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ASIAN SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT:
CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY IN AFRICA
AND THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Indian Science Congress on Sustainable Food Security
and Rural Prosperity
Hyderabad, India, 5 January 2006
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is a great honour for me to discuss today, in the historical
city of Hyderabad, the challenges and opportunities of a new strategic
partnership between developing countries and, in particular, Asia
and Africa, at the Indian Science Congress on Sustainable Food Security
and Rural Prosperity.
Mutual support among developing countries has a long and honourable
tradition. A notable example is the contribution made by civil rights
movements in South Africa to the struggles of the Indian National
Congress party.
It is precisely to South Africa that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
decided to go to practice law upon completion of his studies in
Britain in 1891. While in South Africa, Gandhi developed the satyagraha
– a new non-violent way to redress wrongs - which he then transferred
to India upon his return in 1914 and thus led the country to freedom
and independence from colonial rule.
This early form of South-South knowledge transfer paved the way
for other forms of intellectual and political collaboration and
exchange in the years to come. The first expression of political
solidarity among developing countries at global level was the Asia-Africa
Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 under the leadership
of another great Indian statesman - Jawaharlal Nehru – along
with other notable figures of the time, such as Indonesian Prime
Minister Soekarno. Intra-South cooperation was one of the objectives
adopted at Bandung. Happily, this objective still lives on today,
in what has come to be known as "The Bandung Spirit".
The Non-Aligned Movement gave further impetus to the trend towards
cooperation among countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America by
establishing the South Commission in 1987. This time the leadership
was provided from Africa, in the person of Julius Nyerere, former
President of Tanzania, who became the Commission’s first Chairman.
The South Commission consisted of distinguished individuals from
the South including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had different
backgrounds and political persuasions, but who shared a common commitment
to work for the benefit of the South as a whole.
It is against this background that FAO has been promoting a South-South
Cooperation Programme since 1996, which focuses specifically on
achieving sustainable food security. The framework within which
FAO has been supporting and encouraging South-South Cooperation
is its Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS), launched in 1994
to reduce hunger and malnutrition sustainably.
The SPFS began by introducing small-scale projects that focused
mainly on demonstrating to farmers in pilot sites the benefits of
simple, low-cost changes in technologies. Subsequently, the geographic
coverage of SPFS activities was expanded. At present, the programme
is being implemented in 105 countries in the world.
To assist in the implementation of the SPFS and successor national
programmes for food security (NPFS) that are currently emerging,
developing countries with relevant expertise have been offered the
opportunity to provide their own experts and technicians to work
in host countries through tripartite South-South Cooperation agreements
arranged by FAO. As at October 2005, 625 South-South Cooperation
experts and technicians were working with farmers and fisher folk
in various countries.
FAO’s Cooperation Programme is pioneering a novel form of technical
cooperation that uses South-South experts to provide practical assistance
in villages and rural communities for the introduction of easily
adaptable innovations and appropriate technologies that have already
been proven in one part of the developing world.
Some of the more salient characteristics of South-South Cooperation
agreements which make them so attractive are that:
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They facilitate partnership among willing countries having
special relationship of historical, cultural and geopolitical
nature or other factors;
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They involve fielding of a critical mass of specialized technicians
and experts, in principle at least 100 per country, to induce
rapid change within a finite period, usually two to three
years;
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Technicians live and work directly with local communities
and farmers where they promote innovations by demonstration
and training;
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Direct costs are low - US$ 7,200 for technicians and US$ 12,000
for experts per year plus international travel and a small
installation allowance of US$ 300 for each person fielded.
The other costs are shared between the three parties, namely,
the cooperating country, the recipient country (or a donor),
and FAO (or a donor).
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Through its staff at Headquarters, and in its representations in member
countries, FAO facilitates the negotiation and implementation of agreements,
including technical clearances, thus relieving both cooperating and
host countries of much of the administrative burden.
Most South-South technicians and experts currently working in the
field come from Asia, but an increasing number is now coming from
Africa and Latin America.
To date, thirty-six South-South Cooperation agreements have been
signed and thirteen cooperating countries have provided experts.
These agreements envisage the fielding of up to 2500 South-South
technicians and experts, but the number actually fielded lags far
behind. The main reason for this is resource constraints in the
recipient countries which have prevented them from meeting their
obligations under the signed agreements.
The demand for additional South-South expertise is growing, especially
in Africa, but also in Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the
Caribbean. For a modest additional investment, advanced developing
countries could, within their bilateral cooperation policy priorities,
give an important boost to these efforts by covering the full costs
of fielding their experts, as well as complementary small equipment
and inputs for the technologies to be introduced. This modification
in the funding mechanisms for the FAO South-South Cooperation initiative
would permit many more recipient countries to obtain, in a sustainable
way, large numbers of technicians and experts from other south countries
to support their national food security programmes on a meaningful
scale. Thus new partnership would require a due recognition of the
need for a special and differential treatment for Least Developed
Countries (LDCs), Land Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs), Low
Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDCs) and Small Island Developing
States (SIDS), in contrast with emerging, middle income and oil
exporting countries.
It should also take into consideration the specific arrangements
of international, financial and technical assistance of advanced
developing countries, with particular reference to their priorities,
and ongoing bilateral cooperation.
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen
Today large numbers of small-scale farmers in developing countries
cannot secure their livelihoods nor, at times, their very survival,
without technological innovation and agricultural intensification
on the very small plots that they cultivate. Indian science and
agriculture have much to teach, as your farmers have practiced intensive
agriculture on very small plots of land for centuries.
Because the scale of current efforts is not yet sufficient to make
a measurable difference, millions of Africans remain impoverished
and hungry, and food insecurity is more widespread in sub-Saharan
Africa than anywhere else in the world.
It is striking to note that the largest proportion of undernourished
is in Sub-Saharan Africa where it represents 33 percent of the total
population. In Asia, this same proportion is of 16 percent,
whereas the actual number of undernourished in Asia is more than
double (519 million) that of Sub-Saharan Africa (203 million).
Overall, per capita food production in Asia has nearly doubled between
1970 and 2004, while declining nearly 20 percent in Sub-Saharan
Africa, during the same period.
On the other hand, among the developing regions, Latin America and
the Caribbean is the only region that has gradually reduced the
prevalence of hunger over the years, from 13 percent in the total
population in 1990-1992 to 10 percent in 2000-2002. Notwithstanding
this good progress, the region still remains characterized by the
greatest inequalities in the food security of population.
The role of agriculture in improving these trends will be crucial.
In the short term, focus will have to be placed on finding solutions
which are largely within the reach of Africa’s small-scale
farmers, including water harvesting and small-scale irrigation,
production intensification and diversification, including the development
of fisheries and aquaculture.
There is also an insignificant use of modern inputs in Africa, with
only 22 kg of fertilizer applied to each hectare of arable
land compared to 144 kg in Asia. The level is even lower in
sub-Saharan Africa, which uses 10 kg per hectare.
Africa uses only 4 percent of its renewable water reserves for irrigation
as compared to 17 percent in Asia. As a consequence, only 7 percent
of Africa's arable land is irrigated against 37 percent in
Asia.
The serious shortage of rural infrastructure (rural roads, storage,
processing and transport facilities and markets) place present-day
Africa on a par with India in the 1950s.
The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)
is the instrument developed in 2002 by the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD), with FAO support, to respond to these challenges
and revitalize African agriculture. FAO, at the request of the African
countries, has supported their experts to prepare 51 National
Medium Term Investment Programmes and 200 Bankable Investment
Project Profiles for a value of US$ 7.6 billion. The work
will be completed for all of them by end of July 2006.
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
At the World Food Summit: five years later, in 2002, 180 Heads
of State and Government or their representatives reaffirmed their
commitment to halve the number of undernourished people in the world
by 2015. This commitment is echoed in the first of the Millennium
Development Goals.
As I pointed out in my Foreword to the 2005 edition of The State
of Food Insecurity in the World, only ten years remain before
the 2015 deadline. This target can still be reached, but only if
we redouble our efforts and focus them in locations and on actions
where they can make a concrete and significant difference in a relatively
short time. Therefore a more focused strategic approach is needed.
FAO has been strengthening the Special Programme on Food Security
in the 105 countries through an expansion to cover all agro-ecological
zones. It has now embarked upon a programme of assisting requesting
member countries and regional economic integration organizations
to formulate national and regional programmes for food security
(NPFS and RPFS) covering the full range of policies, investments,
expertise and actions needed to achieve the WFS and MDG target.
Since 2002, 12 NPFS have become operational, 24 NPFS have been
either formulated, under formulation or ready to be formulated.
Also, 3 regional programmes for food security (RPFS) are operational
and 17 have been formulated.
Today, the NPFS offers a broad overall policy framework for achieving
the first Millennium Goal, including components for productivity
improvement, market performance, sustainable rural livelihoods,
nutrition and food quality, rural financing, rural infrastructure,
construction and maintenance, and capacity-building for small farmers,
rural communities, extension workers and local government officers.
At the regional level, programmes include trade negotiations, sanitary
and phytosanitary measures, quarantines and control of transboundary
pests and diseases, harmonization of legislation and regulations
in the area of food quality and safety standards, market information
and early warning, research coordination and integration.
The technical areas for which there is the most current demand for
South-South experts include, inter alia: water control; crop intensification;
diversification of production systems into short cycle animals,
aquaculture and fish but also rural infrastructure.
Based on past experience, it is assumed that around 8000 technicians
and 800 experts will be required during the period 2006-2010,
- 4500 for Africa, 1500 for Asia and the Pacific, 1200 for Latin
America and the Caribbean and 800 for the Near East. Providing this
level of expertise would significantly strengthen the role of South-South
Cooperation in support to NPFS and RPFS, in terms of both numbers
and technical coverage. To ensure the effectiveness of a programme
of this magnitude, FAO plans to make provisions for the identification
of South-South Cooperation requirements during NPFS formulation,
for more systematic in-country language training for cooperants,
and for the inclusion of voluntary contributions to cover the costs
of inputs and equipment for programmed activities.
The combination of expertise from large countries with financial
resources from others having positive balance of trade, like OPEC
members, would strengthen the feasibility of this far reaching vision
of solidarity.
In the year 2002, FAO estimated incremental public investment requirements
for agriculture and rural development to meet Millennium and World
Food Summit goals to be approximately 19 billion US dollars
per year for the world as a whole. But in recent decades, agriculture
and rural development have lost ground on the development agenda.
Over the past 20 years, resources for these sectors have declined
by more than 50 percent. External assistance to agriculture in Sub-Saharan
Africa plummeted from a peak of US$ 43 per agricultural worker
in 1982 to US$ 9 per worker in 1994. In Latin America and the
Caribbean this assistance also plummeted from US$ 98 per agricultural
worker in 1983 to US$ 29 per worker in 2002; and at present,
external assistance to agriculture in the Asia and the Pacific region
and in the Near East and North Africa region are today US$ 4
and US$ 9 per worker, respectively. But this trend is now beginning
to change.
The Monterrey Conference called for doubling Official Development
Assistance by 2015 and, most recently, the G-8 at the Gleneagles
Summit made commitments for debt cancellation and for providing
new funds for increased investments in the developing world, in
particular in Africa. I hope that this time the deeds will match
the words and promises.
But Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies & Gentlemen,
Fifty years after Bandung, it is only fitting that the special bond
between Asia and Africa be reaffirmed through a new commitment to
sharing of scientific ideas, expertise and factors of production
between the two continents as the basis for enhanced cooperation
among developing countries. The first Bandung summit was concerned
by the fact that, even after winning political independence, the
developing countries were still facing many forms of control and
domination, especially in economic spheres. The Asian-African Summit
convened in Jakarta and Bandung in April 2005 for the 50th anniversary
celebrations. At this Summit, 89 Asian and African Heads of
State and envoys adopted the Declaration on the New Asian-African
Strategic Partnership (NAASP). It focused on three areas of cooperation
between the two continents, namely, political solidarity, economic
cooperation and socio-cultural relations, and emphasized the need
to promote practical cooperation in a number of areas, including
agriculture.
During my official visit to India in September 2005, I proposed
to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Minister of Agriculture
Sharad Pawar a strategic alliance between India, China and FAO supported
by other committed countries to eradicate hunger in the world within
the next 10 years. It is not simply a dream, although the greatest
achievements of mankind started with dreams. It is a possible, feasible
and operational objective if we have the vision and the will to
do what it takes. What it takes cannot be impossible if two countries
of more than 2 billion people with a GDP growth of more than
8 percent join forces with a sixty years experienced international
organization of around 190 member states, in particular if
we build strong ties with other developing countries OPEC States
and committed developed countries to achieve the ethical goal of
providing the basic human right to food to 852 million persons
around the world.
I am most encouraged by the positive reaction of leaders of India
and China to my proposal which is now being translated into a concrete
realistic and phased programme of action.
Today I call on you, a body of eminent Indian scientists with a
particular concern for sustainable food security and rural prosperity,
to devote some of your skills and energies to making this new South-South
partnership a meaningful reality. By applying your knowledge and
skills, scientific wisdom and curiosity to the challenge of modernizing
small-scale agriculture you can make a difference that counts for
present and future generations in the Third World. It is my great
honour to offer you today this challenge and this opportunity for
a better and more equitable world.
I thank you for your kind attention.
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