Combined impact of failed harvests and global increases in the price of food affecting millions. Says the development organization ActionAid.

With millions facing hunger and destitution, ActionAid is warning that the region is now reaching a tipping point with increasing numbers of people unable to cope. Altogether five countries – Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti – are affected. If nothing is done, the situation could easily become catastrophic.

In Ethiopia, the government estimates that 4.6 million people need emergency food aid. Less documented is the disastrous food crisis in Kenya, with 1.2 million people already affected and numbers rising daily.

Areas which normally get two rainy seasons a year have had inadequate rain for more than 12 months. Crops have failed, livestock have been dying.

The drought arrived at the same time as the global increase in the prices of food, fuel and fertiliser. Poor people are going hungry because they can neither produce nor buy enough food. In Kenya the price of staple foods such as maize has increased by a half in less than a year.

In the northern Rift Valley, ActionAid found that most men were away searching for water and pasture for cattle, whilst women and children struggled to survive on poisonous wild fruit called loma. It takes a day to pick enough berries for one meal, plus a day’s drying and a day cooking before they are edible.

ActionAid’s head of emergencies, Roger Yates explained that whilst rain has fallen in recent weeks, in many places it has been too little or too late to ensure a harvest later this year. There has also been an explosion in army worm populations, decimating crops that had been salvaged.

Roger Yates said:
- People will need emergency food aid well into 2009. Women and children are suffering most from malnutrition and many are now only surviving because of supplementary food rations. Small holders and pastoralists must be helped to get back on their feet as soon as possible. Dams and water tanks need to be repaired, water trucked in and seeds and veterinary medicines supplied to ensure no more crops or livestock are lost.

Many agencies, including ActionAid, are already delivering aid, but to save lives and livelihoods much more is needed during the coming months.

I will travel to the Middle East on October 22nd to make reporting for Joney´s World during four weeks in one of the most interesting regions in the world for the moment.

I will write some stories for external medias, so If you´re interested to buy an article, please contact me.

August 19th. The Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa died today after complications from his stroke on June 29th. And with him Southern Africa lost a very important voice against corruption and bad governance.

Mr. Mwanawasa got elected president of Zambia 2001 and started a campaign against corruption in Zambia, that for example put the former president on trial. He got reelected in 2006.

The same day as his stroke he spoke out against Robert Mugabe and where in his last weeks in office a strong opposition to the situation in Zimbabwe.

RIP Levy Mwanawasa. I will miss your courage.

My new and unique lecture Commitment premiers at the Swedish youth conference Miljötinget on November 8th. And I´m very excited about it.

Commitment will give young people inspiration and tools to become active solving the climate challenge. It´s built like a television show with interesting guests, new perspectives and motivation. The lecture will run for a year towards the UN climate meeting in december 2009.

More about it later.

Climate Commitment, Joney´s World climate focus towards the UN-meeting in Copenhagen 2009, begins on December 4th at the UN-meeting in Pozna, Poland.

Climate Commitment will be a uniqe way to build bridges and create action for our common future.

I will tell you more later, but keep you eyes open.

Enjoy some great music!

Enjoy some great music!

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After last weeks positive signs from Zimbabwe, Mugabe, once again, have showed his true face.

Yesterday, he announced plans to ignore the negotiations with the opposition, form a sham “Government of National Unity” with a breakaway opposition faction, and open parliament next week, according to Avaaz. And a moment ago, the news reported that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai have been taken by police at the airport in Harare.

The crisis are not over in Zimbabwe, and now the world hope that the SADC-meeting this in Johannesburg this weekend, when 15 Southern African leaders, including Mugabe are attending. The only way to solve this issue in a peaceful way are if the neighbor countries show their strong critic of Mugabe both in public and in private with sanctions, diplomatic pressure and other methods.

The region’s powerful trade unions have threatened that unless Southern African leaders take action now, they will refuse to handle goods coming to or from Zimbabwe and will squeeze Mugabe out. A march this weekend backed by 100,000 supporters from around the world will hopefully be a overwhelming signal to Southern African leaders that they must act now before the crisis becomes even more desperate — to announce that the Mbeki-led negotiations have failed, and to launch a new and fairer negotiating process immediately.

The civil society are responding, and hopefully the political leaders will follow.

Responsibility for the collapse in crucial trade talks in Geneva lies with the EU and US not the developing countries looking to safeguard the interests of their growing industries and poor farmers, ActionAid said today.

Aftab Alam Khan, head of ActionAid’s Trade Policy said the failure of the talks was a result of corporate greed in America and Europe as well as the manner in which the talks were held.

“The responsibility of failure squarely lies with the US, EU who could not think beyond the interests of their huge trans-national businesses that want to grab more and more market opportunities in poor countries,” he said.

“For the US and the EU to blame China and India for the collapse is just laughable.”

“The US and EU pretension to offer 70% and 80% cuts made a mockery of poor farmers. The US suggestion that it would limit its subsidies to $14.5bn, while it currently provides $ 7-8bn annually, meant there was no real cut on the table.”

“Pascal Lamy also bears responsibility for conducting the talks in a way that was far from democratic.”

ActionAid trade campaigner Angela Wauye from Kenya said the US failure to agree a deal over the contentious issue of cotton had also contributed to the break down in talks:

“Cotton subsidies are a litmus test of the development dimension of WTO talks. More than 10 million farmers have lost livelihoods because the American government pays between US$2-4bn subsidies to around 20,000 US farmers,” Ms Wauye added.

ActionAid today also said developing countries were right not to give into heavy handed negotiating tactics by the US and the EU as crucial trade talks collapsed.

Arguing that “no deal is batter than a bad deal,” Aftab Alam Khan said the deal offered to developing countries would have put millions of poor people at further risk.

“Thus is just another example of the intransigence and insensitivity of rich countries, who aren’t interested in the survival of small farmers, workers and jobs in developing countries.”

“The industrial deal on the table was so bad it would have resulted in developing countries being US63bn worse off.

“Any agreement would have resulted in thousands of job losses in industry. Estimates say China, India and Brazil would have lost over 100,000 jobs in the car industry alone.”
He added that the Doha round of talks, which began as a development round in 2001, had disintegrated into a battle over trade.

He also accused rich countries of using heavy handed negotiating tactics to try and force developing countries into a deal which would have only benefited the former.

“Developing countries have to be appreciated for not succumbing to huge pressure from rich countries and Pascal Lamy.”