conservatively estimated at 30 million infected, a process of population reduction is in effect—truthfully called a policy of genocide
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WAR ON AFRICA; CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR), FRANCE SENDS TROOPS TO CAR UNDER PRETEXT OF SECURING FRENCH CITIZENS
Lawrence Freeman hands British establishment propagandist Nigel West a grand defeat by simply stating historical facts. West claims a title of “Military Historian”, but his version of history should better title him “British Colonial Mythologist”. This blatant propaganda about the goodness and innocence of British, French, and US “humanitarian interventions” into crises that they themselves create is simply laughable.
France has sent 600 troops into CAR and has “secured the airport”. No mention of France fighting the invading rebels, so it sounds like France accepts and/or participated in the overthrow of their former puppet Francois Bozize, who had asked France for help in January, but was denied.
2013.3.26 ‘US Applies Genocide Policy In Africa’ (Lawrence Freeman Vs. Nigel West) (PressTV, youtube.com):
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Genocide policy plaguing entire Africa: Freeman
BY PRESSTV.COM | LAST UPDATED: OCT 28, 2013 – 4:50:13 PM
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A political analyst says poverty and hunger continue to plague the entire African continent due to the “genocide policy” exercised by countries like the United States and Britain, Press TV reports.“The international global financial system itself, run by the city of London and Wall Street, they don’t want Africans to live. They want to reduce the population. The genocide policy is continuing in Africa over these many decades,” Lawrence Freeman, Africa Desk at Executive Intelligence Review, told Press TV on Oct. 12.
The analyst further argued that the global financial system refuses to make any investment aimed at eliminating hunger and malnourishment in Africa, saying, “We are making a decision to kill people rather than build infrastructure in water, energy, rail transportation and agriculture that could feed people.”
Mr. Freeman further pointed to the views of “Malthusian extremists” who believe that “the world is overpopulated,” adding that “numerous statements” by Britain’s royal family suggest that they have similar ideas.
On Oct. 12, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that over 360 children under the age of five lost their lives due to malnutrition in the West African nation of Niger during the first nine months of this year.
The deaths are the latest caused by the malnutrition crisis in Niger and elsewhere in Africa, with poverty being the main reason behind the crisis.
Malnutrition continues to take more lives in Africa, with children still being the main victims of the lack of essential food.
This situation has continued unabated, despite warnings by charity groups and their demand for further donations to help resolve the problem. Several charity groups have also urged world powers to take action, instead of making mere commitments to eradicate poverty.
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