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- Volume 27, Issue 4, 2014
Africa Renewal - Volume 27, Issue 4, 2014
Volume 27, Issue 4, 2014
The Africa Renewal magazine examines the many issues that confront the people of Africa, its leaders and its international partners: sustainable development goals, economic reform, debt, education, health, women's empowerment, conflict and civil strife, democratization, investment, trade, regional integration and many other topics. It tracks policy debates. It provides expert analysis and on-the-spot reporting to show how those policies affect people on the ground. And, it highlights the views of policy-makers, non-governmental leaders and others actively involved in efforts to transform Africa and improve its prospects in the world today. The magazine also reports on and examines the many different aspects of the United Nations’ involvement in Africa, especially within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
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Africa’s food policy needs sharper teeth
Author: Masimba TafirenyikaAmid raving economic forecasts that Africa will be the next big emerging market, chronic food shortages remain stubbornly immune to solutions. The African Union is aware of this weak link and is working to convince its members to boost investments in agriculture. To emphasize the central role of agriculture in Africa’s economic growth, the regional body has declared 2014 as the Year of Agriculture and Food Security.
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Africa’s economy grows, but many stomachs empty
Author: Kingsley IghoborEach year, governments, journalists, development experts and others look forward to the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report. The report includes a ranking of countries based on life expectancy, literacy, quality of life and so on. Once it is released, governments and citizens of countries with high rankings immediately trumpet their achievements. Those with lower rankings, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was last in 2013 in Africa, come in for criticism.
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Despite climate change, Africa can feed Africa
Authors: Richard Munang and Jesica AndrewsClimate change comes with never-before-experienced impacts. For example, crop yields and growing seasons will decrease even as changing rain patterns will worsen people’s access to water. Yet Africa’s population is projected to reach 2 billion in less than 37 years, and in 86 years three out of every four people added to the planet will be African.
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Denting youth unemployment through agriculture
Author: Busani BafanaAgriculture is not glamorous. It suffers from entrenched negative perceptions. In the minds of many African youths, a farmer is someone like their parents, doing backbreaking labour in the fields and getting little to show for it. Nonetheless, agriculture is the engine driving many African economies. If it were to get the same political support and financial investment as the mining sector, agriculture would be capable of providing more decent jobs and filling millions more stomachs with nutritious meals.
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Zimbabwe’s farmers struggle to feed the nation
Author: Ish MafundikwaZimbabwe needs 1.8 million tonnes of the staple maize every year to meet the needs of its people and livestock. Only 798,500 tonnes were produced during the 2012/13 agricultural season. As a result, the country that was once dubbed “the breadbasket of the region” has to make up the deficit with imports and look to donors for food aid. After last year’s harvest, the World Food Programme, the UN food aid agency, forecast that an estimated 2.2 million people—equal to a quarter of the rural population— would need food assistance, from October 2013 through the early months of this year.
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What went wrong? Lessons from Malawi’s food crisis
Author: Masimba TafirenyikaIn 2012 Malawi found itself in a tight spot, again. A food crisis set off by erratic rains, rising food prices and economic hardships slowly unfolded. For the first time in several years, the country’s ability to feed its citizens was at risk. Sadly and unexpectedly, Malawi lost its hard-earned status as an agricultural success story — it used to produce enough maize for its people to eat and still provide a surplus to neighbours. Many wondered what went wrong and whether there could be lessons for other African countries.
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Fighting African poverty, village by village
Author: Ernest HarschStanding in the midst of a freshly planted maize field, Bright Osei Kwaku recalls that some twelve months earlier he more than doubled his output with the help of improved seeds, fertilizer and advice on farming techniques. Altogether, his two to three acres yielded about 15 100-kilogramme bags of maize, compared with just six bags the year before, when he had no such support.
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Boosting African farm yields
Author: Michael FleshmanFor tens of millions of people in rural Africa, life has gotten harder in recent years. Reliant on erratic rains, working exhausted soil and hobbled by decades of underinvestment and neglect, many have sunk deeper into poverty as agriculture — the mainstay of the region’s economy — continues to face neglect. A growing number of African governments and UN and non-governmental agencies argue that unless urgent efforts are made to raise crop yields, build transportation and marketing systems and adopt modern, sustainable farming methods, the continent will fail to reach its development goals and the rural majority will reap only meagre harvests.
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Sierra Leone: nursing agriculture back to health
Author: Kingsley IghoborSierra Leoneans love to eat rice. For them, rice is the food to live on. “It doesn’t matter what other food they eat, they must eat rice at least once a day before they can say they have eaten at all,” explains Umaru Fofana, editor of Politico, a Sierra Leonean newspaper. But now Joseph Sam Sesay, the minister in charge of agriculture, forestry and food security, wants his compatriots to loosen their relationship with rice. Over-reliance on it, Mr. Sesay believes, could affect the country’s food security goal. “I encourage our people to change their habit and alternate rice with other crops grown in the country.” By “other crops,” the minister is referring to yams, cassava and sweet potatoes.
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We need more agribusiness in Africa
Author: Carlos LopesAfrica’s economic performance over the last decade has been remarkable, having reached an average growth of 5%. If this growth is maintained, projections indicate Africa’s GDP should increase approximately threefold by 2030 and sevenfold by 2050, outstripping Asia’s. Yet this growth has not translated to creating jobs or tackling inequalities.
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All eyes on $1 trillion
Authors: Kingsley Ighobor and Aissata HaidaraImagine for a moment the impact of a $1 trillion African agribusiness sector on the lives of Africans. Currently worth about $313 billion, the sector already provides jobs for 70% of the poorest people on the continent. An increase greater than threefold will bring jobs to lift millions out of poverty; most stomachs will be filled with nutritious meals; Africa’s agricultural exports will dominate global markets; and the continent’s farmers, who have borne the brunt of harsh economic conditions, will get a new lease of life as they become competitive in the global marketplace.
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Gendering agriculture
Author: Nirit Ben-AriDo land, seeds and crops have a gender? Perhaps they do in sub-Saharan Africa, where women produce up to 80% of foodstuffs for household consumption and sale in local markets, according to a report by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For crops such as rice, wheat and maize, which make up about 90% of food consumed by rural dwellers, it is women who mostly sow the seeds, do the weeding, cultivate and harvest the crops and sell surpluses.
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Breaking the glass ceiling: women agricultural scientists
Author: Munyaradzi MakoniThey are selected because they are—or could be—as good as agricultural scientists anywhere. They are groomed in leadership, and conduct research into problems facing their individual countries. They still face an enemy—the perception that African women agricultural scientists can’t lead in innovation. Even as these experts continue to struggle for opportunities to advance their careers, they know that they are capable of bursting age-old stereotypes.
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Is Africa’s land up for grabs?
Author: Roy LaishleyAn apparent surge in the purchase of African land by foreign companies and governments to grow food and other crops for export has set alarm bells ringing on and off the continent. The headlines have been strident: “The Second Scramble for Africa Starts,” “Quest for Food Security Breeds Neo-Colonists,” “Food Security or Economic Slavery?”
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Africa wired
Author: Pavithra RaoIn an era of lightning speed, ever-present wireless connectivity, high tech is now also being used to benefit livestock farmers in rural areas of Africa. Widely known for being used to track wild animals, GPS, or “Global Positioning System” tracking devices are being adapted by some small- and large-scale farmers to manage their livestock, notably in Kenya, Botswana, and South Africa.
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