One of the big promises of the industry that produces genetically engineered (GE) crops is that they will allow farmers to use less pesticide, thereby saving money and reducing negative impacts on the environment. But a recent paper shows that these claims don't stand up to scrutiny. On the contrary, pesticide use has increased almost every year in the thirteen years that GE crops have been planted on a large scale in the US.
Crops such as cotton, corn and soybean are genetically engineered in order to withstand a particular type of pesticide. That pesticide is sprayed over a large area and kills everything but the crop. That's the theory, anyhow. So the industry has spent a lot of money trying to rubbish the claims that eventually weeds would evolve that would be resistant to the glyphosate herbicide that needs to be used in increasing amounts on GE crops; these have been dubbed 'superweeds'. But such weeds have evolved and they keep evolving to resist higher levels of glyphosate and anything else farmers try to do to keep them under control.
This glyphosate is a pollutant that degrades land and contaminates water. Its serious effects on the environment, on conventional agriculture and on animals, domestic and wild, have been demonstrated many times but they have also been shown to cause health problems in humans. Reproductive, birth and neurological problems have been linked with exposure to pesticides.
Those using GE crops are not permitted to collect seeds to plant the following year and are compelled to buy seeds every year from the GE industry, in addition to the pesticides and the increasing amounts of herbicide. But farmers who try to buy conventional corn, soybean and cotton seeds find that there are few stocks available. Almost all these important crops have been taken over or contaminated by GE versions in the US.
And this industry wants us to believe that GE crops are the future for developing countries? Producers of GE crops in the US now have to spend so much money controlling resistant weeds that it is eating into their profits. Coupled with the costs of pesticides, it won't be long before there will be no profit at all. And the industry's claims about the increased yields from GE crops have never been demonstrated either. Yields are affected by resistant weed infestations, of course, but the yields have been no better than those of conventional crops. Sometimes they have been a lot lower.
In developing countries, where conditions are far from ideal, the chances of farmers even getting normal yields from GE crops are slim. And as the costs go up farmers will be unable to continue and will be forced to try to return to conventional crops. But their land and the land of those around them will, by then, be contaminated, as will seed crops. Their land, and even land close by that never bought into GE crops, will continue to produce weeds that are resistant to pesticides and the crops will be contaminated with GE strains for many years, if not decades.
It's ironic that this supposedly great technological achievement has now resulted in US farmers having to employ people to pull up weeds by hand. But this will not be an option for people in developing countries. They will not be able to withstand the pressures of increasing costs along with falling yields and GE crops will be a disaster for them, even more so than it is for industrialised countries. Monsanto and Syngenta are the main offenders mentioned in this report, names that will be familiar to those who have followed the GE industry to date. Their plan is to produce more pesticide and to produce stronger versions. That should help a lot.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Self Destructiveness Seems Like a Strange Quality in a Church
I've had time to read UNAIDS's 2009 HIV Epidemic Update and it's interesting, but perplexing in many ways. Take, for example, the issue of unprotected sex with multiple partners. As a result of research into different modes of transmission and their relative importance in different countries, it was found that Kenya has a particular problem with people having unprotected sex with several different partners.
This didn't come as a big shock, of course. Many people, all over the world, have unprotected sex with several different partners. But the risk of transmitting or being infected with HIV is much higher in a country with high prevalence of HIV and certain other sexually transmitted infections (STI). And Kenya is such a country, with 7-8% HIV prevalence, high prevalence of STIs known to make one more susceptible to transmitting and contracting HIV (such as herpes simplex virus), very poor education and health services and an attitude towards condom use that is, I suspect, strongly influenced by conservative religion and politics.
The shocking thing is how many people are willing to take such risks with their sexual partners while refusing to use condoms, coupled with the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on HIV prevention campaigns that advocate the use of condoms. A recent campaign by the extremely wealthy, powerful and conservative Population Services International (PSI) aims at stopping relationships on the side or multiple relationships. The campaign mentions condoms too but concentrates on stopping the relationships.
The trouble is that after many years of some parties campaigning for safer sex, others have been campaigning for no sex at all or no sex except inside marriage. The volume of this sort of campaigning is high and usually advocates against the use of condoms or suggests condom use only in difficult circumstances (such as where one's partner is already infected with HIV). Aside from the fact that in Kenya, Uganda and other countries, the chances of becoming infected by one's marital partner is higher than becoming infected by a casual partner, many people are not married, are no longer married or have not, as yet, been able to get married. So lecturing them about abstaining till marriage can be a rather pointless exercise.
One of the apparent results of all these campaigns that have a pseudo-moral political and religious agenda is that people have internalised the message about not using condoms but they haven't given up having sex with a number of different people. Many of the people who engage in multiple partnerships are married, so they are in danger of infecting their partner or being infected by their partner. And yet the religious and political zealots keep ranting on about condoms and how they are not the solution.
The Catholic pope is quite right when he says that HIV cannot be overcome by relying exclusively or primarily on the distribution of condoms. They need to be used, all the time, and properly in order to reduce the transmission of HIV. He may also be right about the importance of conjugal fidelity, but conjugal fidelity appears to be rather rare, perhaps more so among those married in the Catholic church than in many others. As for sexual abstinence, it appears to be rare in the Catholic church and is not even a foregone conclusion among those who profess to have taken a vow of chastity.
If we lived in the sort of world the pope is talking about, where everyone did only what they were supposed to do with regard to sexual behaviour, there would be no need for condoms or many of the other things that he and his ilk object to so strongly. But then, nor would there be HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. Maybe people shouldn't have sex except within marriage and for the purpose of procreation, according to some moral code. But people have sex, defecate, eat, drink, sleep and play.
According to the moral code of some people, having sex or exercising many other forms of human behaviour are not, in themselves, moral or immoral. Which is not to say it is not wrong to have sex with one person when you are in a relationship with someone who thinks that they are your only partner, for example. But the pope sees having sex outside the strict bounds of Catholic teaching as absolutely wrong. And using a condom to avoid an unplanned pregnancy or to protect oneself from HIV or any other STI is also wrong. Yet, in a world where people only had sex within those strict bounds, it would seem strange to even have to make a pronouncement about contraception.
Maybe the pope will keep going on about abstinence until marriage and the evils of contraception. If he does, all the worse for the Catholics who choose to listen to him. And I'm talking about the Catholics who live in this world, in Africa in particular. Because a lot of them don't seem willing to take all of his advice, preferring to select the bits they like and leaving out the bits they don't like. The pope is surprisingly influential and as a result of his influence, HIV continues to spread rapidly in Kenya and other countries. It infects innocent people, through various means, young and old people, religious and non-religious people and especially people who have sex. And that's most people, as far as I know.
This didn't come as a big shock, of course. Many people, all over the world, have unprotected sex with several different partners. But the risk of transmitting or being infected with HIV is much higher in a country with high prevalence of HIV and certain other sexually transmitted infections (STI). And Kenya is such a country, with 7-8% HIV prevalence, high prevalence of STIs known to make one more susceptible to transmitting and contracting HIV (such as herpes simplex virus), very poor education and health services and an attitude towards condom use that is, I suspect, strongly influenced by conservative religion and politics.
The shocking thing is how many people are willing to take such risks with their sexual partners while refusing to use condoms, coupled with the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on HIV prevention campaigns that advocate the use of condoms. A recent campaign by the extremely wealthy, powerful and conservative Population Services International (PSI) aims at stopping relationships on the side or multiple relationships. The campaign mentions condoms too but concentrates on stopping the relationships.
The trouble is that after many years of some parties campaigning for safer sex, others have been campaigning for no sex at all or no sex except inside marriage. The volume of this sort of campaigning is high and usually advocates against the use of condoms or suggests condom use only in difficult circumstances (such as where one's partner is already infected with HIV). Aside from the fact that in Kenya, Uganda and other countries, the chances of becoming infected by one's marital partner is higher than becoming infected by a casual partner, many people are not married, are no longer married or have not, as yet, been able to get married. So lecturing them about abstaining till marriage can be a rather pointless exercise.
One of the apparent results of all these campaigns that have a pseudo-moral political and religious agenda is that people have internalised the message about not using condoms but they haven't given up having sex with a number of different people. Many of the people who engage in multiple partnerships are married, so they are in danger of infecting their partner or being infected by their partner. And yet the religious and political zealots keep ranting on about condoms and how they are not the solution.
The Catholic pope is quite right when he says that HIV cannot be overcome by relying exclusively or primarily on the distribution of condoms. They need to be used, all the time, and properly in order to reduce the transmission of HIV. He may also be right about the importance of conjugal fidelity, but conjugal fidelity appears to be rather rare, perhaps more so among those married in the Catholic church than in many others. As for sexual abstinence, it appears to be rare in the Catholic church and is not even a foregone conclusion among those who profess to have taken a vow of chastity.
If we lived in the sort of world the pope is talking about, where everyone did only what they were supposed to do with regard to sexual behaviour, there would be no need for condoms or many of the other things that he and his ilk object to so strongly. But then, nor would there be HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. Maybe people shouldn't have sex except within marriage and for the purpose of procreation, according to some moral code. But people have sex, defecate, eat, drink, sleep and play.
According to the moral code of some people, having sex or exercising many other forms of human behaviour are not, in themselves, moral or immoral. Which is not to say it is not wrong to have sex with one person when you are in a relationship with someone who thinks that they are your only partner, for example. But the pope sees having sex outside the strict bounds of Catholic teaching as absolutely wrong. And using a condom to avoid an unplanned pregnancy or to protect oneself from HIV or any other STI is also wrong. Yet, in a world where people only had sex within those strict bounds, it would seem strange to even have to make a pronouncement about contraception.
Maybe the pope will keep going on about abstinence until marriage and the evils of contraception. If he does, all the worse for the Catholics who choose to listen to him. And I'm talking about the Catholics who live in this world, in Africa in particular. Because a lot of them don't seem willing to take all of his advice, preferring to select the bits they like and leaving out the bits they don't like. The pope is surprisingly influential and as a result of his influence, HIV continues to spread rapidly in Kenya and other countries. It infects innocent people, through various means, young and old people, religious and non-religious people and especially people who have sex. And that's most people, as far as I know.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Celebrate World Aids Day By Dismantling UNAIDS
UNAIDS has never been shy about producing long and colourful documents about HIV/Aids and in the last couple of days they have released two; the Outlook Report 2010 takes a look back and compares the HIV pandemic of today with that of the mid 1990s; the second document is the yearly AIDS Epidemic Update, which I haven't had the strength to read yet.
The Outlook Report, like many of the various articles commenting on one or other of the reports, sometimes takes a rosy view of how the international community and the AIDS community have dealt with the pandemic. In the sense that things have moved on, and finding that you are HIV positive no longer has the significance it once had, they are right. We have come a long way in treating what was once an untreatable illness that would lead to a certain and very unpleasant death.
But the worrying thing is how the Outlook Report, like many UNAIDS and other reports in the past, talk about the importance of HIV prevention. It has been obvious that HIV prevention is so important that the amount of HIV money spent on it needs to be increased considerably. But the amount has gone down and the prevention programmes that get most of the money have little or no effect and have never had much effect.
Defenders of the disproportionate amount spent on treatment and care of HIV positive people are fond of pointing out that this shouldn't be an either/or debate. True, it shouldn't, both treatment and care on the one hand and prevention on the other should receive more funding than they presently receive and the funding should be more equitably divided. Treatment and care contribute a certain amount to HIV prevention but they are not the same as prevention and they will never contribute more than a certain amount. That's why there are five new infections for every two people put on antiretroviral treatment.
The report goes on to allude to the work that has been done to show that prevention programmes, such as they are, fail to target those most at risk in populations. Most of the money is spent on populations as a whole and very little on, for example, men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers, intravenous drug users, prison populations, fishing communities around Lake Victoria, mining communities and various others, who are very often at risk because of their occupation or lifestyle.
The report seems aware that HIV transmission is not primarily about individual behaviour and that there are different kinds of HIV epidemic in different countries and that some people are more at risk than others. It even seems cognizant of the fact that it is the circumstances in which people live that makes them more or less likely to become infected with HIV. But it hasn't made the leap to realizing that in some countries, especially developing countries, most people live in such circumstances. Not everyone is at equal risk of becoming infected but most people live in conditions that mean they are already at high risk of becoming infected or that they will one day be at high risk of becoming infected.
That makes it sound like HIV prevention is unlikely to ever have much success, but the opposite is true. Treatment and care have been to a large extent dominated by commercial interests. Products, processes and services have been developed, many by those who are in a position to profit from them. But prevention has been dominated by the party-political and pseudo-moral debates of political and religious leaders. Their aim is to further their own agenda, which are far from being concerned about millions of people becoming sick and dying.
Raising awareness about HIV, sexually transmitted infections, sexual health, reproductive health and anything else is good and will go a long way towards protecting people from a number of dangers. But good overall health, healthcare, nutrition, food security, education, infrastructure and many other benefits would give people the maximum protection, not just from HIV, but from other illnesses and ills.
And this brings us to another often repeated pronouncement made by various senior HIV/Aids experts. They like to deny that HIV funding has distorted health and development funding and disrupted more general programmes that aimed to benefit societies as a whole. HIV/Aids funding is not too high, it needs to be higher. But there needs to be a similar move to spend the money more equitably. HIV will not be eradicated without health services, education and other social services, no matter how much money is thrown at it.
So, spending money on all other areas of development will also contribute to the fight against HIV/Aids. But continuing to spend disproportionate amounts on HIV/Aids will not benefit the many other development issues that have been hijacked by numerous commercial and political interests. HIV treatment and care is just one of many health issues that the world faces but HIV prevention is about health, not disease. Therefore it has far broader significance and affects far more people than one single disease. In fact, it affects everyone.
Ultimately a self-serving and very expensive organisation, UNAIDS needs to be reabsorbed back into the overall agenda of public health, or some agenda that encompasses the health of everyone, not the sickness of a few. This is not to say that HIV positive people should not be entitled to treatment or care. Rather, they and all other sick people should be entitled to treatment and care. But people who are not sick should be enabled to stay that way. UNAIDS is good at diverting a lot of money for people once they are HIV positive but this is denying the right of HIV negative people to stay that way.
The Outlook Report, like many of the various articles commenting on one or other of the reports, sometimes takes a rosy view of how the international community and the AIDS community have dealt with the pandemic. In the sense that things have moved on, and finding that you are HIV positive no longer has the significance it once had, they are right. We have come a long way in treating what was once an untreatable illness that would lead to a certain and very unpleasant death.
But the worrying thing is how the Outlook Report, like many UNAIDS and other reports in the past, talk about the importance of HIV prevention. It has been obvious that HIV prevention is so important that the amount of HIV money spent on it needs to be increased considerably. But the amount has gone down and the prevention programmes that get most of the money have little or no effect and have never had much effect.
Defenders of the disproportionate amount spent on treatment and care of HIV positive people are fond of pointing out that this shouldn't be an either/or debate. True, it shouldn't, both treatment and care on the one hand and prevention on the other should receive more funding than they presently receive and the funding should be more equitably divided. Treatment and care contribute a certain amount to HIV prevention but they are not the same as prevention and they will never contribute more than a certain amount. That's why there are five new infections for every two people put on antiretroviral treatment.
The report goes on to allude to the work that has been done to show that prevention programmes, such as they are, fail to target those most at risk in populations. Most of the money is spent on populations as a whole and very little on, for example, men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers, intravenous drug users, prison populations, fishing communities around Lake Victoria, mining communities and various others, who are very often at risk because of their occupation or lifestyle.
The report seems aware that HIV transmission is not primarily about individual behaviour and that there are different kinds of HIV epidemic in different countries and that some people are more at risk than others. It even seems cognizant of the fact that it is the circumstances in which people live that makes them more or less likely to become infected with HIV. But it hasn't made the leap to realizing that in some countries, especially developing countries, most people live in such circumstances. Not everyone is at equal risk of becoming infected but most people live in conditions that mean they are already at high risk of becoming infected or that they will one day be at high risk of becoming infected.
That makes it sound like HIV prevention is unlikely to ever have much success, but the opposite is true. Treatment and care have been to a large extent dominated by commercial interests. Products, processes and services have been developed, many by those who are in a position to profit from them. But prevention has been dominated by the party-political and pseudo-moral debates of political and religious leaders. Their aim is to further their own agenda, which are far from being concerned about millions of people becoming sick and dying.
Raising awareness about HIV, sexually transmitted infections, sexual health, reproductive health and anything else is good and will go a long way towards protecting people from a number of dangers. But good overall health, healthcare, nutrition, food security, education, infrastructure and many other benefits would give people the maximum protection, not just from HIV, but from other illnesses and ills.
And this brings us to another often repeated pronouncement made by various senior HIV/Aids experts. They like to deny that HIV funding has distorted health and development funding and disrupted more general programmes that aimed to benefit societies as a whole. HIV/Aids funding is not too high, it needs to be higher. But there needs to be a similar move to spend the money more equitably. HIV will not be eradicated without health services, education and other social services, no matter how much money is thrown at it.
So, spending money on all other areas of development will also contribute to the fight against HIV/Aids. But continuing to spend disproportionate amounts on HIV/Aids will not benefit the many other development issues that have been hijacked by numerous commercial and political interests. HIV treatment and care is just one of many health issues that the world faces but HIV prevention is about health, not disease. Therefore it has far broader significance and affects far more people than one single disease. In fact, it affects everyone.
Ultimately a self-serving and very expensive organisation, UNAIDS needs to be reabsorbed back into the overall agenda of public health, or some agenda that encompasses the health of everyone, not the sickness of a few. This is not to say that HIV positive people should not be entitled to treatment or care. Rather, they and all other sick people should be entitled to treatment and care. But people who are not sick should be enabled to stay that way. UNAIDS is good at diverting a lot of money for people once they are HIV positive but this is denying the right of HIV negative people to stay that way.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Stop Thief, There's More!
At present, Tanzania is Africa's third largest producer of gold but may be set to become the largest. Gold mines towards the North of the country, formerly mined by Tanzanian artisanal miners, have for a long time been making a handful of foreign mining companies very rich. But recently, gold that is still being mined by Tanzanian artisanal miners in the South of the country has attracted the interest of a handful of foreign mining companies, who can expect this to make them very rich.
It's interesting how this is a 'discovery' because, as far as Tanzanian artisanal miners are concerned, they discovered the gold. It's their livelihood and not a very good one at that. But it's better than the nothing they will be left with once the big gold extractors move in. Typically, big gold miners employ a few thousand people, compared to the hundreds of thousands that will be displaced.
Time and time again, such gold 'discoveries' have been trumpeted as great news for Tanzania (or Kenya or Uganda or where ever). But Tanzanians should be well aware of how much they have profited from their vast mineral resources. Or rather, they should be aware that they have been systematically impoverished because of their vast mineral resources. Uganda has had a recent opportunity to find out how gold 'discoveries' affect ordinary people and even Kenya will have an opportunity soon, as gold has also been 'discovered' in the Kenyan Mara region.
The American company buying a large but very cheap interest in these recently 'discovered' gold deposits will be given all the usual benefits of non-existent oversight, few taxes, if any, minute royalty payments, most of which they will probably renege on, somehow, and the freedom to exploit Tanzania's rather loose employment and other human rights protections. In return, Tanzania will experience a large increase in unemployment and a loss of resources that will never be compensated for; Tanzania being, already, one of the poorest countries in the world.
Oddly enough, there is also a recent article about safety in small mines in Tanzania. This issue is not often reported on, although the issue of safety in large mines is even less reported on. Not because large mining interests have a great safety record, they just spend more on publicity. The secrecy that surrounds big mining in Tanzania and other developing countries doesn't come cheap. Only the employees do that. It's true that safety in smaller mines has been neglected by the government for a long time but that's no excuse for giving the Americans, the South Africans and the Canadians carte blanche to plunder the country's gold. I'm just assuming the appearance of these two articles at around the same time is not a coincidence.
To be fair, many mining employees earn better than average wages, though nothing to write home about. But this doesn't make up for the fact that for every one employed there could have been ten or twenty put out of a job. Nor does it excuse the mind boggling, tax free salaries that the non-Tanzanian employees get (which are usually kept secret). And it certainly doesn't make up for the fact that the country is highly dependent on foreign aid, not because it is poor, but because everything it has of value is stolen with the connivance of senior statespeople and businesspeople, Tanzanian and non-Tanzanian alike.
Critics of large scale theft of gold from developing countries recommend that donor countries, international institutions and the like champion the interests of countries such as Tanzania. Well, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), America, Britain, Canada and many others who could be championing the interests of development are too busy fighting for the other side. The lack of regulation in Tanzania and other developing countries mainly emanates from the so-called international institutions, whose focus always appears rather national.
And America, Britain and Canada may well be big donors. But the amount of money they give in aid donations is very small compared to the amount they pilfer. I don't think it's reasonable to expect thieves to just put their hands up, so it's up to the Tanzanian people, through their government, to fight this one out. It remains to be seen whether they will continue to hand over their future or whether they will demand a more equitable way of managing their resources. So far they have behaved like a person confronted by someone raping their wife and offering the rapist their mothers and children.
It's interesting how this is a 'discovery' because, as far as Tanzanian artisanal miners are concerned, they discovered the gold. It's their livelihood and not a very good one at that. But it's better than the nothing they will be left with once the big gold extractors move in. Typically, big gold miners employ a few thousand people, compared to the hundreds of thousands that will be displaced.
Time and time again, such gold 'discoveries' have been trumpeted as great news for Tanzania (or Kenya or Uganda or where ever). But Tanzanians should be well aware of how much they have profited from their vast mineral resources. Or rather, they should be aware that they have been systematically impoverished because of their vast mineral resources. Uganda has had a recent opportunity to find out how gold 'discoveries' affect ordinary people and even Kenya will have an opportunity soon, as gold has also been 'discovered' in the Kenyan Mara region.
The American company buying a large but very cheap interest in these recently 'discovered' gold deposits will be given all the usual benefits of non-existent oversight, few taxes, if any, minute royalty payments, most of which they will probably renege on, somehow, and the freedom to exploit Tanzania's rather loose employment and other human rights protections. In return, Tanzania will experience a large increase in unemployment and a loss of resources that will never be compensated for; Tanzania being, already, one of the poorest countries in the world.
Oddly enough, there is also a recent article about safety in small mines in Tanzania. This issue is not often reported on, although the issue of safety in large mines is even less reported on. Not because large mining interests have a great safety record, they just spend more on publicity. The secrecy that surrounds big mining in Tanzania and other developing countries doesn't come cheap. Only the employees do that. It's true that safety in smaller mines has been neglected by the government for a long time but that's no excuse for giving the Americans, the South Africans and the Canadians carte blanche to plunder the country's gold. I'm just assuming the appearance of these two articles at around the same time is not a coincidence.
To be fair, many mining employees earn better than average wages, though nothing to write home about. But this doesn't make up for the fact that for every one employed there could have been ten or twenty put out of a job. Nor does it excuse the mind boggling, tax free salaries that the non-Tanzanian employees get (which are usually kept secret). And it certainly doesn't make up for the fact that the country is highly dependent on foreign aid, not because it is poor, but because everything it has of value is stolen with the connivance of senior statespeople and businesspeople, Tanzanian and non-Tanzanian alike.
Critics of large scale theft of gold from developing countries recommend that donor countries, international institutions and the like champion the interests of countries such as Tanzania. Well, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), America, Britain, Canada and many others who could be championing the interests of development are too busy fighting for the other side. The lack of regulation in Tanzania and other developing countries mainly emanates from the so-called international institutions, whose focus always appears rather national.
And America, Britain and Canada may well be big donors. But the amount of money they give in aid donations is very small compared to the amount they pilfer. I don't think it's reasonable to expect thieves to just put their hands up, so it's up to the Tanzanian people, through their government, to fight this one out. It remains to be seen whether they will continue to hand over their future or whether they will demand a more equitable way of managing their resources. So far they have behaved like a person confronted by someone raping their wife and offering the rapist their mothers and children.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sex Workers Need Support, Not Condemnation
Malawi's aim to give sex workers an alternative to sex work is a step in the right direction and it's certainly better than the finger wagging and moralising that passes for policy in Kenya and other African countries. Sex workers will be offered low-interest loans to start small businesses and in return they will be expected to give up sex work.
But a serious problem with this approach on its own is that most small businesses fail. There is a limit to the proportion of a population that can depend on small businesses for their income. And if there are too many small businesses, even the ones that don't fail do badly.
Besides, it's not just sex workers and currently unemployed people that want access to microcredit, especially to set up small businesses. Many people are just about getting by, earning tiny amounts of money some of the time and turning up to work every day in the hope of earning enough to pay the next day's fare to work.
A lot of people you talk to, especially in professions such as beauty therapy and hairdressing, for example, say that their ambition is to either make or borrow enough money to set up a small business, a salon or something that is more dependable than an employer who may not even pay up the pittance that is owed.
And when people have access to credit, too many of them seem to go for the very businesses that have already flooded the market. Selling second hand clothes is something of a euphemism among sex workers because there are so many people doing it, a lot have to resort to commercial sex work to make enough to survive. Many sex workers that I have met are trained in hairdressing, beauty therapy or hotel and catering in one of the numerous colleges (or rather dubious quality) that you see in even the smallest towns.
Commercial sex workers, subsistence workers, homeless people, indeed, any poor or vulnerable people, face a number of problems. Not having enough money to survive is just one problem in what can be a long chain of circumstances. This substantial group of people is not exclusively female, but it is predominantly female.
Girls are less likely to go to school, less likely to have adequate school attendance, less likely to complete primary education, less likely to go on to or complete secondary education and in the end, they are unlikely to have enough education to compete for the small number of jobs that are open to females. Even those who do well at school are unlikely to get a job that pays a reasonable income and this is particularly true of females.
Many girls with too little education are probably poor and even if their family has some money, it is more likely to be spent on boys. So if a girl or woman decides to get some training or vocational education, finding enough money is one of the biggest problems. Commercial sex work is far better paid than any of the other options available. It would be interesting to know how many girls and women raised the money to go to hairdressing or beauty therapy school through sex work only to end up supplementing the meagre income they subsequently earn by returning to sex work.
There are two points that need to be highlighted here: firstly, older women, those in their thirties and forties, are in the most urgent need of finding alternatives to sex work. For them, sex work doesn't have the many dangers that it has for younger women. Older women have to compete with younger women by resorting to more risky sexual practices and by working for less, which means they have to find more clients. But for many older women, it's just not possible for them to get clients any more. Worse still, the sex industry is currently flooded with sex workers.
The second point is that commercial sex workers themselves need protection. No amount of grant money for small businesses is going to result in sex work disappearing off the face of the earth. On the contrary, if the process of enticing women away from sex work is successful, the price of commercial sex will increase. Unless governments can also banish poverty and unemployment, sex work will become an even more attractive option because the price it attracts will go up.
In Kenya, sex work itself is not against the law. Living on immoral earnings is against the law and some of the people who make most out of the earnings of sex workers include the police. They persecute sex workers and get a steady income from them and because police have so much power, most sex workers are too scared to be arrested or changed. They pay up, thinking that the alternative could be a lot worse.
And they are right. Sex workers face regular threats, such as beatings, arrests, rape and persecution. Although this is not always at the hands of the police, sex workers are not protected by the police or anyone else. As the aim of enticing sex workers away from commercial sex is partly to reduce the transmission of HIV, they Malawian government will also need to take measures to protect the rights of women, whether they are involved in sex work or not.
In Kenya, good education about reproductive, sexual health and even health in general are rare, especially for those who don't even receive a decent level of education of any kind. Health services, including reproductive and sexual health are under funded and effectively unavailable to most people, including those who are most in need.
Malawi and other countries with high HIV prevalence need to prioritize business training, low-interest loans and alternative sources of income for women who want to give up sex work, who are likely to be able to leave sex work and who will be able to make a better living by leaving sex work. Eradicating commercial sex completely will take a lot longer.
Those who will continue to have to resort to commercial sex work need the protection of the law, they need to be protected from the excesses of the police and other officials and they need to be protected from the many people and bodies who treat them like criminals when they are more likely to be victims of crime and corruption. If sex workers have access to social and health services and their rights are protected, this will go a long way towards reducing the spread of HIV.
Moralizing and finger wagging will continue to have little impact. The Kenyan plan to do a survey of commercial sex workers and other vulnerable people will be futile if people have no protection from the sort of prejudice and discrimination that has been whipped up by the moralizers and finger waggers. The current constitution makes no plans to provide such protection, so such changes are still a long way off.
The Malawian government is to be applauded but they and other governments need to deal with the human rights issues that are involved in commercial sex work, such as poverty, vulnerability, corruption, prejudice and extreme violence. It’s not commercial sex work per se that results in high rates of HIV transmission. It’s the living and working conditions faced by those who have to resort to commercial sex work.
But a serious problem with this approach on its own is that most small businesses fail. There is a limit to the proportion of a population that can depend on small businesses for their income. And if there are too many small businesses, even the ones that don't fail do badly.
Besides, it's not just sex workers and currently unemployed people that want access to microcredit, especially to set up small businesses. Many people are just about getting by, earning tiny amounts of money some of the time and turning up to work every day in the hope of earning enough to pay the next day's fare to work.
A lot of people you talk to, especially in professions such as beauty therapy and hairdressing, for example, say that their ambition is to either make or borrow enough money to set up a small business, a salon or something that is more dependable than an employer who may not even pay up the pittance that is owed.
And when people have access to credit, too many of them seem to go for the very businesses that have already flooded the market. Selling second hand clothes is something of a euphemism among sex workers because there are so many people doing it, a lot have to resort to commercial sex work to make enough to survive. Many sex workers that I have met are trained in hairdressing, beauty therapy or hotel and catering in one of the numerous colleges (or rather dubious quality) that you see in even the smallest towns.
Commercial sex workers, subsistence workers, homeless people, indeed, any poor or vulnerable people, face a number of problems. Not having enough money to survive is just one problem in what can be a long chain of circumstances. This substantial group of people is not exclusively female, but it is predominantly female.
Girls are less likely to go to school, less likely to have adequate school attendance, less likely to complete primary education, less likely to go on to or complete secondary education and in the end, they are unlikely to have enough education to compete for the small number of jobs that are open to females. Even those who do well at school are unlikely to get a job that pays a reasonable income and this is particularly true of females.
Many girls with too little education are probably poor and even if their family has some money, it is more likely to be spent on boys. So if a girl or woman decides to get some training or vocational education, finding enough money is one of the biggest problems. Commercial sex work is far better paid than any of the other options available. It would be interesting to know how many girls and women raised the money to go to hairdressing or beauty therapy school through sex work only to end up supplementing the meagre income they subsequently earn by returning to sex work.
There are two points that need to be highlighted here: firstly, older women, those in their thirties and forties, are in the most urgent need of finding alternatives to sex work. For them, sex work doesn't have the many dangers that it has for younger women. Older women have to compete with younger women by resorting to more risky sexual practices and by working for less, which means they have to find more clients. But for many older women, it's just not possible for them to get clients any more. Worse still, the sex industry is currently flooded with sex workers.
The second point is that commercial sex workers themselves need protection. No amount of grant money for small businesses is going to result in sex work disappearing off the face of the earth. On the contrary, if the process of enticing women away from sex work is successful, the price of commercial sex will increase. Unless governments can also banish poverty and unemployment, sex work will become an even more attractive option because the price it attracts will go up.
In Kenya, sex work itself is not against the law. Living on immoral earnings is against the law and some of the people who make most out of the earnings of sex workers include the police. They persecute sex workers and get a steady income from them and because police have so much power, most sex workers are too scared to be arrested or changed. They pay up, thinking that the alternative could be a lot worse.
And they are right. Sex workers face regular threats, such as beatings, arrests, rape and persecution. Although this is not always at the hands of the police, sex workers are not protected by the police or anyone else. As the aim of enticing sex workers away from commercial sex is partly to reduce the transmission of HIV, they Malawian government will also need to take measures to protect the rights of women, whether they are involved in sex work or not.
In Kenya, good education about reproductive, sexual health and even health in general are rare, especially for those who don't even receive a decent level of education of any kind. Health services, including reproductive and sexual health are under funded and effectively unavailable to most people, including those who are most in need.
Malawi and other countries with high HIV prevalence need to prioritize business training, low-interest loans and alternative sources of income for women who want to give up sex work, who are likely to be able to leave sex work and who will be able to make a better living by leaving sex work. Eradicating commercial sex completely will take a lot longer.
Those who will continue to have to resort to commercial sex work need the protection of the law, they need to be protected from the excesses of the police and other officials and they need to be protected from the many people and bodies who treat them like criminals when they are more likely to be victims of crime and corruption. If sex workers have access to social and health services and their rights are protected, this will go a long way towards reducing the spread of HIV.
Moralizing and finger wagging will continue to have little impact. The Kenyan plan to do a survey of commercial sex workers and other vulnerable people will be futile if people have no protection from the sort of prejudice and discrimination that has been whipped up by the moralizers and finger waggers. The current constitution makes no plans to provide such protection, so such changes are still a long way off.
The Malawian government is to be applauded but they and other governments need to deal with the human rights issues that are involved in commercial sex work, such as poverty, vulnerability, corruption, prejudice and extreme violence. It’s not commercial sex work per se that results in high rates of HIV transmission. It’s the living and working conditions faced by those who have to resort to commercial sex work.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
When Water is Scarce, Develop Hydroelectric Power Installations
It hardly comes as a surprise, but electricity prices in Kenya are increasing because of unreliable rainfall patterns. Unwisely, Kenya depends to a large extent on hydroelectric power. So when there is a prolonged drought power is in short supply. Expensive, inefficient and highly polluting emergency power is generated using fossil fuels to make up some of the shortfall.
Hydroelectric dams have been built in developing countries for many decades. This may have seemed like a good idea a long time ago, although it is more likely to have appealed to the Western engineering companies and others who reaped substantial profits from the building of these installations. But the multiple disadvantages of hydroelectric power are now widely recognized, disadvantages including inefficiency, expense and irreversible environmental damage.
For the moment, I'll leave aside the (albeit important) question of who is profiting from the production of emergency power over such a long period of time, which makes it seem less of an emergency and more like plain stupidity. But the cost increases for electricity, said to be about 60% over the past six months, are being passed on to hard pressed consumers. This is particularly galling in a country where only a minority of households have an electricity supply.
Already, well over half of Kenya's power is, ostensibly, generated by hydroelectric installations. This suggests a surprising overdependence in a country that has several viable alternatives. But there are now plans to build a new dam in Coastal Province (where most of the country's hydroelectric power is produced) to provide domestic water supplies, irrigation and electricity. Tens of millions of dollars will be spent on something that is unlikely to work very well and will have serious adverse impacts. The money is coming from the Chinese government and, while water infrastructure is badly needed, another huge dam hardly seems like the best approach given the history of such projects in developing countries.
Kenya could produce enough electricity for all its citizens using sustainable and relatively cheap sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal. There are good reasons for keeping water supply and irrigation separate from electricity generation because hydroelectric power is not just inadvisable, it's also quite unnecessary in Kenya. Touting the project as being a solution to water shortages doesn't explain why such a large amount of money is being spent on it. We are not told what the Chinese government is getting in return. Oil and other natural resources, probably.
Hydroelectric dams have been built in developing countries for many decades. This may have seemed like a good idea a long time ago, although it is more likely to have appealed to the Western engineering companies and others who reaped substantial profits from the building of these installations. But the multiple disadvantages of hydroelectric power are now widely recognized, disadvantages including inefficiency, expense and irreversible environmental damage.
For the moment, I'll leave aside the (albeit important) question of who is profiting from the production of emergency power over such a long period of time, which makes it seem less of an emergency and more like plain stupidity. But the cost increases for electricity, said to be about 60% over the past six months, are being passed on to hard pressed consumers. This is particularly galling in a country where only a minority of households have an electricity supply.
Already, well over half of Kenya's power is, ostensibly, generated by hydroelectric installations. This suggests a surprising overdependence in a country that has several viable alternatives. But there are now plans to build a new dam in Coastal Province (where most of the country's hydroelectric power is produced) to provide domestic water supplies, irrigation and electricity. Tens of millions of dollars will be spent on something that is unlikely to work very well and will have serious adverse impacts. The money is coming from the Chinese government and, while water infrastructure is badly needed, another huge dam hardly seems like the best approach given the history of such projects in developing countries.
Kenya could produce enough electricity for all its citizens using sustainable and relatively cheap sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal. There are good reasons for keeping water supply and irrigation separate from electricity generation because hydroelectric power is not just inadvisable, it's also quite unnecessary in Kenya. Touting the project as being a solution to water shortages doesn't explain why such a large amount of money is being spent on it. We are not told what the Chinese government is getting in return. Oil and other natural resources, probably.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Deciding Who Gets to Eat and Who Gets to Starve
A curious feature of some of the big famines in history is that the countries experiencing the famine were not necessarily short of food. Likely as not, the majority of people were very poor and did not have the money to buy food, but food was being produced and exported.
Many millions of people in a number of developing countries currently face food shortages, malnutrition and probably famine at a time when the world is producing record crops. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 2008 saw the highest recorded cereal crop production figure ever. It is predicted that 2009 will see the second highest figure.
Wikipedia is a great source of information but their bald statement that "[f]amine is caused by a human overpopulation relative to the available food supply" is in need of qualification. It is estimated that as many as 10 million Kenyans face serious food shortages, but this is not clearly because the country is overpopulated. There are several other significant pressures on food production and access to food.
For example, many people are extremely poor, have always been poor and have little prospect of ever becoming less poor. Food prices have been driven up over the past few years by market speculation and by the use of productive land for growing biofuels. So poorer people, who could barely afford enough food before these trends began, are now facing starvation.
Other pressures include droughts, often followed by serious floods, which result in poor harvests and destroy large tracts of arable land. There was also widespread unrest in Kenya in 2008 and people abandoned their land. A number of these internally displaced persons (IDP; the Kenyan government is not keen on releasing figures for just how many are still displaced) now have little means to feed themselves and no chance of returning to where they came from. And the majority of people have only a tenuous hold on land, renting it from unscrupulous landlords, who can treat tenants as they wish and sell their land at the drop of a hat.
In addition to growing biofuels in Kenya, there are other trends that result in less land being used for affordable food. Land is bought up by natural resource prospectors, such as those in search of oil around Isiolo and those in search of gold in the Mara. This land will not be used to benefit any Kenyans and certainly won't be used to grow food. And much of Kenya's land is used for non food crops or for food products intended for export, such as coffee, tea, flowers, fruit and vegetables. Controversially, a lot of land comprises national parklands, preserved for use by those who can afford to visit it. Most can't.
Despite all these pressures, there is a lot of food being produced in Kenya for export and a lot of arable land available for food production. The reasons people face food shortages and poor nutrition are the same as they have always been: widespread poverty and increasing levels of impoverishment along with rising food prices that mean the poorest will lose out.
When things get really bad and people are dying of starvation, maybe other countries will start shipping in relief food, but this will not improve food security in Kenya. Food security refers to access to food, as well as its production. As with other countries that experienced famines throughout history, resilience will continue to be low, there will be widespread disease, many people will have abandoned rural areas and moved to cities; there will be no remaining seed to grow the next season's crops, no fertilizer, no chance of resisting whatever new pressures arise.
The more I read about famine, the more it seems like a process whereby the rich systematically deny food to the poor in order to increase their profits. But that couldn't be correct, could it?
Many millions of people in a number of developing countries currently face food shortages, malnutrition and probably famine at a time when the world is producing record crops. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 2008 saw the highest recorded cereal crop production figure ever. It is predicted that 2009 will see the second highest figure.
Wikipedia is a great source of information but their bald statement that "[f]amine is caused by a human overpopulation relative to the available food supply" is in need of qualification. It is estimated that as many as 10 million Kenyans face serious food shortages, but this is not clearly because the country is overpopulated. There are several other significant pressures on food production and access to food.
For example, many people are extremely poor, have always been poor and have little prospect of ever becoming less poor. Food prices have been driven up over the past few years by market speculation and by the use of productive land for growing biofuels. So poorer people, who could barely afford enough food before these trends began, are now facing starvation.
Other pressures include droughts, often followed by serious floods, which result in poor harvests and destroy large tracts of arable land. There was also widespread unrest in Kenya in 2008 and people abandoned their land. A number of these internally displaced persons (IDP; the Kenyan government is not keen on releasing figures for just how many are still displaced) now have little means to feed themselves and no chance of returning to where they came from. And the majority of people have only a tenuous hold on land, renting it from unscrupulous landlords, who can treat tenants as they wish and sell their land at the drop of a hat.
In addition to growing biofuels in Kenya, there are other trends that result in less land being used for affordable food. Land is bought up by natural resource prospectors, such as those in search of oil around Isiolo and those in search of gold in the Mara. This land will not be used to benefit any Kenyans and certainly won't be used to grow food. And much of Kenya's land is used for non food crops or for food products intended for export, such as coffee, tea, flowers, fruit and vegetables. Controversially, a lot of land comprises national parklands, preserved for use by those who can afford to visit it. Most can't.
Despite all these pressures, there is a lot of food being produced in Kenya for export and a lot of arable land available for food production. The reasons people face food shortages and poor nutrition are the same as they have always been: widespread poverty and increasing levels of impoverishment along with rising food prices that mean the poorest will lose out.
When things get really bad and people are dying of starvation, maybe other countries will start shipping in relief food, but this will not improve food security in Kenya. Food security refers to access to food, as well as its production. As with other countries that experienced famines throughout history, resilience will continue to be low, there will be widespread disease, many people will have abandoned rural areas and moved to cities; there will be no remaining seed to grow the next season's crops, no fertilizer, no chance of resisting whatever new pressures arise.
The more I read about famine, the more it seems like a process whereby the rich systematically deny food to the poor in order to increase their profits. But that couldn't be correct, could it?
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