International Conference on India's Investment in Agriculture in Africa

sudha tiwari
tiwari.sudha.81@gmail.com

International Conference on India's Investment in Agriculture in Africa
University of Mumbai, on 10-11 January 2011.*

*South- South Cooperation*
*India**, Africa and Food Security: Between the Summits*

Abstracts of about 500 words and a CV of two pages with contact details
should be sent as a single word file to: *conferenceafrica@gmail.com*

*Funding*: Local hospitality will be provided to all the participants for
the duration of the conference. Limited amount of travel grants will be made
available on request.

*Important dates*
Submission of abstracts - 15 October 2010
Notification of acceptance- 17 October 2010
Submission of completed papers – 10 December 2010
All queries should be addressed to Ms. Sudha Tiwari, Research Investigator,
at: *conferenceafrica@gmail.com*

*Overview and Topics*
In his closing remarks during India-Africa Summit in April 2008, the
President of United Republic of Tanzania and Chairperson of the African
Union Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete said one of the major concerns for Africa is
food security and urged India to invest in capacity building in the
agricultural sector. He stated, “Currently Africa's agriculture is peasant
agriculture, traditional, plagued with low levels of production. If we are
able to increase productivity in African agriculture, Africa would not only
be able to feed itself, but have huge surpluses to sell to the world. India
has the technology and the skills, which if made available to Africa;
certainly it will help implement the African Green Revolution” (India-
Africa Summit, 2008).

The widening levels of inequality and poverty globally, coupled with sharp
increases in the prices of agricultural products have aggravated the
challenges of food security. Moreover, the diversion of land for the
production of fuels (bio-fuel) in the face of environmental degradation as a
result of climate change has aggravated the food crisis The recent
debilitating economic slowdown has adversely impacted the situation on the
African continent that is faced with a largely unsuccessful approach to
agricultural production and food security and thus heavily reliant on
imports and aid to meet its food requirements.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) has identified
agriculture as a ‘sustainable solution to hunger and poverty in Africa’ and
emphasized the role of agriculture as an ‘engine of growth.’ African
countries are thereby seeking to become self sufficient in food grain
production by 2015. The continent has vast stretches of cultivable lands
that can collectively cater to local and global demands. Indian engagement
in Africa is significant in this context, particularly in the area of
capacity building of the agricultural sector in Africa. The Indian green
revolution in 1960s made her a food-surplus country and can be adapted on
the continent. Given its good track record India can provide low cost
appropriate technology to increase agricultural productivity for food and
raw materials in Africa.

The Indian engagement for capacity building in the agriculture and related
sectors is perceptible. The 2008 India-Africa summit facilitated this
engagement at multi- levels- government to government, public-private
partnerships and at the level of civil society and academia. In the
aftermath of the summit, India has become a key source of financing and
concessional lines of credit for agricultural projects in Africa. Instance
may be cited of Tanzania that received a line of credit of US $40 million
for financing the export of agricultural equipments in 2008-2009. Building
close institutional links and developing a process to share the knowledge in
agro-processing and related sectors will also help add value to agricultural
products.

While analyzing the current scenario prospects of closer interactions and
related challenges too need to be looked at. How can we strengthen genuine
attempts to promote South-South Cooperation and avoid neo-colonial
maneuvers for exploiting African resources for India’s own benefits? How
can we strengthen a new and different cooperation model for South-South
cooperation and avoid repeating the same mistakes of traditional
cooperation?

The interregnum period between the 2008 India-Africa Summit and forthcoming
2011 Summit provides us with an opportunity to deliberate on all these
issues.

Within this broad remit we expect papers that will explore key areas related
to Indian engagement in African agricultural and related sectors. The themes
include:

- Indian private companies (case studies)
- Exim Bank’s engagement
- Indian public sector engagement
- Food security, democracy and good governance
- Role of civil society and media
- Role of regional organizations
- Food security and gender
- Food security and conflict
- Importing Green Revolution
- Bio-fuels and Food security
- Need for a legal framework
- Capacity building and technology transfer
- India-Africa South-South Cooperation framework

The conference will be of an interdisciplinary nature.
Empirical case studies are particularly welcome.

*Conference coordinator*
Renu Modi (Director), Centre for African Studies
University of Mumbai, India

Read more...

Lamu Journal: Future Kenya Port Threatens Lamu's Livelihood

LAMU, Kenya — The evening call to prayer here is like a summons, for everyone on the island. As the sun dives toward the ocean, the Muslim residents stream into the mosques, little boys wearing impossibly bright white skullcaps, their mothers in diaphanous, black head-to-toe gowns. The last of the bikini-clad tourists pick themselves up from the beach, dust off the powdery sand and head back to the hotel for a drink.

Lamu is one of the last outposts of pure Swahili culture.

Lamu has been like this for decades, a historic seafaring place where modernity has been gracefully folded into traditional culture without completely spoiling it. The snaky alleyways of the island’s old town (which the United Nations recognizes as a World Heritage site), the omnipresent smells of donkey dung and sweetly rotting fruit and the crescent-sailed dhows plying the sea make the island feel like a glass museum case — one with a living culture inside.

But all that may be about to change.

To the dismay of many residents and tourists, the Kenyan government is planning to build the biggest port in East Africa here. It is an ambitious, multibillion-dollar project that could transform trade in this region and knit together Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, eastern Congo and southern Sudan as never before.

Pipelines, rail lines, highways, airports, an oil refinery and extra-deep berths for 21st-century supertankers are all in the blueprints, though it is hard to imagine such infrastructure rising up along this long-neglected stretch of the Kenyan coast, dotted by crumbling ruins and impenetrable mangrove swamps.

The Chinese government, one of the most aggressive investors in Africa, is backing the project and has already begun feasibility studies.

“This is real,” said Chirau Ali Mwakwere, Kenya’s transport minister. “We’ve made tremendous strides toward the realization of what you might call a dream.”

Not a historian’s dream, however.

Lamu is one the last outposts of pure Swahili culture, a throwback to the days of cannons, slaves, spices and sultans who were a mix of Arab and African blood and who ruled the East African coast for hundreds of years. Because it is a small island, reachable only by a short airstrip or a very bumpy road and a ferry, it has been spared the big hotels and development that have swept the port city of Mombasa, Zanzibar and other tourist hotspots in the region.

People here say they are not especially well suited for the mechanized world. There was only one car on the island until recently (the district commissioner’s); now there are just 10. Most things are carried by donkeys, who plod through the alleyways or along the beach with heavy loads and blank, accommodating eyes. This is why many of Lamu’s elders say they think that the port will bring more trouble than good.

“People in the street think they will get jobs,” said Mohamed Athman, who leads a small marine preservation group. “What jobs? We don’t have drivers or crane operators.”

The biggest worry is the environment. Fishing is a lifeline for many of Lamu district’s 85,000 people, and the Kenyan government does not have the greatest record of preserving its natural resources, with raw sewage dumped into Lake Victoria and countless trees chopped down in the Rift Valley. Lamu fishermen fear that the planned dredging of the port will ruin fish breeding grounds.

“They will break the rocks where the fish hide,” said one angler, Mohamed Shabwana. “They will destroy everything.”

Omar Mzee, a former member of Parliament from Lamu, worries about pollution from the port and possible oil spills.

“This is going to be a total mess,” Mr. Mzee said. “The government is thinking of the national G.D.P. This will not benefit Lamu. It never has.”

Lamu has been marginalized for decades, Mr. Mzee said, kept down because the people here are Muslim and coastal, while Kenya, since its independence in 1963, has been ruled by Christian politicians from the highlands. There are few roads out here and few schools. The way residents describe it, Lamu was left to bake in tropical obscurity until tourists started flocking here in substantial numbers in the 1990s, precisely because the area was so underdeveloped and environmentally and culturally pristine. The villages around the island are studies in poverty. There is no electricity and no running water. The houses are built from mud, sticks and string. Malaria is rampant. Many of the children sitting idle in their homes or clutching saggy soccer balls on the beach have their feet chewed up by chigoes, the tiny fleas that lay eggs under people’s toenails.

“The government doesn’t take us seriously,” Mr. Mzee said.

The government says that in this case, it does not have much of a choice. Kenya’s growing economy desperately needs a bigger port, and Mombasa, the current one, cannot be expanded because of natural limitations on the harbor.

Ever since a Swiss firm in the 1970s identified the Lamu area as the best spot in Kenya for a new port, because it is deep and sheltered by a string of islands, the Kenyan government has been trying to raise the money. Now the geopolitics of the region seem to be working in its favor.

Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are all landlocked, with growing economies, and interested in reinvigorating the East African Community. At the same time, southern Sudan is gearing up for independence from northern Sudan in 2011, and southern Sudan’s capital, Juba, is far closer to the Kenyan coast than it is to Sudan’s main port on the Red Sea.

“The Kenya side has a lot of reasons,” said a Chinese diplomat in Kenya who asked to be identified simply as Mr. Liu. “The relevant Chinese companies are now looking into this.”

The proposed site for the port is a few miles away from Lamu island on a desolate stretch of the mainland. But residents of Lamu town fear that the blast radius of the port — the crime, the pollution and the overall seediness — will reach them. Kenyan government officials admit, when pressed, that Lamu and its traditional Muslim culture will be affected.

“Of course it will change,” said Mahmoud Hassan Ali, a port official. “Lifestyle will change and whatever. But if you have faith, you have faith, my friend.”

Read more...

Dr. Amin Alhassan: Giving Is An Act of Self Interest

Yes, yes and yes. Dr Alhassan lays it DOWN in this piece about the dangers and disadvantages of state dependence on foreign aid. Best of all, it is done in a way that is accessible and direct. The good doctor has given The Azanian Sea to reproduce a portion of her article, but do yourself a favor and read the whole thing, available in PDF format here. I hope this will help those of us in the West who are tempted to overcongratulate ourselves for the work we do in Africa. The point is not so much that your project, your spring break trip, or your 'mission' to Africa is 'bad.' The point is that its rarely as altruistic as you would like it to be. What makes it possible for so many 'well meaning Westerners' to go to Africa to teach, build wells, do the Peace Corps, etc. is the continuing dependence of African states on international aid.

excerpt from "Telescopic Philanthropy, Emancipation and Development Communication Theory" by Amin Alhassan

From Charles Dickens to Present
“Telescopic philanthropy”, as a phrase, was first used by Charles Dickens in his novel Bleak House some 150 years ago to poke fun at and critique what was then an English fascination and obsession with designing development projects to save Africa and Africans from poverty, and to usher them into a modern economy of production. In the Dickensian narrative, the story is told of a Mrs. Jellyby, a friend of John Jarndyce, who neglects her house and children and is obsessed with projects designed to save African in the Congo from poverty by teaching them how to grow coffee to enable them to earn an income. In retrospect, it is clear that what Dickens was describing was the genesis of what is now a global industry of state, non-governmental charities and celebrity acts of philanthropy to save Africa from itself. Dickens was noted for his journalism and the use of the novel as a means of social critique. His discussion of telescopic philanthropy is instructive because it allows us to understand the practice of international development as pre-dating the post-World War II Truman era. It also allows us to understand how international development framed as charitable interventions that northern developed countries do to global southern countries as acts that are tied to the domestic power politics of the so-called benefactor countries.

It is against this backdrop that I am motivated to argue that the problem with Africa is as much a problem of development as it is the troubling impact of international aid on the continent’s self-initiative. Evidently what I am aiming to argue is not about a global divide of technological haves and technological have-nots. The global divide that interests me is the global divide of benefactors and beneficiaries, that between donors and beggars, between philanthropist and objects of charity. The institution that is partly responsible for this global divide is the global media. As we have seen from Dickens, the attempt to save Africa is not new. Indeed, Susan Thorne’s (1999) provocative interpretation of 19th Century middle class formation in Victorian and Edwardian Britain makes the case that saving the heathens in Africa was always preferred to saving the heathens at home, and that this particular fascination with the distant other had a definite imperial logic. It is a logic that is still with us today....

If we remind ourselves that the original idea of international development assistance that the US invented was not about development of the Global South, but about developing a global instrument of soft power and containment (Samarajiwa 1987, Escobar 1995), then the epistemic commitment of development communication theory ought to question the language of help that characterizes international development. Much of the development communication literature of the past 60 years has been on how to become an effective handmaiden of this dubious re-invention of international diplomacy called international development (See Waisbord 2000 for a comprehensive statement of various theoretical, methodological and strategic commitments in the field).

Development communication theory as an area of inquiry needs to take into account the price the so-called poor pay when they get a clinic built, pipe-borne water provided or a school built through the altruism of the philanthropist, the gift giver, or the new missionary worker of international development. I want to use a recent EU decision to illustrate this point. In July 2008, the BBC reported that the European Commission had agreed to use one billion euros of unspent European farm subsidies to aid African farmers (BBC 2008). The BBC report, which showed a picture of an African farmer labouring a rice field, went on to quote European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso as saying “The impact of high food prices is particularly severe for the world’s poorest populations” and adds that without the EU’s assistance, the UN’s goal to reduce global poverty will fail. This European act of altruism, upon a second look, is not only a phantom one, but a Trojan Horse that is meant to purchase a highly needed strategic advantage for the EU in a growing global tide against EU and North American agricultural subsidies and how they negatively impact on farmers in the Global South. The price Africa will pay for getting the “spare change” of one billion euro dropped in its begging bowl is that it will lose a strong standing in making a case against the EU for subsidizing its farmers so that they can unfairly compete with Africans in a global food market. What the EU’s charitable gesture does against the discourse of fair trade and the fundamental illogicality of preaching free trade in Africa while maintaining farm subsidies in Europe is far more significant that any apparent altruism it might suppose. Here then is the point about giving being an act of self-interest.

Read more...

Muslims cautioned over guide to Tanzanian elections (The Citizen)

Muslims cautioned over document on elections
Minister says guidelines to be released on Friday should not cause disharmony

By Paul Dotto, Dar and Patty Magubira, Mwanza

The Government yesterday cautioned Muslim leaders against issuing a document similar to the controversial Catholic booklet containing guidelines for voters on how to choose leaders in next year's General Election.

The State Minister in the Prime Minister's Office (Policy, Co-ordination and parliamentary Affairs), Mr Philip Marmo, advised the religious leaders to avoid anything that could create disharmony in the country. He cited the Catholic Church document, which he said had sparked heated exchanges among politicians, professionals and even ordinary citizens.

But speaking in Mwanza during a requiem Mass for Bishop Anthony Mayalla, which was also attended by President Jakaya Kikwete (see separate story Page 3), top Catholic Church leader Polycarp Cardinal Pengo told the Government not to meddle in religious affairs by censoring evangelical circulars.

Cardinal Pengo was apparently responding to the recent criticism by some CCM and government officials of the Roman Catholic Church circular, which guides its followers on how to choose good leaders in the civic poll later in the year, and in next year�General Election.

Minister Marmo was reacting to the plan by leaders from the Supreme Council of Islamic Organisations and Institutions in Tanzania (Shura ya Maimamu), who have prepared a document called 'Mwongozo', which they say is intended to guide followers on important social and political issues ahead of October's civic vote and next year'selections.

However, the minister said the Government respects the freedoms of expression and worship enshrined in the Constitution.

"Religious leaders should keenly weigh and consider the possible effects before launching such documents. But I have no doubt that theirs will adhere to those principles and will not break any laws," he said.

"We believe that groups, which have been preparing directives as we approach the elections do so with good intentions of offering civic education. We don't expect them to dwell on politics and direct people on who to vote for, as this would be contrary to the Constitution," he added.

The secretary general of the Supreme Council of Islamic Organisations and Institutions in Tanzania, Sheikh Ramadhan Sanze, announced that their document on the forthcoming elections was ready and would be launched tomorrow at Mnazi Mmoja grounds in Dar es Salaam.

He said they had decided to launch it after the Government failed to take action following the release of the Catholic Church�s pastoral letter on civic rights.

Sheikh Sanze added: "We don't have any problem with the Church. Our target is the Government, which failed to respond to their document."

However, the clergyman explained that their preparations started long before the Catholics issued their pastoral letter and was, therefore, not necessarily a reaction to it.

"Even in 2005, we released similar civic education guidelines. However, what we are going to launch will now incorporate a reaction to the church document," he said.

The Shura ya Maimamu secretary general, Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda, told The Citizen that more than 100 Imams from across the Mainland regions had put together a collective stand on the coming elections.

"We are not in the position to divulge the contents of the document at this point. But the main focus is on health, education, the economy, freedom of expression, and democracy," Sheikh Ponda said.

Ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi stalwart Kingunge Ngombale-Mwiru, who recently added fuel to the controversy on the Catholic document by asking the Church in his contribution in Parliament in Dodoma to consider withdrawing it, arguing that it posed a threat to country, declined to comment on the Muslim leaders' initiative.

When reached for comment, the veteran politician and long-serving former Cabinet minister, posed:"Why do you ask me about this? I have no comment."

Another ruling party MP, who is also on record as having strongly opposed the Church manual, Mr Manju Msambya, of Kigoma South, also declined to comment.

Speaking in Mwanza, Cardinal Pengo said the Government's attempt to censor the Church over the document was tantamount to trying to dictate to clerics how to write their evangelical circulars.

He directed Roman Catholic bishops around the country to stop issuing such circulars if the government criticism persisted.

Cardinal Pengo denouncing the Government criticism, cited Poland's past communist government, which tried to gag religious leaders, to no avail.

"I do not want to provoke anyone by saying this, but I want to know if Tanzania today is far from Poland�s communist government, and if the country is not heading in the same direction by trying to censor clerics' circulars," he said.

This, the cardinal said, was tantamount to the government to putting itself in God's shoes "as was the case with Poland�s communist leadership".

Our sister paper, the Sunday Citizen, exclusively broke the news in June that the Catholic Church issued an elaborate document, which was being circulated to its followers around the country to educate them on the qualities to look for when voting for leaders in next year's elections.


Since then, debate has been raging countrywide, with some critics, arguing that politicians are alarmed because the Catholic booklet also calls for electoral reforms before the elections.

The Church has rejected calls by politicians to withdraw the document, arguing that those opposed to it are either supporters of the mega corruption scandals in high places or beneficiaries.

However, some analysts have warned that the acrimonious debate on the Catholic civic education blueprint might lead to divisions along religious lines if not well handled.

Read more...