Hunger in Somalia- the winners and losers

August 25, 2011 By ethnicsupplies 1 Comment

A news item keeps dropping on and off the headlines, first it was due to the phone hacking scandals here in the UK and now it is the hunt for Gaddafi and that story is to do with famine at the Horn of Africa

The story is however being kept alive and sadly in this case it appears to have a twist. We have all seen the starving children in make shift tents we have responded to the calls to give generously to prevent people at the Horn of Africa dying of hunger.

If you have been following other news you may have missed this story from ALJAZEERA. It is 25-30 minutes long so ensure that you have enough time to sit and watch it

If you don’t have the time to watch it the long and short of it is that the food that has been donated to the starving people of Somalia has ended up in the hands of business men who are selling it back to the hungry, in addition that this is going with the full knowledge of the WORLD FOOD ORGANISATION and some NGOS. According to the programme it is not entirely true that the militia group AL SHABAB has denied NGOs access to areas that badly need food Aid.

If you have managed to watch the video, I would like to invite you to debate the issues raised
1- should people profiteer from hunger
2. Who is based placed to get food to the starving?
3. Is it really better to send/give money to the starving than food?

Filed Under: Latest, Poverty in Africa Tagged With: Addis Ababa, Africa, African Union, FOOD, GADAFFI, Horn of Africa, Libya, Non-governmental organization, Somalia, Starvation, WHO

Why do 60% of UK public think overseas Aid wasted?

July 23, 2011 By ethnicsupplies 1 Comment

Image via Wikipedia

The British government pledged to ring fence its Overseas Aid of 0.7% of national income. To date the British public continue to ask why is that? In fact in a recent BBC Radio 4 interview , Andrew Mitchell The Secretary of state for International Development DFID had to answer the question

Why do 60% of UK public think overseas Aid is wasted? And if that is the case should we continue to send our hard earned cash overseas?

and his answer

If we do not send the money to help alleviate problems like poverty, extreme hunger, these problems will turn up on our door step

Does he have a point?

On the face of it he does. So the question is has our sending overseas Aid stopped these problems turning up on our door stop?

The answer is NO.

British people are generous and are quick to respond to calls of help when there is an emergency elsewhere and have responded generously to the crisis in the horn of Africa and that being the case why would 60% of them think that overseas Aid is wasted? This article in The Mail Online has some answers

I have previously asked the question Why do parts of Africa remain desperately despite the Aid that we send? and in another post I asked why India, a country that reportedly has its own Overseas Aid program has more poor people than some parts of Africa?

This all sounds to me like either

Mr Mitchell has not not been effective at getting his message out there
or that he needs to show us the UK public where our money goes in real terms and unfortunately for some that will mean that some of those “problems” he mentioned during his radio interview do not continue to show up on our door step

What do you think?

I am going to keep this post short to encourage discussion and will return to the topic in the next post – but in the mean time do join the conversation and don’t forget to invite your friends

Filed Under: Development Policy, Latest Tagged With: Africa, AID, Andrew Mitchell, BBC Radio 4, David Cameron, Department for International Development, Government of the United Kingdom, Horn of Africa, Secretary of State for International Development

Business fights poverty in South Sudan

July 17, 2011 By ethnicsupplies 2 Comments

Cassava is an important food crop in the Repub...

Cassava plant Image via Wikipedia

South Sudan is the newly formed country in Africa and has been recognised by the UN and the international community unlike Somaliland . But the question on everyone’s lips is WHAT NEXT FOR SOUTH SUDAN? this 25 minute video clip from the Broadcaster Aljzeera articulates the challenges and in part opportunities that lay ahead fro this newly formed nation.

One way that South Sudan will rebuild itself will be via inward investment and some businesses have been quick off the mark and headed down to South Sudan to seize those new opportunities.

With that out of the way this post is part of the #30dayblog challenge and for this task I am looking at someone else’s post and giving it my own slant. The post I have selected was posted on Business Fights Poverty

Business investment and expertise can play a significant part in the future of South Sudan

I applaud SABMILLER‘s innovation by way of coming up with products that mean local people can be included in their business strategy as suppliers. By so doing this makes them a responsible and inclusive business. But I have one major concern here

FOOD SECURITY!

and if you follow/read this blog regularly you will note that this is a subject that is close to my heart and one that I keep returning to time and time again. In my last post I addressed the question- what is the role of NGO’s in the distribution of food.

In South Sudan SABMILLER have taken a food crop Cassava and used it to come up with a new product (a brand of beer) in Uganda they used sorghum for the same purpose. Whilst this brings a new products to which value has been added at source, creates new jobs and includes local farmers in the supply chain both Cassava and Sorghum are food crops.

Questions that spring to mind

this region is susceptible to food shortages- should food crops be diverted to other uses such as beer or even bio fuels?
What is being done about food security?

I note from the article that SABMILLER has teamed up with FARM AFRICA and NGO that works with farmers in this part of Africa. Unfortunately the article does not tell us much about this relationship especially as it affects food security. OK, one might argue that the article was not about food security in South Sudan but in my mind this is probably going to be one of the greatest challenges this new country faces

So over to you folk, have you got a view on any of the issues raised here? If so please do leave me a comment if not please consider sharing this post with someone who might have a view

Filed Under: Business, food distribution, Latest Tagged With: Africa, FARM AFRICA, food security, SABMILLER, Somaliland, Southern Sudan, Sudan