2020 in Brief Page 2 Commentary Page 3 July 2002 INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE Nurturing the Soil in Sub-Saharan Africa Some experts now argue that the first step in raising agricultural productivity and fighting hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa is improving the quality of the continent’s degraded and infertile soils. Famine is once again sweeping through Sub-Saharan Africa. About 19 million people in southern Africa face the specter of starvation and disease. Although the immediate causes of the crisis are drought, flooding, and politi- cal unrest, these problems cause massive food short- ages because they come on top of an underlying situation of inadequate production. Even in years of relatively good harvests, farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa do not produce enough to feed their countries. One key reason is that soil fertility in Sub- Saharan Africa is bad and getting worse. “Soil is sometimes the only asset farmers have,” says Moctar Touré, executive secretary of the World Bank, who coor- dinates the Soil Fertility Initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa. “You get out of it what you put in. African soils are by nature extremely poor. They are very low in organic matter and also low in all the major nutrients. When you start using the soil and not replacing nutri- ents, you enter a cycle of mining.” In fact, African farmers have been mining these soils for decades. When fewer people lived on Africa’s arable land, farmers commonly let a portion of their land lie fallow as a way of replenishing the nutrients in the soil. As farm sizes grow ever smaller in response to increased population pres- sure, farmers cannot afford to let any land lie fallow. “Farmers want to inten- sify production, and for that they need to use high input levels,” says Mercy Karanja, chief executive of the Kenya National Farmers’ Union. “But inputs are expensive, and therefore farmers cannot use optimal levels. They are caught in a vicious circle. Production costs are high and yields are low. There is no farm credit to help farmers buy inputs, so they just continue depleting the soil.” A Harvest of Poor Soils Inputs like fertilizer and pesticides have become crucial elements in the busi- ness of agriculture for farmers around the world in the past several decades— except in Africa. According to Amit Roy, president and chief executive officer of An International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC), “In the early 1960s, fertilizer use in Sub- Saharan Africa was about 5 kilograms per hectare. Likewise, it was about 10 kilograms in India and about 10 kilo- grams in China. But in the 1990s, China was using about 240 kilograms of fertil- izer per hectare, and India about 110. Sub-Saharan Africa is using about 8. These levels correlate with current food production in the three regions.” Almost all African countries are now experienc- ing net losses in soil fertility. In a number of countries, losses exceed 60 kilo- grams of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK) per hectare each year. In addition to lacking nutrients, many soils contain too little organic matter, a (continued on page 4) In September 2001 IFPRI and its 2020 Vision Initiative, in collaboration with partners, sponsored an international conference in Bonn, Germany, to bring together the actors needed to achieve the 2020 Vision: a world free from poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and unsustainable natural resource management. The more than 900 poli- cymakers, civil society leaders, private- sector officials, academics, farmers, and others who attended the confer- ence considered the driving forces that will determine the difficulty of achieving the 2020 Vision, and they articulated the steps required to build the world the Vision describes. Based on their discussions, as well as consultations with others, IFPRI has produced an action plan entitled Reaching Sustainable Food Security for All by 2020: Getting the Priorities and Responsibilities Right. Nine driving forces will be critical to achieving the 2020 Vision, according to the plan: accelerating globalization and further trade liberalization, sweeping technological changes, degradation of natural resources and increasing water scarcity, health and nutrition crises, rapid urbanization, the changing nature of farming, continued social unrest and conflict, climate change, and the changing roles and responsibilities of key actors. Within the context of these driving forces, rapid economic growth that benefits the poor will be fundamental for obtaining sustainable food security. To achieve this kind of growth, policy actions are needed in seven broad areas: investing in human resources; improving access to productive resources and paid employment; improving markets, infrastructure, and institutions; expanding appropriate research, knowledge, and technology; improving natural resource manage- ment; promoting good governance; and supporting sound trade and macroeconomic policies. The 2020 Vision will not be achieved by action in one or some of these areas alone. The causes of food insecurity, malnutrition, and unsustainable natural resource management are complex, and comprehensive solutions must address all seven priority areas. Many actors, including national governments, international organiza- tions, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and poor people themselves, have roles to play in these actions. It is now time, the plan argues, for these actors to take concrete steps to build the world described in the 2020 Vision. Highlights of this document are also available in a shorter publication called Achieving Sustainable Food Security for All by 2020: Priorities and Responsibilities. � 2020 IN BRIEF 2 Update on 2020 Vision Network for East Africa Action Plan Sets Priorities and Responsibilities for Global Food Security IFPRI’s 2020 Vision Network for East Africa was extremely active during the first half of 2002, undertaking a wide range of capacity-strengthening, research, and publication activities. Courses and workshops in the network countries in early 2002 helped spread policy research skills as well as research findings. In February and March the network drew 195 partici- pants to two-day proposal-writing courses in each network country (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda). Then under the third round of the network’s competitive grants program, the network received 74 proposals. Now 44 of these proposals (7 from Ethiopia, 7 from Kenya, 14 from Malawi, 5 from Tanzania, and 11 from Uganda) are undergoing a rigorous peer review process. At July workshops in the network countries, these proposals were presented and critiqued, and researchers from the first and second rounds presented their research output. In March the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI) and IFPRI/2020 Vision Network for East Africa jointly hosted a policy forum called “Agriculture Technology Diffusion and Price Policy.” Although adoption of agricultural technologies like fertilizer and improved seeds has raised farm- ers’ production in Ethiopia since the mid-1990s, recent falling grain prices threaten the further spread of these technologies and pose risks for poor farmers. At the forum, policymakers, policy analysts, and researchers gath- ered to develop concrete and practical solutions to the problems raised by this situation. The proceedings for the forum, as well as a policy brief summa- rizing it, are now available on the IFPRI website. Another report now available from the network is the “Annotated Bibliography on Agriculture, Food, Rural Development, and Environment in Ethiopia,” prepared by Abebaw Getachew. This bibliography, which identifies more than 350 titles, is one of the few available on this topic. The network has also announced the appointment of a new coordinator, Dr. Steven Were Omamo. Omamo has served, among other things, as a research scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute, a techni- cal adviser at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, and most recently a research fellow at the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR), where he is leading a project called “Strengthening Agricultural Policies and Institutions in Eastern Africa: Agricultural Innovation Systems.” He is a citizen of Kenya. The network is also developing an extensive mailing list and email list- serve to better exchange information on food policy in East Africa. If you are not already on our mailing list or email listserve and would like to join, please contact Djhoanna Cruz at d.cruz@ cgiar.org or fax: 1-202-467-4439. For more information on the 2020 Vision Network for East Africa or to download or order copies of 2020 network publications, please visit the website at http://www.ifpri.org/2020/ nw/intro.htm. � 3 COMMENTARY Conflict’s impact on food insecurity is increasingly well understood, but analysts disagree sharply over the extent to which food insecurity contributes to the outbreak of conflict. Our research shows that food insecurity can play a significant role in igniting conflict. In diagnosing causes of conflict, analysts also often ignore the interaction of environmental, ethnic, and political-economic factors. Instead, they point to single triggers.With coauthor Tom Marchione, we try to inte- grate findings about the causes of conflict from large modeling exercises and case studies, and then discuss the policy implication, in a new article, “Conflict: A Cause and Effect of Hunger,” an update of our 2020 Vision discussion paper, Food from Peace: Breaking the Links Between Conflict and Hunger, IFPRI, 1998. Recent research shows that in the 1980s and 1990s, conflict-induced agri- cultural losses in Sub-Saharan Africa equaled almost half the aid to conflict countries and greatly exceeded foreign investment.Most poor Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, so losses doubly undermined food security by dimin- ishing the means to purchase food as well as by reducing food availability. African case studies illustrate that varied and complex processes lead to conflict.Generally, African conflicts do not stem solely from environmental scarci- ties or food insecurity. Additional factors must be present, including competition for land and other natural resources, human rights violations, oppressive social inequalities, and cultural values legitimating violent responses. Whether or not conflict erupts depends on cultural perceptions and political factors as well as material conditions. In Rwanda, for example, food insecu- rity helped trigger the ethnic violence that culminated in the 1994 genocide. Although the country had enjoyed signif- icant development assistance, it was not equitably distributed, and per capita food production had declined dramatically over the preceding decade. The 1985 collapse of world coffee prices greatly reduced government revenues and rural purchasing power, even as urban jobs grew scarce and food prices rose. All this left many Rwandans receptive to govern- ment incitement. Cases such as Rwanda illustrate how the causes of conflict are multifaceted and interrelated.The task for researchers is to learn not only whether food insecurity is a factor leading to violence, but how it is implicated. Conversely, political economy analyses are needed to examine where food security offers a deterrent to conflict. We also call for more research on instances where environmental scarcities, food shortages, and political-economic stress do not spark violence. IFPRI’s work on less-favored areas, such as East Africa’s highlands, is particularly relevant. Anthropologists and sociologists can shed light on local cultures of cooperation. The new findings about food insecurity and conflict have clear policy implica- tions. Development activities could foster cooperation among rival groups and calculate savings from conflict avoidance as returns to investment. Food security and development programs should include conflict prevention and mitigation components, while relief and post-conflict reconstruction efforts must have food security elements.Combining peace and food security objectives can make it possible to move the post-Cold War development agenda beyond economic growth and good governance to helping countries build their capacity to prevent conflict and respond to emergencies while ensuring everyone access to adequate food. � Ellen Messer is an anthropologist affiliated with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Marc J. Cohen is special assistant to the director general at IFPRI. The updated study, completed before the U.S.- led military action in Afghanistan, is published in ECSP Report by the Environmental Change and Security Project. It can be accessed at . The earlier 2020 Vision Discussion Paper (No. 24), written with Jashinta D’Costa, can be accessed at . Food Security: One Way to Prevent Conflict Ellen Messer and Marc J. Cohen National Governments Have Biggest Responsibility for Food Security Although global institutions are arising to govern certain policy areas, they do not bear primary responsibility for eradicating hunger and food insecurity in developing countries. According to 2020 Vision Discussion Paper 36, Governance and Food Security in an Age of Globalization, by Robert L. Paarlberg, the nation-state still has control over most of the conditions that contribute to hunger. In achieving global food security, improved gover- nance at the national level is crucial. National governments, Paarlberg points out, are still heavily involved in food production and distribution in many countries. In the poorest coun- tries, international markets and institu- tions have little influence over local or national food markets. Moreover, nation-states must provide most of the basic public goods that can assure prosperity and food security for their citizens: internal peace, rule of law, health services, education, and rural infrastructure such as roads, water, and electricity. International institutions do provide global public goods related to interna- tional food trade, food aid, famine early warning and relief, and agricultural research. And international institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have a role in supporting states’ investments in basic public goods. International institutions can help finance these goods, and NGOs can help in planning and implementa- tion, as well as in targeting them toward the poor. National governments in many regions, especially East and Southeast Asia, have managed to reduce hunger and malnutrition among their people. Such facts remind us that there is no single global food system, says Paarlberg. Until national governments elsewhere, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, adopt appropriate policies and investments, food insecurity will persist. � 4 situation that exacerbates the harmful effects of drought. John Pender, senior research fellow at IFPRI, explains that when soil lacks adequate organic matter, it doesn’t hold moisture and is then more susceptible to the effects of drought. “And drought itself can affect soil by reducing the production of organic matter,” he says. Improving soil quality can therefore serve as a way of getting more water to crops. “When soils contain more nutrients and organic matter, crops use both nutrients and water more effi- ciently,” according to Henk Breman, the IFDC’s director for Africa. “Improving soils in the Sahel even leads to a three to five times more efficient use of water. In effect, fertilization is irrigation.” Priced out of the Market The gap in fertilizer use reflects the gap in fertilizer prices. Pedro Sanchez, former director general of the International Centre for Research on Agroforestry (ICRAF), traced the price of a metric ton of urea fertilizer from Europe to Africa. In Europe, the urea cost about US$90, and shipping it to a port in Kenya or Mozambique raised the price to about US$120. But getting the fertilizer to the interior, where most farmers are, bumped the price up to $500 in eastern Uganda and $770 in Malawi. These rates are two to six times greater than prices in Asia, Europe, and North America. Part of the problem is the lack of infrastructure to transport the goods cheaply. “Much of Africa has less than 10 percent of the road density of India,” Roy points out. India has 1,004 kilome- ters of paved roads per million people, and China has 803. By comparison, Ghana has 494 kilometers of paved roads per million people, Uganda has 94, and Ethiopia has 66. A failure to exploit economies of scale also helps explain high fertilizer prices in some areas. “Countries in West Africa are importing fertilizer for cotton, but the type of fertilizer is slightly different in each country,” says Roy. “Since the tonnage coming into each country is small, the price is high. It would help to harmonize grades of fertilizer.” Government taxes on imported fertil- izer also add to the price. These factors combine to put fertilizer out of reach of millions of small-scale farmers in Africa. Still, according to an IFPRI study of Benin and Malawi, price is not the only reason farmers do not use fertilizer— farmers’ crop mix is also an important factor. Farmers tend to use fertilizer on cash crops like cotton and tobacco. “Some crops respond more to fertilizer, and some crops have more value, making it more worthwhile for farmers to fertilize them,” says Nicholas Minot, a research fellow at IFPRI. Surprisingly, farmers growing these cash crops are also more likely than others to fertilize crops like maize, rice, and vegetables, perhaps because they have more cash or better access to credit. Is Organic Agriculture the Solution? Why don’t farmers avoid paying high fertilizer prices by simply adding organic matter, like manure and crop residues, to soils? Monica Kapiriri of Environmental Alert Uganda says, “The organic method is a cash-saving method for small farmers. Small farm- ers also prefer natural ingredients that they are familiar with and that they are sure have no uncertain side effects.” In some areas nongovernmental organi- zations are promoting the use of organic methods and making slow headway. Yet organic farming is unlikely to solve the problem on a large scale in Sub-Saharan Africa, says Karanja, because it requires so much work from already overstretched farmers. Organic soil amendments lack some nutrients, such as phosphorus, and are not particularly dense in others—manure consists of only 1–2 percent nitrogen, for instance. To add enough nitrogen to build and maintain healthy soils, farm- ers must first transport a huge quantity of manure to their plots and then work it into the soil. “Farmers are looking after many interests,” Karanja says. “And organic farming is not a mecha- nized system here—you have to do it by hand. The labor requirements are enormous and it is quite a tedious job. Usually you can only do it on a small scale.” Moreover, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa is putting agricultural labor in increasingly short supply. One way of overcoming the difficulty of transporting organic materials is to raise both crops and livestock, Karanja says. Farmers can use the manure produced by their own livestock to Nurturing the Soil (continued from page 1) fertilize their crops. Because of the shortage of land, however, these mixed farming arrangements are becoming fewer and fewer. Even if enough labor is available, organic matter may not be. In northern Ethiopia, for instance, all organic mate- rials are in short supply. “Instead of putting manure and crop residues in soils, people burn them for fuel,” Pender says. Environmentalists have argued against the use of chemical fertilizers, pointing to the environmental damage overuse of such fertilizers has caused elsewhere. But Breman says, “The environmental risks of not using inor- ganic fertilizers are much higher than of using them, in view of the overex- ploitation of land caused by high popu- lation pressure.” Progress in Small Steps Small-scale projects to overcome the problem of soil infertility have emerged across Sub-Saharan Africa. ICRAF is working on a combination of organic and inorganic inputs, based on re- sources available in Africa. According to Sanchez, ICRAF worked with farm- ers to develop an approach with three main elements. First, farmers plant leguminous trees with the maize crop and allow them to grow as fallows in the dry season. These trees help capture nitrogen for the soil. Second, in areas deficient in phosphorus, farmers apply indigenous rock phosphate deposits to soils, where the deposits dissolve and supply phosphorus to soils for several years. Third, farmers work the leaves of a shrub that accu- mulates nutrients into the soil. This shrub, Tithonia diversifolia, grows on roadsides and in hedges. “We estimate that 50,000 to 100,000 farmers in eastern and southern Africa are using this approach, and they have moved out of hunger,” says Sanchez. “Scaling up is the big issue. We need to deal with 100 million farmers if we are going to reverse the situation.” The IFDC operates a program combining the use of various soil amendments and chemical fertilizers in a way that makes fertilizer use prof- itable for farmers. According to Breman, organic matter and chemical fertilizers are not substitutes for one another, but complementary. “Thanks to organic matter, we succeeded in doubling the efficiency of nitrogen fertilizers while decreasing the losses to the environment,” he says. “With the higher efficiency, the cost-benefit ratio of using fertilizer changes completely.” Another effort to get fertilizers into the hands of farmers offers small quantities at low prices. A number of past programs have offered 50-kilo- gram bags of fertilizer to farmers on credit. But poor farmers often have no access to credit, and even if they do, the large amount of fertilizer can produce a large surplus that they then cannot sell. The Sustainable Community-Oriented Development Programme (SCODP) offers mini- packs of fertilizers, containing 100 or 200 grams, to farmers in western Kenya at a cost of only KSh3 to 6 (US$0.04 to $0.08). SCODP found a large demand for fertilizers at these prices, overwhelmingly among farmers who had never bought fertilizer before, even very poor farmers. Most used the fertilizer on their maize and vegetable crops, and they reported increased yields that were consumed in their households. Paul Seward, director of SCODP’s Farm Input Promotional Service (FIPS), says, “I often read that small farmers are too poor to use fertilizer. This is a gross oversimplification. It’s true if fertilizer is sold in 50-kilo bags! But if given the opportunity to try fertilizer in small quantities in a low-risk way, farm- ers will respond. Experience has shown that they return to purchase larger quantities to improve their food security. In the Siaya and Busia districts [of west- ern Kenya], we have increased fertilizer use from 0 to 500 tons a year in the last five years. I estimate some 50,000 farm- ers there are now using fertilizer.” In other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, especially drought-prone areas where soils are dry and shallow, it is often not profitable for farmers to add inorganic fertilizers. Other practices, such as building stone terraces (which conserve moisture as well as soil), reducing the tillage of soil, and reduc- ing the burning of vegetation to create new cropland, yield higher returns. Some of these practices also increase the benefits of limited fertilizer use by conserving moisture. The village of Echmare in Ethiopia, which faces these conditions, has tried another approach to wresting a liveli- hood out of its degraded hillside lands. The villagers divided the community’s unused wasteland into small plots where individual households plant and care for trees. As the trees grow, they help prevent erosion on the hillsides, and this land, once unusable, now supports a valuable asset. Villagers harvest the trees and earn extra income from selling the wood for construction and plow beams. “Private tree planting creates more benefits for farmers and thus more incentives for farmers to care for the trees,” says Pender. “This approach uses labor more effectively. Once the trees are established, you don’t need to watch them, and people can then do more nonfarm labor.” After observing Echmare’s success, the regional government of Tigray decided to allow this approach throughout the region. Policies for Soil Fertility In the 1980s and 1990s governments in Africa undertook liberalization programs that reduced their role in producing and marketing agricultural goods. Many countries encouraged commercialization of agriculture and eliminated virtually all direct subsidies on fertilizers. Now new policies are required to help farmers be more productive by improving their soils sustainably. The Soil Fertility Initiative for Sub- Saharan Africa, sponsored by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ICRAF, the IFDC, and the International Fertilizer Association, is supporting efforts to design and carry out national plans to improve soil fertility in 15 countries. “We’re dealing with not only technical issues,” says Touré, “but also with institutional and policy issues. It’s a holistic approach.” Elements of these 5 (continued on page 6) A 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment is an initiative of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to identify solutions for meeting future world food needs while reducing poverty and protecting the environment. NEWS & VIEWS seeks to stimulate dialogue and to inform readers of the progress of the 2020 Vision initiative. All issues of NEWS & VIEWS are available in English, and selected issues are avail- able in French and/or Spanish. To offer comments for publication in NEWS & VIEWS or obtain more information about the 2020 Vision and its publications, contact IFPRI at 2033 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006-1002 U.S.A.; telephone: 1-202-862-5600; fax: 1-202-467- 4439; e-mail: ifpri@cgiar.org; web: www.ifpri.org. IFPRI reserves the right to excerpt and edit NEWS & VIEWS submissions. The 2020 Vision initiative gratefully acknowledges support during 2000 from the following donors: CIDA, CTA, DANIDA, Government of Spain, the Rockefeller Foundation, SIDA, and SDC. Photo credits: Page 1, Netaid.org; page 2, compliments of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); page 2, the World Bank; page 3, Claudia Ringler, IFPRI; page 6, International Institute for Communication and Development; page 9, Nurit Bloom. IFPRI is one of 16 Futuresm Harvest centers and receives its principal funding from 58 governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. 6 national plans include more research and extension on soil fertility, develop- ment of farmer organizations that can work collectively to find solutions, and changes to tax policies that drastically raise the price of fertilizer. Governments also need to regulate fertilizer marketing for quality. “Fertilizer quality is a big problem,” says Karanja. “People repackage it, and then we are not sure what’s in it.” Given the poverty of so many small farmers, credit programs are essential to help them make improvements to their land. Karanja’s Kenya National Farmers’ Union is working to establish a bank run by farmers for the benefit of farmers. “We are not asking the govern- ment to set up the bank, but we need structural support from the government to establish it initially and to set rules and regulations,” she says. “We want to have a bank for farmers where interest rates are affordable. The objective of the bank would be not just to make a profit, but to spread the benefits across the owners, who would be farmers.” As productivity rises, policies also need to strengthen markets in which farmers can sell their harvest. “It does not make sense to grow a bumper crop if you can’t sell it,” says Roy. This means that the European Union and the United States also need to open up their markets, he argues: “The latest U.S. farm bill goes in the oppo- site direction, increasing subsidies to farmers. And the EU subsidizes its farmers at about half a billion dollars a day. It then becomes difficult for African farmers to find a market.” Opening the Door to High-Value Agriculture Governments and donors do not yet realize the high returns that are possi- ble from investing in soil fertility, says Sanchez. “Governments have to get behind this,” he says of ICRAF’S integrated approach, which empha- sizes locally based, low-cost solutions. “But we also need donor money. We could make great progress if the donor community gave $100 million a year for the next 10 years in support of research and development. After all, it’s not a lot of high-tech stuff, and farmers transfer the knowledge from village to village on their own.” Improving soils in Africa is a crucial step in eliminating poverty and hunger, he continues. “Without nitrogen and phosphorus, the best crop variety in the world isn’t going to grow,” he says. “If you solve this, you open the door to the shift to high-value crops and improved varieties of maize and other basic food crops. This is a beautiful entry point for solving the problem of food insecurity.” The World Food Summit in June 2002 reaffirmed the goal of halving the number of hungry people worldwide by 2015. “If the soils of Africa continue to deteriorate, food insecurity in Africa will certainly worsen. And if we can’t reduce hunger in Africa, we can’t achieve the World Food Summit goal,” says Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director general of IFPRI. “Solving Africa’s soil fertility problems is essential to obtain- ing food security for all Africans.” � Reported by Heidi Fritschel Nurturing the Soil (continued from page 5) Copyright © 2002 International Food Policy Research Institute. All rights reserved. A 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment is an initiative of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to identify solutions for meeting future world food needs while reducing poverty and protecting the environment. NEWS & VIEWS seeks to stimulate dialogue and to inform readers of the progress of the 2020 Vision initiative. All issues of NEWS & VIEWS are available in English, and selected issues are available in French and/or Spanish. To offer comments for publication in NEWS & VIEWS or obtain more information about the 2020 Vision and its publications, contact IFPRI at 2033 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006-1002 U.S.A.; telephone: 1-202-862-5600; fax: 1-202-467-4439; e-mail: ifpri@cgiar.org; web: www.ifpri.org. IFPRI reserves the right to excerpt and edit NEWS & VIEWS submissions. The 2020 Vision initiative gratefully acknowl- edges support for its general activities from the following donors: CIDA, DANIDA, SIDA, and SDC. Photo credits: Page 1 © World Bank/Ray Witlin Page 4 © World Bank/Ray Witlin AWARD The achievements of the 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment Initiative were recognized by the American Agricultural Economics Association on July 30, when it presented the 2002 award for Distinguished Policy Contribution to Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Rajul Pandya- Lorch, and Mark Rosegrant. Pinstrup-Andersen is IFPRI's director general, Pandya-Lorch is head of its 2020 Vision Initiative, and Mark Rosegrant is senior research fellow in its Environment and Production Technology Division and leader of 2020's IMPACT research. NEWS & VIEWS: What were the highlights of the summit for you? Were you disappointed by the low attendance of industrialized-country heads of state? Diouf: Getting heads of state and thou- sands of delegates to join forces against hunger and getting hunger on the agenda both at the summit and in the worldwide media were two big achievements. Of course we would have liked to see more heads of state. On the other hand, the presence of 73 heads of state and government and more than 200 ministers from 179 de- veloping and developed countries was of extreme importance.They are the ones who have hands-on experience and they are the ones who get things done.Their presence and commitment leave me with hope for the future fight against hunger. NEWS & VIEWS: After the first World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996 there was optimism, but progress in the fight to end hunger has slowed since then.Was there real commitment at the 2002 summit to achieving the goal set in 1996, namely halving the number of hungry people by 2015? Diouf: Progress has not slowed down, but it is far too slow to meet the target. Renewed political will and commensu- rate resources are needed without de- lay. The 2002 summit declaration was unanimously adopted by all the coun- tries attending the meeting. They re- newed their commitment to cut the number of hungry people in the world by half and reaffirmed the right of everyone to have access to safe, nutri- tious food. They also agreed to estab- lish an International Alliance Against Hunger. But, of course, our success will ultimately depend not so much on the renewed commitments but on what re- sources are subsequently mobilized and used effectively in a timely manner. NEWS & VIEWS: Now that the sum- mit is over, what are your personal hopes and expectations about what will happen next? What do you see as the major impediments to having those hopes fulfilled? Diouf: There is a large consensus on measures to fight hunger and I am still optimistic that we can reach the goal of reducing by half the number of hungry people by 2015. But both developing and developed countries must act. The world should mobilize US$24 billion per year. If we exclude US$5 billion in food assistance and US$3 billion in loans at commercial interest rates, that leaves US$16 billion to be found for invest- ment and support to agriculture and ru- ral development in developing coun- tries. Developed countries should mobilize US$8 billion per year, not much compared to the US$319 billion per year that they spend in support of their own agriculture. But developing countries should take the lead by mobilizing at the national level US$8 billion every year to help those who are hungry and poor in their own countries. The developing coun- tries must set an example for the rest of the world to follow. NEWS & VIEWS: Will we have an- other summit in five years? What do you expect will happen in the inter- vening time? Diouf: Summits are not convened for pleasure, but as an extreme resource in case of real need. Therefore it is too early to answer this question. If the commitments made this year are fol- lowed by the action required from gov- ernments and financial institutions, there may be no need for another sum- mit for many years to come. NEWS & VIEWS: As a first impres- sion of the summit, how do you as- sess the quality and quantity of the media coverage? Diouf: Much of the media coverage was very thoughtful and intelligent, par- ticularly in France, where Le Monde and Le Figaro ran a series of articles examining the issues in detail. Coverage was extensive in Spain, Germany, Latin America, and the de- veloping world as a whole. Media cov- erage in a few developed countries was somewhat frivolous, as tends to be the case with most international cover- age. The Economist and the Financial Times both carried very thoughtful sto- ries addressing the serious issues be- hind continuing world hunger. Global radio and television coverage was on the whole quite serious. Prestigious broadcasters like BBC and CNN devoted considerable air time to covering both the summit and the is- sues that caused FAO to convene it. I am generally pleased that the world had the opportunity to read about, listen to, and see the problems that we face in the struggle against hunger and to learn the facts, which are often ignored. NEWS & VIEWS: Do you expect that industrialized countries will support the proposed International Alliance Against Hunger? Diouf: First, I would like to clarify that the International Alliance Against Hunger is a call to action that was INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE Diouf on 2002 World Food Summit Progress in the fight against hunger has been too slow to meet the 1996 summit target, according to the FAO director general. Success will depend on mobilizing sufficient resources now. Developing nations must set the example for the rest of the world by allocating national funds to help their own poor and malnourished citizens. Dr. Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2020 VISION NEWS & VIEWS SPECIAL INTERVIEW July 2002 © FA O /L .S pa ve nt a adopted by the heads of state and gov- ernment who participated in the World Food Summit: five years later. In opera- tive paragraph 2 of the Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later, world leaders issued a call to all parties (governments, international or- ganizations, civil society organizations, and the private sector) to reinforce their efforts so as to act as an international alliance against hunger to achieve the WFS targets no later than 2015. But the details of how this would be coordi- nated and how it would function need to be worked out with full participation of all stakeholders. To this end, FAO has invited all mem- ber countries, including industrialized countries, prospective partners in other international organizations, NGOs, civil society organizations, the private sec- tor, and academic institutions to work with us on developing a mechanism that is fully participatory and transpar- ent. I am very encouraged that some in- dustrialized countries have started to establish national alliances against hunger, and I am confident that others will soon join. NEWS & VIEWS: What can or will FAO do to enforce commitment to the goals of the summit? What should others be doing? Diouf: FAO does not have the power or authority to enforce commitments in the way that, for example, WTO enforces agreements, or the Bretton Woods Institutions enforce conditionalities. The main mechanism that FAO has at its disposal is the power of information, technical advice, and demonstration through pilot activities of feasible op- tions. FAO is facilitating the setting of standards and negotiating of interna- tional agreements on the sustainable use of natural resources and inputs for agriculture and rural development. FAO is also trying to distill lessons learned from successful and unsuccessful ex- periences in fighting hunger and to make them widely known. Every coun- try, in fact, has a responsibility to abide by the commitments it made at the 1996 summit and re-iterated in 2002. FAO is mandated to monitor progress in the implementation of the World Food Summit commitments and inform the global community, through the Committee on World Food Security, re- garding our findings.To do so, FAO col- lects and disseminates data through the food insecurity and vulnerability map- ping system, prepared by a common UN network in different member states. It also collects national reports on ac- tions that individual countries have taken to meet their summit commitments. This year, nearly 100 countries sub- mitted such reports. Many of them pro- vided detailed descriptions of a wide variety of initiatives that are being pur- sued at national and sub-national levels to defeat hunger and malnutrition. What is lacking is the transformation of the many positive but small local efforts into a critical mass that will have impact at the global level. FAO is encouraging more systematic drawing of lessons from the successful experiences of its member countries. The International Alliance Against Hunger, through mobi- lization of political will, would help to replicate these successes on a much larger scale. With a coordinated effort, there is real hope for success. NEWS & VIEWS: What are the impli- cations of the summit for Sub- Saharan Africa and South Asia? Diouf: The summits’ goals and objec- tives are geared toward addressing poverty and hunger and, in absolute numbers and percentages, most of the poor and hungry are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Therefore, realization of the goals of the summit will have a direct, profound im- pact on the populations of these two subregions. South Asia has made tremendous progress in increasing agricultural pro- duction and productivity and has achieved near self-sufficiency in food. Some countries are now experiencing a surplus. However, in absolute numbers, this region still includes the largest number of poor and hungry people. The countries of this subregion need a higher rate of overall economic growth for which it is essential that the poor and hungry are given adequate access to food, health care, and education, but also the means to engage in productive activities. For countries with a surplus, well targeted schemes, along with income-enhancing capacity require priority attention. Greater access to in- ternational markets for their goods is also a critical need for these countries. In view of the fact that the number of people who live in poverty and go hun- gry is so large, the countries of this subregion require international support and collaboration. The 2002 summit’s goals and objectives are therefore most relevant for this subregion. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the situation with respect to poverty and hunger is also acute, but the causes and reme- dies are different from those of South Asia. The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are bedevilled with civil unrest, poor governance, and inadequate public support for agricultural development, in particular water control and marketing infrastructure.They are also heavily in- debted, experiencing declines in pro- duction and productivity and suffering from widespread HIV-AIDS.They need a concerted effort to address the prob- lems affecting governance, production, trade, AIDS, and debt. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a very positive step in this regard. Therefore, the World Food Summit: five years later is also directly relevant to this subregion as it has fo- cused on drawing the international com- munity’s attention to the critical issues requiring support, in particular NEPAD’s Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), which was prepared by African coun- tries in cooperation with FAO. � 2033 K Street, NW Washington, DC 20006-1002 USA Tel. +1-202-862-5600 Fax +1-202-467-4439 Email ifpri@cgiar.org www.ifpri.org INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE sustainable options for ending hunger and poverty Copyright © 2002 International Food Policy Research Institute. All rights reserved.