Aid Money Received is a Fraction of Resources Stolen from Africa

Articles about new oil, gold, coal or other mineral discoveries in Tanzania and other developing countries are frequent enough. But few of the articles look too closely at what such discoveries mean to the country where the discovery is made, as opposed to the country or multinational that will exploit the discovery and will, ultimately, benefit.

If having massive natural resource potential made a country rich, quite a few African countries would be very rich indeed. Tanzania has more gold than most countries, more uranium, lots of nickel, coal and various other resources. But it's one of the poorest countries in the world. No amount of discovery will make it richer, and may make it poorer.

This is for the simple reason that their resources are systematically stolen by other countries and multinationals. The process is not called stealing, it is called 'partnership', 'investment', etc, even 'development'. But the vast majority of Tanzanian people, and the country as a whole, gain little or nothing from their resources and they lose almost everything that should belong to them.

This is not just because of corruption in the Tanzanian government or anything else like that, though corrupt governments are common in many countries and certainly do a lot of damage. It is because those who are in the best position to get their hands on natural resources are assisted in doing so by international laws and practices. National laws usually grant considerable benefits to the theives and fail to protect its own citizens.

Barrick Gold and AngloGold Ashanti currently get hold of most of Tanzania's gold (and most gold from other African countries) and they pay hardly any tax or royalties. They are perfectly entitled to cook their books under international law, which they do, with a lot of whinging about how much they have invested, how much gets stolen, how hard it is for them to make money and the like.

Several articles rant on about coal but only 12% of Tanzanians have access to electricity. The country is no more likely to see a rapid increase in access to affordable electricity as a result of coal mining that they were likely to see economic improvements when foreign companies came in to mine gold. Earnings from gold exports continue to rise, but it is not Tanzania that is earning much.

Meanwhile, a handful of Tanzanians may be getting rich (or richer), while tens of thousands of artisanal miners are put out of their jobs. Even indigenous companies who would like to mine gold, coal, uranium or anything else are unlikely to be able to compete with the benefits that foreign companies receive.

Research into these practices has been going on for a long time and there is some interesting research into gold mining, in particular. This research exposes the many social and economic problems that have been caused and exacerbated by big international mining operators, who have the 'rights' to much of Tanzania's wealth, that which hasn't already been stolen (entire 'Golden Opportunity' report).

This phenomenon is not confined to well known minerals and power sources such as coal and oil. Demand for some resources have only started to increase as a result of measures to reduce the effects of climate change. One example is biofuels, which require huge tracts of fertile land, massive quantities of water and the reduction of employment opportunities to a fraction of that arising from less exploitative ways of using land.

Lithium, used in batteries for electric cars, is needed in increasing quantities. Many of these attempts to reduce carbon emissions in rich countries will increase carbon emissions in poor countries, perhaps even resulting in a net increase, globally. And environments in countries that are rich in resources will also be seriously threatened.

Calling for Tanzanians, and the country as a whole, to be allowed to benefit from the exploitation of their natural resources is not a call for exploitation to cease. It is a call for large scale, internationally sanctioned theft to cease and for Tanzanians and other Africans to benefit from what is, after all, their property.

The Insatiable in Pursuit of the Uneatable

For all the blubbering Western powers, such as the EU and the US, do over aid and development, they show their true colours when it comes to trade. Western trade policies with developing countries are designed to increase their own markets, increase their supply of cheap raw materials and labour, destroy anything that may create even the smallest bit of competition and, in general, retain their position of dominance and exploitation.

The EU is currently trying to push India into signing a trade agreement that will threaten the supply of cheap and affordable antiretroviral (ARV) medications to developing countries. India is one of the few countries in a position to produce generic equivalents of branded versions that demand extortionate prices. The issue is, ostenibly, over whether India should be allowed continued access to the data they need to produce the drugs cheaply.

The EU is happy to spend enormous sums of money on this kind of pursuit, far more than they spend on 'aid'. And even though EU and US money is going towards the purchase of a lot of ARVs used in developing countries, they seem content to pay more for, presumably, a lot less of an identical product in the future. And this is at a time when all sorts of crazy policies are being discussed to increase the number of people on ARVs to several times present levels. (There is some discussion of these policies on my other blog, which deals with Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and other technical 'fixes' for HIV.)

The apparent contradiction in vastly increasing the cost of products that their own funding will be used to purchase in ever increasing quantities is not really a contradiction at all. So called 'aid' money is mainly used as a subsidy for their own industries, especially the pharmaceutical industries. And compared to the amount of money that goes into promoting the interests of Big Pharma, aid money is little to write home about, anyway.

Despite claiming to have the interests of developing countries, including India, at heart, the EU seems intent on destroying the Indian generic drug industry. If developing countries, especially African countries, cease to be a market for these affordable drugs, there will be no other viable markets large enough to sustain the sector.

You might think that this would mean the EU is scoring an own goal but it is just what Big Pharma would like. They have never really wanted a supply of affordable generic drugs, why would they? They couldn't care less who buys their drugs as long as they pay a price that keeps their profit margins at levels they are accustomed to.

A few million Africans may die but that's just collateral damage to the pharmaceutical industry. And the thought of millions of Africans dying could make for a great publicity campaign to increase the amount of money the EU and the US are willing to pay for overpriced drugs. With competition out of the way, top prices are guaranteed. That's how the free market works, it appears.

Just in case you thought all that free market (for developing countries), anti-subsidy (except for wealthy countries) liberalism had been entirely discredited by recent global financial crises, think again. Those who gained from the policies of the past are doing very well, thank you, it's ordinary people who are, as always, paying the price. According to an article by War on Want, the deregulation that has caused so many problems is to continue. Clearly it didn't cause any problems for some people.

And talking of maintaining policies that have caused devastation up to now, the EU is busy pushing biofuels as a 'green' alternative to fossil fuels. Not only is biofuel production not a green alternative in any sense, production of biofuel in large quantities requires even greater exploitation of developing countries than is seen at present.

Vast tracts of land in developing are currently being used to produce food and raw materials for Westerners. But these tracts of land are nothing to what is being grabbed to supply Western cars with cheap fuel. The question of whether there will be land enough left over for developing countries to grow enough food to survive is not really being asked by the land grabbers. Water, in short supply in many countries, will become even scarcer in the pursuit of 'green' biofuels.

Production of biofuels will involve large scale destruction of environments to make way for factory production methods needed to produce 'cheap' fuel. The process of grabbing land is already underway, has been for several years. Perhaps the EU hopes that any increase in carbon emissions will occur in countries too poor to measure the pollution or to do anything about it.

The extent to which Western powers exploit developing countries should never be forgotten when the subject of 'charity beginning at home' comes up. Rich countries may be looking for ways to reduce spending but what they spend on development is a mere pittance, much of it never reaching the supposed recipients. The best thing rich countries could do is reduce their levels of exploitation. Then, whether they continue providing aid and how much they provide may cease to be relevant.

NGOs Gagging for Sex

Spiked Online has an interesting article on NGOs in Asian countries who feel they are 'saving' people in the sex trade from exploitation. The problem is, those NGOs don't seem to want to know why so many adults would choose to do work that some consider to be inherently exploitative. The article points out that some workers came from far more exploitative industries, although the exploitation may have involved slave wages, a far lesser form of exploitation, it would appear.

There seems to be a lot of money available for NGOs who do this kind of work. On the other hand, there is not quite as much of the sort of headline-grabbing sexual exploitation going on as some would have us believe. Credible data is not one of the results of the large amounts of money being ploughed into the work these NGOs are doing.

The article finds that a lot of sex workers in Cambodia are former garment workers, people who choose to work in the sex industry rather than try to get by on impossibly low wages. So the NGOs are right, there is exploitation; it just doesn't involve sex. Perhaps the NGOs could redirect their efforts towards the garment factories, their rich owners, adequate legislation and enforcement or even the consumers in the rich countries that many NGO workers come from.

Here in East Africa, many people in the sex industry either tried working in highly exploitative export processing zones (EPZ) or various industries that pay so badly, there is little alternative but to find something to supplement incomes. In other words, sexual exploitation is not the only kind of exploitation they suffer. These EPZs are set up so that foreign industrialists can set up in developing countries and keep their costs as low as possible and thus provide Western countries with the cheap goods they crave.

Another exploitative industry is hospitality, where profits are generally unthreatened by high labor costs. Several sex workers I have met told me they tried to get work in hotels and it was made clear that they had to pay a bribe, using money or sex, to be considered for a job. Others had to pay, somehow, to keep their job, to get enough work to survive or to get promotion.

The Spiked article makes the point that people, adults, anyhow, can make up their own minds. They are not the mere victims they are often made out to be by some 'concerned' NGOs. This is quite true. But there also seems to be plenty of work that these NGOs could do if they are truly concerned about exploitation. Or does exploitation have to be sexual in order to be really worrying? The suggestion is that, no, it doesn't have to be sexual, but that's what the funders like.

A similar love for anything sexual also seems to dog HIV programing, with almost all prevention efforts being aimed at sexual transmission. Aside from this doing little or nothing to reduce non-sexual transmission, it doesn't appear to have had much impact on sexual transmission either. Billions of dollars have gone into programs that appear to target sex, rather than health. As a result, millions of people, particularly women and children, continue to be infected needlessly.

Objection to commercial sex work may be legitimate enough, but do those who object have an alternative in mind? Everyone can think of alternatives, but they are not viable in countries with very high levels of unemployment and underemployment, where the vast majority of people just get by and a lot don't even do that.

Every new, unemployed person, squeezing a few dollars out of some form of subsistance, results in less money for all those already struggling. Ironically, the effect of persuading a good many sex workers to give up their work and do something more 'conventional' would be to reduce the living that subsistence workers can make. And it will increase the amount of money that those still in sex work can make (unless sex work is supply drive, which seems unlikely).

If these NGOs don't address the real problems of lack of employment opportunities, exploitation in the work place, extreme poverty and the like, they will just be shuffling the problem from one group of people on to another. And addressing the real problems is no easy task. But things won't get any easier by wasting time with moral crusades and media titillation.

The Economist covers a similar theme and wonders why money is not spent on 'harm reduction', protecting sex workers from the risks they face, which are by no means limited to sexual risks. One of the main sources of stigma they face comes from the NGOs who claim to represent their interests. In addition to health services and condoms, sex workers need the protection of the law, especially from the police, who are among the many who stand to gain from the criminalization of sex work.

Again, this phenomenon is clear enough in East Africa, where people who think of themselves as 'clean living' fail to see that there are multitudes of people 'living on immoral earnings'. It's not just sex workers who do so. To evade exploitation by police, sex workers have to pay or otherwise bribe security people, bar, club and hotel administrations, 'minders' and anyone else happy to rely on the fact that sex workers are considered to be beneath contempt.

According to The Economist article, sex work tends to be conflated with human trafficking. This merely results in further exploitation of those involved in sex work, carried out in the name of 'zero tolerance', 'fighting crime', etc. NGOs operating like this are exploiting the very vulnerability of sex workers that they claim to be alleviating.

Much of the vulnerability of sex workers stems from the fact that the work is considered to be illegal, even where it is not outrightly prohibited by the law. NGOs would be far better advised to support sex workers than to oppose them, to help them gain the decriminalization they need. Without the protection of the law as a minimum, social problems relating to sex work will only get worse.

NGOs who wish to 'help' sex workers need to deal with the economic and social realities in developing countries. If they are opposed to exploitation, there is plenty of that, though it may not be sexual. And if these NGOs are motivated by some kind of moral repugnance towards sexual exploitation, they could direct it at those in the media and those in the donor community who appear to need sexual titillation in return for their support.

Stealing People’s Land Can Only Impoverish Them Further

The World Bank, an institution devised to divert aid money on its way to developing countries back to the rich and powerful, seems to have woken up to the sort of negative impact that its policies have been having on developing countries. I wouldn’t get too excited, though, because the negative impacts they are concerned about follow from their policies, which they haven’t changed in any way. And no matter how they appear to equivocate, it’s always worth bearing in mind who ‘international’ financial (and other) institutions are intended to benefit.

Grabbing land goes back a long way, hundreds of years, as does using people and resources in developing countries for the enrichment of people in developed countries. The monumental disaster, the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme, which started in the late 1940s and was abandoned in the early 1950s, is just one out of many examples.  Like all of today’s land grabs, the grabbers were quick to claim numerous advantages for those who were being dispossessed of their land; employment, food security, development, mechanization, efficiency, modernization, etc. Such terminologies have changed little since the 1950s!

The flaws of the Tanzanian scheme were many and obvious from very early on, but there were those who thought they would make a lot of money from it. So vast tracts of land were destroyed and lots of equipment and other resources were wasted. Someone did make a lot of money out of the scheme, though it’s not certain who. But the losers were Tanzanians, the Tanzanian economy and the Tanzanian environment.

Land grabbing schemes of the last few years have already appropriated tens of millions of hectares, at very low cost. It is difficult to estimate how many people have been displaced and dispossessed but the number affected by the process will be enormous. ‘Investors’ will not be counting those costs, that’s for sure. They are anxious that we think of ‘feeding the starving’, even though 80% of the land hasn’t yet been used for anything. Ultimately, much of it is destined for non-food crops and for export to rich countries, though. What else would it be used for?

The World Bank has been talking about how to protect people in developing countries and their land. But they have been talking about a lot of things throughout their history. International agreements about accountability and transparency are a great idea, even better if there is some guarantee that they are upheld. But we know that all sorts of agreements are discussed, fewer are made and hardly any are ever upheld.

Land grabbing on a scale that is taking place presently is not happening despite the existence of institutions like the World Bank. On the contrary, such institutions were set up by rich and powerful countries so that they could stay rich and powerful. So we need different institutions, not the same ones saying the right thing while continuing the policies that have brought developing countries to their knees. The institutions are doing what they were intended to do, that’s why the World Bank needs to be abolished and replaced by something that genuinely represents the interests of the world.

The kind of land grabbing that is occurring at the moment will further devastate the most vulnerable communities, economies and environments in the world. People in rich countries may not be able to witness these phenomena as they occur, and the corporations currently enriching themselves are certainly not going to record them or make them publicly available. But by the time a handful of sound bites and photo opportunities are considered to be newsworthy by the world’s media, it will already be too late to reverse the damage.

HIV Drug Resistance is a Consequence of Irresponsible Drug Use

The availability of antiretroviral drugs (ARV) for HIV treatment, especially in high prevalence countries, has been welcomed by many, and rightly so. Only an estimated one third of people who need treatment are currently receiving it in Kenya and accurate figures about how many people are being successfully treated are probably not available. But the situation is a lot better that it was in the early 2000s, when drugs were still unaffordable (to donors, they will probably always be unaffordable to most Africans) and only a few thousand people were able to access them.

There have long been warnings about careful management of ARV rollouts. One of the main worries was about resistant strains of HIV developing in large numbers of people where the treatment program was not being administrated well. Because, while the cost of ARVs is high, the cost of second line ARVs, needed when resistance develops to first line drugs, can be five to ten times higher. But eventually, a lot of resistance will develop because people are not responding to treatment it or are not taking it according to requirements.

Even in countries with relatively well established treatment programs, drugs of all description are in short supply. Uganda is now depending on emergency funding just to supply existing patients with ARV drugs, let alone dealing with new patients or ones who are affected by resistance. Taking the drugs in accordance with requirements can be impossible for many people.

However, a related worry is that of transmitted resistance. Those who are not on ARVs can acquire a strain of HIV which is already resistant to first line drugs. A study in Zambia has found that almost 6% of HIV positive people who are in need of treatment are resistant to first line drugs. It's all very well to say the people involved can be treated with second line drugs. But in addition to the massive increase in costs involved, second line drugs are just not as widely available.

The trouble with resistance, whether acquired or developed, is that it will eventually reach high levels. In countries where ARV programs have long been available, resistance can be as high as 20%. Coupled with this, recent WHO guidelines recommend starting ARV treatment at an even earlier stage in disease progression (though some question the wisdom of this). That sounds great but, not only are numbers of people on treatment in African countries very high, health services and health infrastructures are weak, very weak.

Similar circumstances have already given rise to resistant, multi-drug resistant and extensively drug resistant TB. The problem doesn't get resolved by the production of stronger drugs unless the circumstances that gave rise to resistance are also resolved. Many people in Kenya who are HIV positive also have TB. But many who don't have HIV do have TB. 50% of people with TB are not HIV positive. These are two separate epidemics, despite considerable overlaps. Resistance in either TB or HIV treatment will fuel at least one, perhaps two devastating epidemics.

Monitoring and testing for poor adherence to treatment and resistance are expensive. African countries are struggling to implement the most basic treatment services, let alone such advanced facilities. Some of the costs may go down, but unless broad health systems are developed, the lack of adequate facilities, trained personnel and equipment will mean that the majority of people are still vulnerable.

You can't expect weak health services to implement massive, high technology programs. Yet, this is what seems to be expected of African health services. The majority of people have little or no access to primary health care, water and sanitation, adequate food and levels of nutrition, some of the most basic aspects of health. People die of diarrheal conditions and respiratory problems. What chances have they with HIV and TB?

The HIV agenda has been driven by the desire of pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs at the highest price they can get to the largest number of people possible. Not only is resistance, acquired and developed, a consequence of allowing Big Pharma to drive the HIV agenda. Resistance is also an excellent way of increasing their profits further. But what about the epidemics? What about people who are HIV positive and those who are in danger of becoming infected?

If donors, governments and the HIV industry can accept that preventing and treating HIV is not just a matter of distributing ever increasing quantities of drugs, the agenda should include other items, such as the need for more and improved hospitals, more and better trained and motivated personnel, better equipment and supplies. People must be able to access primary health care, not a bunch of kiosks that give out drugs, almost willy-nilly. And good health also requires good infrastructure, education, food security and a whole lot of other things.

It's the job of Big Pharma to sell drugs but it's not the job of UNAIDS, the WHO, national governments, academic institutions and other parties to support them and their excesses. Prevention of further transmission of HIV is getting lost in the process of selling drugs. Some even believe that prevention of HIV transmission will be effected by greater consumption of drugs. This is not the case. Countries that are devastated by epidemics are not just markets; epidemic and endemic diseases will not be eradicated by treating them as commercial opportunities. Use of drugs for HIV treatment must be responsible, which it is not at present.

(For a discussions about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and resistance, see my other blog.)

Poverty Makes the World Go Round

How do you undermine the rights and autonomy of whole populations and, instead of censure, receive only praise? Simple, you just call it development. A multinational that respects little aside from money, and certainly has no time for democracy, is bad enough. Yet, when it joins forces with an institution with similar qualities, but happens to be an international 'charitable' foundation, there is very little anyone can do to rein in their actions, no matter how exploitative, destructive or manipulative they may be.

The Gates Foundation has been bullying countries into dancing to its tunes for some time now. And Monsanto's monopolistic behavior is legendary. But both these institutions recognise just how far they can go as long as they bleat on about 'helping' people, saving lives, feeding the hungry, etc. How can anyone object to such philanthropic actions, whatever their motivations? They certainly couldn't object to 'donated' food merely on the grounds that it is genetically modified (GM), could they?

Some like to make out that opposition to GM is based on a fear that the foods are damaging to people's health. Perhaps some people do have such fears. And those with an interest in pushing GM do not themselves know what effects the technology could have on health or the environment (or if they do know they have never made their findings public), so they certainly don't want anyone else to know. Because people's fears are based on lack of information, rather than availability of information, the industry can churn out any kind of deceit to defend themselves (or pay pseudo-academics to do it for them).

But others are more worried about the fact that multinationals like Monsanto want to monopolise agricultural production, from the choice of seeds, the varieties of produce, the agricultural inputs, the agricultural practices employed, all the way to what people eat, how much they know about what they eat, how much they pay for it, how food is produced and stored and anything else they can control. They are not just food facists, Monsanto runs the whole gamut of facism.

Couple this with the man who wants to do for food what he succeeded in doing for software and you've got a real threat to democracy, health, the environment, the economy and even global security. If there’s anything about facism Monsanto doesn’t know, Bill Gates and his Foundation will soon fill in the details.

People in developing countries may have been kept in the dark but they are not stupid. They know that there are reasons for high food prices and lack of access to food; they know that the prices are not necessarily high because of shortages and that lack of access to food is not necessarily because of their country's inability to produce it.

There is little secret about the fact that famines, food shortages and food insecurity, including recent instances of these, are not caused by lack of food; many countries experiencing these phenomena have plenty of food. It is obvious to many that it is people with large amounts of money who created prices beyond the means of those living in developing countries. And you don't need to be a genius to know that shortages of (edible) food can be created when most land is used for products destined for the rich; biofuel crops, flowers, luxury fruit and vegetable, tea, coffee, cocoa, rubber, sisal, animal feed (for Western animals) and the like.

One of the financial institutions that did very well out of the recent handouts to the rich, Goldman Sachs, also made a lot out of the food price speculation that created the food crisis a few years ago. They raked in an estimated billion dollars; even by Gates’ standards, that’s a lot. They do very well out of human misery, benefiting from it, as well as causing it. So who would pass up the opportunity to share in their returns? The Gates Foundation certainly wouldn't.

Is it really philanthropy to extract money from people and then give some of it back to them? We don't really know how much the Gates Foundation's ill gotten gains come from the countries that eventually 'benefit' from its 'largesse'. The Foundation, in its great (undemocratic) wisdom, decides who benefits as well as who loses and they are certainly not going to tell members of the public, especially not in developing countries. The Foundation aims to keep its wealth intact, regardless of how it achieves this. Any doubts or worries that arise can be assuaged by some pretty pictures of happy children or mention of names like ‘Kofi Annan’.

It comes as no surprise that the Foundation now has a considerable investment in Monsanto. This multinational has much to gain from developing countries and has shown that it is unscrupulous enough to do whatever is required to maximize its gains. The Foundation's sham 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa' (AGRA) has never denied that it will take advantage of GM if and when it sees the benefits. Gates has been investing in Monsanto for years. Some have probably been wondering when pay day was due.

This diabolical coupling does have one feature that may not be completely negative: it brings into clear focus the intimate connection between the unscrupulous grabbing by some institutions and the equally unscrupulous ‘philanthropy’ of others. Gates and a small handful of other rich people and institutions control the means of production where the products include poverty, disease, starvation, environmental destruction and a whole lot of other ills. And where would we be without all of them?

Viva La Via Campesina

Today I received an email from La Via Campesina, an " international movement of peasants, small and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers". This communication declares that La Via Campesina characterizes this current moment as "one of arrogance and authoritarianism on the part of the United States, the European Union and transnational corporations". It goes on to state that:

The increase of military presence and military bases in various parts of the world, “humanitarian” invasions and occupations which indicate war, the occupation of markets and territories, and the military presence to control energy resources, water, and natural biodiversity are all tactics derived from civilization’s crisis of capitalism and the logics of exploitation, racism, and patriarchy. These tactics also work to disguise the climate crisis in illegitimate negotiations.

Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania (MVIWATA, the Tanzanian Network of Farmers' Groups) is a member of La Via Campesina, so I hope they attend the movement's 'Assembly of Social Movements' in Bolivia in April. Perhaps they will also represent their neighbours, such as Kenya, Uganda and others. Only a handful of African countries are presently represented. Kenya is not. But they need to be.

It's hard to think of any strategy that could be worse for Tanzania and other developing countries than a concerted move towards large scale farming. Yet most members of a group of several hundred 'researchers' recently agreed that "the domination of the agricultural sector by small scale farmers is a serious problem".

A serious problem for whom? For wealthy politicians, who own much of the country's best land? For the multinationals, who want to control the country's ability to feed itself? For those who want to see more African land dedicated to the production of biofuels that will allow people in wealthy countries to continue their wasteful lifestyles? For those who see Tanzanian land and people as 'assets', to be bought up to enable them to produce food for people in wealthy countries?

These 'researchers', who must spend their time reading tabloid newspapers and the outputs of right-wing, imperialist think-tanks, rightly point out that small-scale farmers lack capital and skills. But they conclude that they should therefore become the de facto slaves for those unscrupulous enough to take over much of the country's land, natural resources and productive capacity.

If people lack skills, and it's not just Tanzanian small farmers who lack skills, this is because of the continuing failure of the education system. Many people don't attend school at all, many attend for a few years and many leave with very little practical knowledge of any kind. But this is not a reason to send in the large scale commercial farmers, ready to "inject capital and technology". People need better education, whether they are small scale farmers or from any other walk of life.

If the infrastructure is failing people, the infrastructure needs to be improved. Foreign land grabbers and multinationals are not going to do that. But in order to market goods even to Tanzanians, the country needs proper transport networks, reliable and widespread electricity supplies, communication networks and the like.

If, as these people suggest, Tanzanian agriculture is scaled up, what will happen to the subsistence farmers? They probably make up the largest economic group in Tanzania. The researchers' answer is the 'outgrower' system. Farmers become 'outgrowers' for some factory or exporter, producing a crop, usually a monoculture, usually not a food crop, to be exported. The farmer gets a very small price, they middle person gets a large price and the destination country converts the primary good into some high value product, often sold back to Tanzania at extortionate prices.

The country's Prime Minister Pinda uses the examples of tea, sugar and sisal to demonstrate how successful the outgrower system has been. Perhaps Pinda doesn't go out much but I think he will find that the majority of tea, sugar and sisal workers and outgrowers earn a pittance. And these crops are not essential food crops. People need to feed themselves and their dependents and they need to produce enough food to ensure the country's food sovereignty, the right of peoples "to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international market forces".

To avoid being tricked out of what's left of their natural resources and land, Tanzanians need to be aware of philosophies such as that of La Via Campesina. Most Tanzanians fit into one or other of the movement's categories. Because those Tanzanians who don't belong to any of those categories, rich businesspeople, politicians and the like, are ready to sell everything to the highest bidder. And, as usual, the money won't 'trickle down'.

La Via Campesina's objectives include the preservation of land (currently threatened by massive levels of land grabbing), water (threatened by all agricultural production for export, but especially biofuel and non-food crops), seeds (threatented by the attempts by genetically modified organism producers to control seed supplies) and other natural resources (threatened by natural resource exploitation which is almost entirely controlled by foreign multinationals). Other objectives include food sovereignty and sustainable agricultural production based on small and medium sized producers.

If Pinda and his colleagues are concerned about the country's low agricultural output, there are many initiatives that can be employed. As mentioned, improved education and infrastructure. But also, an improvement in the economic circumstances of the majority of people. The country is relatively rich in resources, but they are being effectively stolen by foreigners. There's (so far) no shortage of wealth in the country, distribution is the serious problem.

Most Tanzanians are just about getting by, right now. If agriculture is scaled up, by whatever means, the majority will lose the little access they have to food and other vital goods. Tanzanians need to feed Tanzanians. They don't need to be exploited by commercial and political interests. And the same applies to Kenyans and other Africans.

The final word must go to La Via Campesina:

The current industrialized agribusiness model has been deliberately planned for the complete vertical integration and to dominate all agriculture activities. This model exploits workers and concentrates economic and political power. La Via Campesina advocates a decentralized model where production, processing, distribution and consumption are controlled by the people the communities themselves and not by transnational corporations.

Deliberate GM Contamination of Kenya's Maize?

India's notorious genetically modified (GM) cotton plantations, which even Monsanto now admits are a failure, were not established after consultation or adequate research. The GM seed was introduced surreptitiously and spread far and wide and was eventually accepted on the grounds that it was too late to avoid it. Monsanto have profited considerably from this 'accident', having upped the prices for their seeds and other inputs many times over the years. One of the many failures of these GM seeds is that fertilizers and pesticides need to be used in ever increasing quantities.

Now, the pests have developed resistance, no amount of pesticide will control the problem. Yet Monsanto's solution to this is to roll out a new version of their GM cotton seed, with a new set of inputs and even higher prices. The seed has contaminated much of India's cotton growing areas and much of the country's arable land. But no amount of destruction is enough for Monsanto. They want to control what India does with its cotton and, eventually, all its other agricultural products.

I have argued elsewhere that what happened to India could also happen to other countries and whole continents. Well, it seems like someone is already trying to contaminate Kenya's staple crop, maize, with GM maize. 40,000 tonnes of GM maize was imported from South Africa earlier this year, at a time when the country had a surplus of the crop. A Kenyan company called Louis Dreyfus Ltd imported the stuff. It is sitting in Mombasa Port right now.

Questions are being raised about how this could happen and worries are being expressed about some of the possible effects of GM contamination. It is possible that some Kenyans are confused about the dangers that GM contamination poses. If this consignment were distributed and used as seed, farms directly affected would also contaminate farms around them. Maize is the most commonly grown crop here and it's grown for Kenyan consumption.

But other crops, grown for export, could also become contaminated. One of Kenya's top exports is fruit and vegetables and much of it goes to Europe. Europe has fairly strict laws about allowing the importation of GM contaminated foods. Kenya could end up exporting very little. Tea and coffee are also among its top exports but they too could end up being compromised by GM contamination. Anyone who thinks that opposition to GM foods is just anti-scientific, luddite or in any way mistaken should do some reading up on the subject.

One wonders who is behind allowing GM products to enter the country, who could profit from such a move? Has it happened before and is Kenya's maize already contaminated? And will this consignment of contaminated maize be allowed to be distributed or will it be sent back to South Africa, who have already fallen for the GM trick? I don't feel very confident about the future for some of Kenya's most important exports.

Discovering Poverty

Only a few months ago there was great excitement about the 'discovery' of oil in Isiolo, in Kenya's Eastern province. This is not the first time oil has been 'discovered' there. Tens of millions of dollars have been poured into exploration without any commercially viable discovery. A few hundred thousand dollars were put into making local people think that they will benefit from being an oil producing region and no money at all went into cleaning up the pollution and environmental damage caused over the years.

A local politician was predicting that "Kenya will join Uganda in celebrating the status of a new oil producer". So far, Kenya is not celebrating. But neither is Uganda, despite discovering huge quantities of oil. This is not a new story of developing countries having enormous mineral wealth while their own people make nothing and lose a lot. It's the same old story of Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Uganda and, indeed, Kenya. There's no reason why the story should change, as long as wealthy countries can get hold of all the oil and other resources they require.

As Uganda is finding out, deciding who gets to profit from the oil deposits is not up to them. It's up to their senior politicians, a handful of business people and a bunch of rich foreigners. If anyone who doesn't belong to one of those groups happens to have property or interests affected by work of extracting oil, that's their tough luck. Sure, some people will be employed for a while, but most of the top jobs will go to foreigners or to people who are already pretty well off. A hell of a lot more people will lose their livelihood, most of them being subsistence farmers and others who are just getting by.

Local consultation, democratic accountability, sustainability, environmental impact, social impact, these are all as relevant as condoms at a USAID sponsored HIV awareness programme. Tullow Oil and that bastion of corporate social responsibility Royal Bank of Scotland will be able to wallow together in their ethical vacuum without having to worry about petty matters like human rights, environmental contamination or mass evictions of people from their land. And no one need worry, the Ugandan government will compensate the oil company if anything threatens their profit margins.

Kenya should note what's happening in Uganda at the moment. Not that their politicians are likely to behave any differently if oil is discovered here. But maybe civil society groups here can start now, before the sort of secret negotiations seen in Uganda get going. It's hard to imagine what a developing country successfully extracting a natural resource would look like, where people in that country actually gained from the process rather than suffering greater poverty, disease and death.

Maybe oil will not be discovered in Kenya, or perhaps not yet. It's not that natural resources are a bad thing, but as long as developed countries and multinationals always have the upper hand when they are discovered, the resources might as well remain in the ground. Some Kenyans may not know how lucky they are, but many in Isiolo would still remember the fallout from the various explorations and 'discoveries' of the last few years.

Do Wealth and Power Exclude Wisdom?

To quote the late comedian Linda Smith, "I don't mean to sound racist, but rich people are weird." The very good climate change blog, climateprogress.org has an article about Bill Gates and his maunderings on climate change and related issues. The guy seems to know very little about climate change and all his information seems to come from corporate funded mouthpieces like Bjorn Lomborg.

Gates seems to think most of the current worries about climate change are pointless and that none of the proposals made by activists and experts should be considered. But he thinks that there will be a technological solution or two to the problems of clean energy, energy efficiency, etc (one of those solutions being nuclear, which he thinks is 'as good as' renewable).

This would sound very familiar to Gates-watchers. He advocates technical solutions to health problems, diseases such as HIV, TB, malaria, cholera and rotavirus. He also advocates technical solutions to problems like food shortages, food insecurity and low levels of food production (in the form of biotechnology). And for climate change, he advocates bioengineering. He's certainly consistent, so far.

Despite all his money and his rich and influential friends, Gates seems to be very misinformed and is falling behind on his knowledge of current research, but read the climateprogress.org article for the full details. He's into 'altering the stratosphere to reflect solar energy', filtering 'carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere' and 'brightening ocean clouds'. Do we really want this lunatic to be let loose on the only life supporting planet we know of?

There's also a very strange article on allafrica.com purporting to be about poverty eradication that is really about a deal between the richest man in the world (Gates) and one of the richest and most rapacious corporations in the world (Coca-cola). The Gates Foundation is providing most of the capital, over 10 million dollars, to allow 50,000 Kenyan and Ugandan farmers to sell fruit to Coca-cola for 'fruit-juice' production.

The article is very short on detail and I don't see why Coca-cola can't get these farmers to sell fruit to them without the help of Gates. But is it really a good thing that these farmers are going to sell their healthy food products for what will be a very low price to an organisation that will convert them into an unhealthy and very expensive beverage?

Coca-cola is better known for covering otherwise beautiful areas with their revolting logos and other excrescences, for marketing harmful products to people who are starving and in need of fresh water, for polluting water supplies and using up water supplies in areas where water is scarce and for maintaining a very poor record of corporate social responsibility (see corpwatch.org for further details).

Rich people and organisations are weird, but they can also be sinister, completely undemocratic and downright inhumane. I'm not calling for a law against being rich or even curbs on how rich people can be. But I think rich people and organisations should be subject to the same laws as other people and organisations. And poor people should be protected from the excesses of the rich and powerful. Why should a handful of very rich people and organisations be able to dictate the future of the planet and the futures of all its inhabitants?

Biofuels: Greed that Knows no Bounds

High fossil fuel prices and the need to reduce carbon emissions has made investment in biofuels seem a lot more tempting than it seemed in the past. But there are a number of problems. Firstly, total carbon emissions from the production and use of biofuels is not necessarily lower than from fossil fuels, and can even be higher. Secondly, few countries in the world have productive land to spare to grow biofuel crops in economically viable quantities.

So what do biofuel investors do? Well, they buy or lease land in developing countries, which solves the land shortage problem. And most of the carbon emissions from biofuel production, as a result, become the problem of the developing country. Developing country governments are desperate for any kind of investment and they encourage such industries with tax breaks and lax regulation. These measures are encouraged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, of course, because they always support the exploitation of developing countries for the benefit of rich countries.

But do developing countries have ‘spare’ land? Well, countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and many other African countries have a lot of land. But much of it is marginal or unproductive, more still is protected for various reasons and what’s left is nowhere near enough to produce enough food for domestic consumption. Governments of these countries talk about providing enough food, usually by asking the IMF and the World Bank for assistance, but they all still look to external ‘investors’ as if they are going to magically make hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity disappear. But on the contrary, big external investment has usually had the effect of worsening already serious social and economic problems.

In fact, much of the money going into biofuels investment is aid money. People are fond of complaining about aid money being wasted, stolen, misused or whatever but they don’t seem interested in hearing that the largest amounts of aid money go into the pockets of wealthy multinationals. Billions of dollars of aid money go into paying for condoms, drugs, infrastructure projects, defence contracts, consultancy and other goods and services provided by Western companies. That’s the main reason why so much of the aid money that is said to pour into Africa and other developing regions never seems to have much benefit.

These Western countries’ worries about fuel costs and shortages are being dressed up as a concern for the environment and even an ‘opportunity’ for developing countries. But that’s the last thing that we in the West are really worried about. If we were worried about carbon emissions we could reduce consumption, which is the only way to significantly reduce emissions anyway. And if we genuinely wanted to give ‘opportunities’ to developing countries, we would object to the way aid money is used to prop up Western companies. For example, most food aid is spent on expensive food, bought and processed in the West, transported by Western transporters, handled and distributed by Western companies. Aid money like this is being used as de facto subsidy. That’s when it’s not misused in some other way, and more often misused by Western governments than by developing country governments. Developing country governments are no angels but they are often not the major recipients of Western aid money.

It’s odd that one of the places sought for biofuels production is Saadani National Park in Eastern Tanzania. National Parks are protected, supposedly for the benefit of humankind as a whole. However, most Tanzanians will never get much benefit from Saadani. These national parks are more often frequented by tourists and the big businesses, hotels, tour operators, etc, are more often foreign owned than Tanzanian owned. Small numbers of badly paid Tanzanian employees get some benefit from the tourists and that’s better than nothing. But national parks are mainly of direct benefit to wealthier people.

But now the claim is that the production of biofuels is also for the benefit of humankind. But who is going to benefit? The Tanzanians will lose a huge and unique area of scientific interest, the few benefiting from the tourism industry will lose their livelihood and those farming or otherwise living in the area will also be denied their living. The environment will be destroyed, water will be diverted and contaminated, land will be degraded, the coastline will suffer and for what? So that Westerners can continue to overuse fuel and other resources at the expense of people in developing countries. This is not for the benefit of humankind, it is for the benefit of the rich and the relatively rich.

Far from reducing environmental degradation, the production of biofuels will cause environmental catastrophes and mostly in developing countries, the very countries that are already feeling the worst effects of climate change. Are we going to be fooled into thinking that because the carbon emissions are being moved to other countries that we have thereby reached our targets? These rich investors are treating Tanzanians and other people in developing countries as fools, at best; at worst they are treating them as just another commodity. But we in the West seem to be allowing ourselves to be fooled into thinking that we are not doing any harm, even that we are doing some good!

It might be asked if any kind of impact assessment has been carried out and yes, some assessment has been done. It has been done, as usual, by Western consultants who have an interest in being employed again and again. They, to be fair, reported some of the disadvantages as well the advantages of massive biofuels projects. But companies and officials involved will only use the bits of the report that suits them. They will knowingly continue with this work as long as it holds substantial promise for them. For instance, the land that is planned for destruction has timber that may be of greater value than the biofuel crop itself. This sounds like another case of asset stripping, like the various privatisation charades, which were (and still are) also presided over by the folk at the IMF and the World Bank.

Ultimately, millions of people will be directly affected by these biofuel projects and billions will be less directly affected. Impact assessments even accept that many people will lose their jobs and their livelihoods, many animal and plant species will be wiped out, the health of the affected populations will suffer and that the projects will be costly (though costly for whom?), etc. But if some parties can make money out of them they are very likely to go ahead.

A recent article on this subject is followed by a postscript stating that one particular project has been pulled as a result of campaigning. Indeed, several months ago many similar projects were pulled following the global financial crisis. But this doesn’t mean that developing countries will no longer be seen as a potential source of biofuels, food, metals, minerals and other resources. As soon as it becomes economically viable, at least for some parties, you can be sure that these investors will be back.

Intellectual Oppression

If you were a subsistence farmer in Kenya and you were in desperate need of money, would you consider mortgaging your future? After all, if you don't risk your future, you may not even have one.

Here's what you can do:

The Rockerfeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation think that the 'Green Revolution' in other developing countries was so good, they want to see another one and this time they want it to include Kenya and other African countries. Never mind that countries who experienced the first green revolution now realise what a terrible mistake it was.

These philanthropic parties are spending millions of dollars to ensure that poor farmers can purchase genetically modified (GB) seeds so that they can plant a green revolution in their own fields.

Don't get caught up in the argument about how GM crops could damage your health. People who oppose those arguments only want to catch you out by asking what evidence there is for health risks. Of course, there may be health risks, GM organisms have not been shown to be safe for human consumption. But that is not even the most important concern about GM.

If you buy GM seeds, you must buy the appropriate herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers to ensure the 'benefits' promised by the manufacturers. Yes, they manufacture the seeds, the pesticides, the fertilizers and the stories about how GM is good for your health, the environment and just about everything else.

In fact Agra (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) also claim to be aiming specifically at small farmers. GM crops and 'improved' agricultural methods are primarily aimed at big farmers, but hey, what's a little white lie here and there?

The only people that stand to benefit from GM are the manufacturers of GM products. Oh, and those who have a financial interest in GM companies. Maybe these esteemed philanthropic parties have such a financial interest, maybe they don't. But it's big, powerful, rich people and companies that make a lot of money; you, I and small farmers only stand to lose. By the time said parties have made themselves even richer, most land will be depleted and contaminated, it will lack diversity, it will be as far from organic as it can possibly be and we will find it very difficult to reverse what they have got us into.

Farms surrounding those growing GM crops will also be contaminated. This contamination will come from cross pollination and run-off that carries toxic substances to other farms and into the water supply. Farmers who buy into GM are not just mortgaging their own future, they also mortgage the futures of their neighbours.

Does it sound dramatic to say 'mortgage your future'? Well, if you are a farmer, you are probably used to the process of growing crops and taking advantage of the way you can keep some seed each year. This can be used to grow the next years crops and you can even be selective, to preserve the best qualities in your crops.

Sorry, but you are not permitted to collect seed and grow more GM crops next year. Some GM crops are not even appropriate for this process. You will owe the GM manufacturer money because the seeds are a piece of intellectual property, you must pay for it. Even your neighbours could be found guilty of infringing GM companies’ copyright, even though they didn't take the king's ransom!

Ok, you can, slowly, get rid of some of the GM contamination. You can start afresh, growing wholesome non-GM crops. Well, maybe you can. You will already have played a part in reducing the biodiversity on your land and on surrounding lands. In fact, herbicides and pesticides used on GM crops kill everything, plant and animal, but that GM crop. This is one of the things that GM producers like to boast about.

But if you replace the GM soya with non-GM soya because you find it is not as productive as it says on the packet, you may be in for a nasty surprise. If the 'non-GM' crop is found to contain some of the GM manufacturer's intellectual property you are still liable to pay for it. Which is fantastic…if you’re a GM company.

The Rockerfeller and Gates Foundations may well do some great work, they may well fund many laudable projects but that shouldn't stop people from scrutinising what they fund. GM crops are not in any sense laudable and the fact that so much money is being spent on trying to get people to grow them should sound alarm bells.

As a rule of thumb, where intellectual property is involved, the interests of the rich are being served. If someone tries to tell you that poor people will benefit, check their credentials very carefully.

This is another example of Development by Omission, where developing countries would be a lot better off if they didn't receive this 'donation' from the rich and powerful. It's a lot more subtle, but also far more damaging than stealing maize intended for starving Kenyans. And it's not even considered to be a crime. Not yet, anyhow.

Who Paid for those Christmas Presents?

I will probably say this many times in one way or another on this blog:

HIV may well be mainly sexually transmitted in Kenya, but under what circumstances do people have sex? Why do some have sex frequently and with many different people? Why do they not take precautions, perhaps by using a condom, avoiding people they know to have a sexually transmitted infection (see note below about health) or people they know to be violent? Why do they agree to more dangerous sexual practices, such as anal sex or dry sex?

IRIN ran an article recently about a young woman who had to have sex with her supervisor in order to be guaranteed regular work. She works in an Export Processing Zone (EPZ). EPZs were set up with the specific intention of allowing companies to operate their production units where labour is cheap.

This is not to say that EPZs were set up with purely evil intentions. Countries with EPZs could have had strong labour laws that protected their labour force and that punished employers who flouted these laws.

But competition ensured that the country with the fewest employee protections would win the contracts. Laws in Kenya governing EPZs rarely mention employees but are pretty explicit when it comes to the companies that are flocking to the country to take advantage of the cheap labour.

The companies setting up production units in Kenya and other countries with the 'unique selling point' of cheap labour are ones that produce fashionable clothes, popular brands of watches, pharmaceuticals and other things bought by most people in developed countries, the 'minority world'.

The number of people implicated in the abuse suffered by employees of EPZs is high, taking in multinational corporations, governments and the very population driving the process: the market.

That means you and I; the people who buy sports shoes, laptops, MP3 players, mobile phones and various other things that are only affordable because of a high level of exploitation. Cheap labour ensures our access to these goods.

Don't buy the popular media reflex that developing countries are poor because of corrupt governments. Serious corruption is global.

I almost forgot to mention the part played by the organisations that are supposed to be assisting developing countries to develop: those international financial institutions whose names shall remain the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They loan money to desperate countries with certain conditions attached. Those countries must be 'flexible', they must deregulate, they must reduce 'barriers to trade' and public services, they must reduce the civil service...

... many civil servants being involved in the 'anticompetitive' practice of regulating employers, ensuring workers rights, inspecting companies to reduce dangerous conditions and exploitation. In fact, EPZs are not bound by the Factories Act and do not have unions because such things would seriously reduce their competitiveness. EPZs don't even make people redundant, they only 'retrench' them, which is completely different. Well, it’s far cheaper for employers, anyway.

These measures keep international financial institutions, governments, consumers and employers happy. With EPZs, the world is almost perfect.

Except for the majority world; the place where over five billion people live (out of a global population of over six billion). The people who work in these EPZs are not guaranteed work, they must accept any conditions without complaint and they cannot strike. As the Kenya Human Rights Commission say in their report 'Manufacture of Poverty', employees 'report to the factory gates every morning without pay to check whether or not there is work'.

So what makes a prospective employee more 'competitive', more likely to work today and subsequent days? Aside from being silent about flouted fire regulations and other safety measures, impossible production targets, compulsory overtime and other abuses?

Well, agreeing to sleep with the person responsible for choosing who works and who doesn't work would be a start. Sleep with the supervisor. And every time the question of who to employ comes up, the question of what price is to be paid must also be answered. The woman interviewed in IRIN's article is not the only one who suffered abuse and continues to suffer abuse in this way.

So this is a whole field of scenarios where HIV is transmitted. But the issue here is not the transmission of HIV, alone. There is a whole range of human rights being abused with impunity, with the tacit acceptance of most of the people and institutions in the world who could and who should be objecting.

So instead of criticizing people's sexual practices, perhaps we could examine our own purchasing practices.

Note about health:

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank, mentioned above, have also given loans on condition that the number of people employed by public services such as health, education and infrastructure be fixed at low levels. Spending on such services is severely limited and this has many consequences for people’s overall health.

For example, intestinal parasites are very common, as is TB, malaria and many waterborne diseases like cholera. Sexually transmitted infections are also common, especially Herpes Simplex Virus. All of these make people more susceptible to HIV. The health of Kenyans is severely compromised by these loan conditions.

The HIV ‘experts’ who implement prevention programmes do so with the expectation that existing health, education and infrastructure will ensure the success of these programmes. Even the World Bank itself funds such programmes.

So, when they find that there are very few health and education facilities and very little infrastructure in Kenya and other developing countries, one hopes they will also know who to call on to find out why: themselves.

Maybe I am hopelessly idealistic.