Proposed Framework
This proposed approach will be discussed and modified with other organizations of the
U.S. Government, other donors, national and regional African leaders, and private and other
non-governmental organizations before adoption.
In essence, what is proposed is that the international community recommit to (1) provide
long-term help to the Greater Horn region and (2) operate in a more effective, integrated way.
Institutionalizing integrated operations will reveal gaps in solutions to food security and crisis
prevention and provide a credible base to mobilize the resources needed to address the root
causes of these problems.
The goal of the initiative is for the people of the Greater Horn region to achieve lasting
food security. Ensuring food security is seen as the most important way to reduce the economic
and political vulnerability of the people of the Greater Horn. Food security is meant in the
broadest sense of the concept:
- adequate food availability at the regional, national and sub-national levels with sufficient
quantities of necessary types of food consistently available to individuals and households;
- sustained access (entitlements) to food by those currently vulnerable to food deficiencies,
particularly because of conflict, displacement and other crises; and,
- proper utilization including sufficient micro-nutrient intake, adequate health services and clean
water to ensure proper absorption, and appropriate knowledge and inputs for good storage,
preparation, and use.
The purpose of this framework is an institutionalized process of joint problem-solving to
address root causes of food insecurity.
Three new institution-building initiatives could be undertaken to ensure that the purpose
will be achieved, and that the framework is further developed with regional and international
participation.
- International donors could support the Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and
Disaster (IGADD) enabling it to become a viable regional coordinator for food security strategies,
an objective currently within its mandate. There is an organizational vacuum in the region for
policy analysis, coordination and monitoring, and African leaders have indicated that IGADD is an
appropriate sub-regional institution to assume this role. Regional technical and private
associations also could be strengthened to supplement government analysis and planning.
- A new donor forum could be formed. Lessons from CILSS (Intergovernmental Committee
Against Drought in the Sahel) and SADC (Southern Africa Development Community) in the
1980s and 1990s show that a donor forum is important in a process for achieving regional food
security and crisis prevention. True donor coordination and integration in the region would add
value to all national and international activities.
- National Action Committees at the governmental level could be established or adapted to
undertake joint donor/recipient problem-solving. This mechanism also could draw in
representation from other organizations such as international and local non-governmental
organizations and the private sector.
New ways of thinking about food insecurity in the region are required by the magnitude of
the problem described above. All organizations involved in the development process in the region
need to be part of this new approach. The following principles are a starting point for
discussions:
- Think crisis prevention/early warning. The root causes of food security problems, including
political and social factors, need to be addressed. Political and social indicators could be brought
into early warning systems, and better methods for linking warning to response in these areas
could be developed.
- Assume prolonged or recurring instability. Development practitioners usually assume stability
in planning. A high occurrence of shocks and the continuing presence of instability are, however,
the norm in this region.
- Adopt common objectives and complementary approaches. If all donors and national
governments commit to the objective of regional food security and develop complementary
programs, a higher return on investments will be achieved. This process requires a review of
current programs to identify overlaps and gaps.
- Plan jointly with a transparent approach. Both donors and national governments would agree
to programs of action which provides guarantees of support on both sides in return for a joint
commitment to tackle difficult and sometimes risky development problems.
- Integrate political-security factors with relief-development assistance. The proposed
institutions can serve as fora for exploring new approaches as and vehicles for facilitating new and
creative actions in crisis prevention and conflict resolution. Awareness of the linkages between
instability and conflict, and relief and development, should lead to the promotion and elevation of
sound humanitarian principles (e.g., the 1992 Regional Summit on Humanitarian Issues) and
acknowledgment of the fundamental civil, human and political rights of people. Deliberate efforts
to ensure that development activities foster equitable access to both resources and opportunities
and support for the basic principles of democratization at the national and grassroots levels also
are suggested. These actions also might include establishing and developing government and civil
democratic institutions and supporting efforts to decentralize power and authority.
- Integrate all resources. Internal and external resources for the region need to be better
integrated toward the common objective of food security. In addition, stronger coordination
within donor country agencies that provide resources to the region, e.g. ministries of
development, agriculture, foreign affairs, etc., will bring the highest return on those
investments.
New ways of acting also are essential to ensure a successful initiative. We offer the
following as a start:
- Consider a wider set of contributing causes. Participants engaged in building a new
foundation should be prepared to act on a wider set of contributing causes to the cycle of despair
in the Greater Horn. The causes of food insecurity are multiple, complex and often regional in
nature. Participants in joint problem identification may not agree on the priority of problems.
Central to the achievement of food security, however, is the willingness of all to consider failures
and successes of past efforts and to identify and act simultaneously on a wider set of contributing
causes. It is increasingly necessary to address political instability. This framework calls for action
to address political instability where it significantly increases the vulnerability of people to food
insecurity.
- Adopt the "relief-to-development continuum" approach. The framework adopted should
consider this approach in which short-term emergency responses and long-term development
assistance would be integrated and undertaken simultaneously. Strategies would be developed to
ensure the transition from crisis to broad-based sustainable development. Three concepts
characterize this continuum:
Integration. These new ways of acting could be characterized by the
integration of
emergency relief and development programs. Relief resources can be used to address both
immediate needs and longer-term objectives. Food aid distribution programs could support
market development and agricultural productivity increases. Linking relief aid to longer-term
objectives is illustrated through some programs in southern Sudan, which have aimed not just at
meeting food needs but, importantly, have supported the rehabilitation of local productive
capacity, particularly in agriculture and livestock, and have developed local capacity in health and
sanitation. On the development side, programs would be based on sound risk assessments that
identify vulnerabilities in social, political and physical infrastructure and provide means for
preventing and mitigating disasters. Studies need to be undertaken to determine where
investment in low-productivity areas, perhaps at the cost of growth dividends, may have high
payoffs in social and economic stability, i.e., crisis prevention. Methods to incorporate the
probability of disasters into development strategies have begun to be developed and applied by
major donors and some national governments, which urgently require policy implications from
these exercises.
Simultaneous Action . An effective strategy also will require simultaneity
in
implementation. Practitioners need to deliver immediate life-saving food along with inputs
allowing people to meet their own food needs, but, simultaneously, they need to use the good will
and leverage of relief and recovery actions to move on short-, medium-, and long-term agendas
(such as market reform, land reforms and stabilizing population growth) to solve the root causes
of food insecurity.
Transitions and Gaps. While countries receive relief, rehabilitation and
recovery activities
necessary to fill gaps between crisis and sustainable development are often neglected. Examples
of post-crisis transitions indicate that there is often under-investment in activities such as the
demobilization of ex-combatants, demining, rehabilitation and reconstruction of critical
infrastructure, and resettlement of refugees.
Operating principles on how to apply these new ways of thinking and new ways of acting
would need to be jointly developed, and relief and development practitioners would need to be
trained to think and act differently. Each donor would need to examine these principles within the
constraints and mandates of their institutions. It is increasingly clear, however, that a new
approach with real change is needed to address the magnitude of the problem in this region.
The inter-relationships of the major components of the proposed framework are
summarized and illustrated in Figure 7. Food security is the common
goal on which all parties
would focus complementary efforts organized through new regional coordination and national
decision-making institutions. Although donors may play a large role in the beginning, their role
should diminish over time with the impact of effective regional and national strategies. New
thinking would be developed on how to integrate political and social factors with development
efforts across a continuum from early warning-relief-recovery to development. Simultaneous
implementation of interventions is needed to address the root causes of food insecurity. Some
programs may not have a measurable impact for 15 years, but these should be implemented at the
same time as interventions that have an immediate and short-term impact.
Sustained change in the Greater Horn of Africa will take at least a generation and probably
more. All too often, international aid and financial institutions, as well as local government
officials, fall into the "quick-fix" trap, advocating and designing programs aimed at resolving a
crisis in one or two years.
Achieving food security in the Greater Horn region requires a program of action that
addresses the root causes of food insecurity. The preliminary analysis of these root causes
revealed critical obstacles to achieving food security in the region. Four objectives are proposed
below as a framework in which we can together address these root causes. Projects appropriate
for regional and national solutions would be formulated during regional consultations and by
National Action Committees.
Objective 1: Strengthened support for effective regional and national food security
strategies
Food security has been defined to include three aspects: availability, access and utilization
at regional, national and household levels. Some countries experience serious problems of
national food availability. Where countries have the potential to increase production, as well as
the comparative advantage to do so, they will need to concentrate attention on improvement in
policies and availability of technologies. This would imply a major research effort. However,
some countries will not have a comparative advantage in food production, and economic growth
in other sectors might be the best means to address food access problems. In these countries, and
in sub-national regions where food insecurity cannot be alleviated through production, food
access must be addressed through economic growth strategies and through systems for the
effective identification and targeting of public works programs or other food safety nets. Much
more would need to be done to encourage trade in the region between food surplus and food
deficit countries.
Significant work has already been done on national and regional food security strategies
for several of the countries of the region. For example, in 1990, with European Union funding,
and with assistance from several British universities, IGADD prepared a regional food security
strategy for six of the 10 countries in the Greater Horn. A ministerial-level conference in
Kampala unanimously endorsed the resolution to implement "The Food Security Strategy for the
IGADD Region." This analysis and similar work could be considered as a basis for the further
development of this framework.
Objective 2: Increased capacity within the region for crisis prevention, response, mitigation
and resolution
Crisis prevention involves the ability to foresee, and the means to prevent, prepare for, and
mitigate or resolve crisis and conflict. Crises in the Greater Horn region have been and continue
to be of a complex nature, in which there are political and economic dimensions that are often
exacerbated by natural or external events. Effective prevention requires monitoring and analytical
capacity at the regional, national and local levels, as well as the ability and will to respond to
warning signs of all kinds (weather, economic, social and political) in a timely and appropriate
manner. While there is a growing consensus that interventions must be made in the region
proactively, rather than reactively, the ability to do so will depend upon institutional capacity,
good governance and effective coordination at the regional and international levels.
Effective capacity for crisis prevention depends on a balance between the complementary
roles of the African state and civil society. There are many advocates of democracy and good
governance. Multiple views exist, however, about the timing, sequencing and ownership of the
processes through which these are achieved. Solutions to the larger issues of democracy and
good governance can often be discovered in the process of working toward more limited
objectives. Dimensions of democracy across a wide range of groups in the state and civil society
should therefore be encouraged in such vital areas as agriculture and natural resources, education
and family planning. In the state sector, local government and judicial bodies might receive
special attention. Women's groups and indigenous NGOs are particularly important civil
institutions.
Objective 3: Greater regional collaboration in promoting sustainable economic growth and
reducing population growth rates
Measures described in the first objective that increase the productivity of food crop
farming and which improve the access to and distribution of food supplies will be essential to
achieving food security in the Greater Horn. Long-term food security also depends, however, on
the sustained, broad-based growth of economies, which results in rising incomes on an equitable
basis. Broad-based economic growth will require an appropriate policy environment, as well as
support for sectors in addition to the food sector, such as export products, microenterprises and
processing industries.
Population growth rates currently outstrip gains in economic growth. Investment in
human resources through expanded programs in family planning, health and nutrition services, and
education have the benefits of both improving the human resource base, thereby increasing
productivity, and lowering population growth rates. A stronger human resource base is a
precondition for sustained economic growth. Women deserve particular attention in this regard
given the evidence that their educational status, income-earning capacity and nutritional condition
are among the most important determinants of child survival rates and reduced demand for more
children.
In determining growth strategies, it will be important to link the technical analyses
proposed (particularly on agricultural production, natural resource development and social sector
reform) with the broader macroeconomic and structural adjustment reform agenda and policy
dialogue. This could be accomplished through technical symposia of research networks involving
a broad array of public and private sector entities and institutions, or through more formal
negotiating sessions under the aegis of IGADD or international donor institutions. Building the
capacity of Africans to undertake technical and applied sectoral analysis to support effective
policy dialogue would contribute significantly to this process.
Objective 4: Support of strategies to ensure the transition from crisis to broad-based
sustainable growth
Nearly all of the countries of the Greater Horn region are in various stages of transition in
and out of crisis, and none has escaped the fallout of crisis in neighboring countries. Emergency
relief is being delivered to almost all of these countries. The transition from emergency relief to
development programs, however, is made difficult by the lingering effects of these crises: large
numbers of refugees and displaced persons, high military presence and crumbling infrastructures,
among others. Given the great spillover of the effects of crisis on neighboring countries, the
difficulties of transition in one country impede transition in the region as a whole.
The management of emergency interventions has generally been successful in saving lives.
The means of achieving sustained development is well understood. But strategies for the
successful transition from emergencies to development are not widely known, or if known, not
often followed. Filling the transition "gap" in assistance strategies will be critical to achieving
food security in the Greater Horn. Developing programs to ensure successful transitions may
require changes in donor assistance mechanisms, and at the least, will entail considerable
cooperation among donor agencies, international governmental organizations, the NGO
community and a wide range of African organizations.
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