Articles tagged ""

Interview with Iris Schöninger

Dr Iris Schöninger is a policy adviser in the policy department of Welthungerhilfe in Bonn. For several years she has also been working with the Advisory Committee of the ‘Cotton made in Africa’ initiative.

By Wilan Paté

The Ivory Coast has survived the civil war and the division of the country, but the central market in the former rebel capital, Bouaké, is recovering only slowly.

By Gisbert Dreyer

From the subsistence economy to a sustainable and competitive agricultural system – the path to 100 million jobs for Africa’s poorest people.

By Mo Ibrahim

Africa is at a tipping point. Whether it continues rising or falls back depends, above all else, on whether the continent creates the conditions in which its greatest resource — its young people — can shine.

By Iris Schöninger

In 2030 one in every three people looking for work will come from Africa. Today decent work is still a rarity on the continent, but developing the rural areas can solve the problem.

By John Kufour and Joseph Okopu Gakpo

Agriculture is Africa’s big potential for economic growth. Many private businesses want to use it, but Ghana’s former President John Agyekum Kufuor says they will need a strong partner: the state

By Horst Köhler

Africa’s biggest challenge – and its greatest opportunity – is its young people. The most important question is: to what weapon will Africa’s young people turn – the polling booth or the gun?

Policy makers wish for innovation. But what is an innovation that truly takes Africa a step forward? With the support of the SEWOH partners, journalist Jan Grossarth took a critical look at the demand for innovation.

Is innovation a cure? A meaningless filler? Even problematic? And: In what way? Taking a critical post-colonial look at the past, the “innovation history” of Africa appears to be a double-edged sword, in any case. Historian Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, who teaches at MIT in the USA, deplores the failure and even largely destructive effect of “western” technology and knowledge exports to Africa. In his works about innovation in Africa, “capitalistic entrepreneurship” appears as “imperialism” in modified form and downright “parasitical” in its nature. A problematic definition of innovation, he says, has been transferred to Africa particularly from Europe. A definition that is limited to technical aspects, industrial scaling and commercial use.

From crop forecasts out of space to resistant seeds: What ideas and technologies have been developed in recent years to revolutionize the world's nutrition? We present a selection of innovations that could be decisive in the fight against hunger.

The world needs empowered farmers! But what does that mean and how can it be organized? With the support of the SEWOH partners, journalist Jan Grossarth has gathered guiding thoughts on the topic in an article.

Organised agricultural lobbying is rare in industrialised nations. Is the political influence of certain interest groups that have excellent parliamentary connections and work quietly behind the scenes in aid of meat exports or biomass subsidies excessively large and insufficiently transparent? Such questions are a subject of discussion in Europe and the USA, but also in Brazil or Argentina. And for good reason. With regard to global food security another, to some extent countervailing question arises: how can “good lobbying” for the development interests of the world’s smallholders emerge? Would it not, after all, be widely beneficial, and also necessary in order to ensure a stable global food supply, if the hundreds of millions of local farmers in Africa and Asia were able to represent their income- and development-related interests more effectively in parliaments, the media and international organisations?

Agroecology is a popular buzzword in food policy worldwide. It is based on a complex concept that journalist Jan Grossarth, with the support of the SEWOH partners, has examined and called into question.

Agroecology cannot be defined in one phrase. It would take some pages. As a political guiding perspective – perhaps because of its variety – it is suitable to pleasing everyone. The European Commission is relying on this approach as part of the Green Deal as its 10-year transformation plan, and the term is also mentioned in the Farm to Fork food strategy of the EU Commission. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has commissioned its leading experts from the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to shed light on the approach in a 163-page report (the HLPE Report, 2019). The summary alone uses eleven key points in its definition. An agroecological approach, it says, “favours the use of natural processes, limits the use of external inputs, promotes closed cycles with minimal negative externalities and stresses the importance of local knowledge and participatory processes” – while also being designed to reduce social inequalities and to help the sciences to gain in importance. 

Growing scientific evidence and local experiences demonstrate how agroecology has the potential to offer a holistic response to the multiple and interrelated challenges facing food systems.

The challenges of population growth, dwindling biodiversity and climate change require to rethink our current food systems and call for solution approaches in terms of an agroecological transformation.

Current crises highlight the need to transform food systems. Dr Sinclair, team leader of the World Food Security Committee, presents 13 agro-ecological principles that might be effective for change.

In order to alleviate the trilemma of land use, the climate crisis, the destruction of biodiversity and the food crisis must be addressed simultaneously. Susanne Neubert explains in an interview what such strategies might look like.

An exchange program between the German Farmers' Association and the Andreas Hermes Academy for young German and Ugandan farmers shows: North-South cooperation works best at eye level. Four graduates report on what is possible when farmers learn from each other.

"One for all, all for one" - this motto became the basis for action of agricultural cooperatives that were founded in the 19th century. They became a success story that will continue to be written well into the 21st century.

Joseph Ngaah is chairman of the Kakamega County Farmers Association in Kenya. Through his commitment at national and local level, he gives farmers a voice - both in the media and with political decision-makers. Within the SEWOH, he cooperates with the Andreas Hermes Academy, the Green Innovation Centers and TMG - Sustainable Think Tank.

In the discussion about sustainability in supply chains, European states focus on labels, customs tariffs and government regulations. With the support of the SEWOH partners, Jan Grossarth questions these measures.

After the eight-storey Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Bangladesh in April 2013, killing over a thousand textile workers under the rubble, the issue of human rights in sewing factories dominated global news for a few days. The initial shock turned into shame. After all, wasn’t everyone who bought cheap T-shirts and jeans somehow responsible? This was followed by a political debate: Hadn’t the disaster happened in a domain where the state, i.e. Bangladesh, should have ensured compliance with its laws? Or, on the other hand, do we not have a say in the regulations determining how the products we consume are manufactured? Not only through consumption, but through our government and companies?

Since 2014, a law has guaranteed all Indians sufficient healthy food at affordable prices. Now one of the biggest waves of protest in history is rocking the subcontinent. Farmers are fighting back against laws that abolish guaranteed minimum prices and put nutrition programmes in jeopardy.  

BASF’s project Drones for Smallholder Farmers aims to build an inclusive business model that will facilitate access of smallholders to drones for spraying crop protection products. A report by Dr. Diana Moran.

Innovative ideas like apps are popular showcases. But for the successful implementation of an innovation, thinking beyond the boundaries of projects is necessary. Lennart Woltering explains in an interview how to move from the greenhouse into practice.

Christine Scholl, Senior Advisor at WWF Germany, explains why a binding and comprehensive EU regulation is crucial in avoiding deforestation and conversion of valuable ecosystems and what such legislation must take into account.

Juliette Kouassi founded the cocoa cooperative ABOUd'CAO in Côte d'Ivoire, which dismantles traditional role definitions. The aim is to promote women producers and "throw anything away in the cocoa value chain, by rendering value to everything."

Generation Z (1995-2010) is forcing manufacturers of consumer goods to rethink their production values. The “Greta effect” not only compels companies to act. It also promises great potential for development cooperation to reach its goals.  

Stefan Schmitz is head of the Crop Trust and has been SEWOH Commissioner until 2019. We asked him which aspects of the SEWOH could be groundbreaking in order to achieve global goals such as SDG 2 at a national and a global level.

Aside from the German Federal government, EU institutions are also encouraging the introduction of a supply chain law. What would be the consequences? Questions for Bettina Rudloff of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).

Ending worldwide hunger by 2030 requires effective governance. This masterplan is based on the experience of the GIZ global programme for “Food and Nutrition Security, Enhanced Resilience,” which works on improving nutrition governance in ten countries around the world.

To feed the world's population in 2050, "the fine art of governance" is required, according to Jan Grossarth. With the help of the SEWOH partners, he has shed light on what this art includes and what challenges it encounters.

There has been some modest progress everywhere and in many thousands of local projects. But what if this won’t be enough in view of the global challenge? According to UN forecasts, Africa’s population is set to double by 2050, reaching over two billion people. Yet food imports on the continent are already exceeding exports, so it is not providing enough food for itself. Climate forecasts are predicting that in some African (and Asian) regions average temperatures will rise by 3 degrees or more. Moreover, deserts are spreading, with the prospect that development cooperation will be ineffective if it merely distributes resources under the watering can principle. 

Land is the foundation of life for most Ugandans. In central Uganda, an ancient land tenure system has caused an impasse for both landlords and tenants hence causing conflicts for decades. An innovative approach to conflict solving, and awareness-raising is about to create change.

The World Hunger Index 2020 indicates that the goal of "Zero Hunger by 2030" will not be met. Miriam Wiemers, leading expert for the World Hunger Index, traces the main challenges and describes how the path to Zero Hunger can be taken.

Is modern genetic engineering an innovative answer for ensuring global food supply? And what about fertilisers and agricultural chemicals? Felix Prinz zu Löwenstein believes all three are part of the problem. Matthias Berninger thinks rejecting these new technologies is a risky ideological proposition. A debate.

Proper nutrition. An adequate diet. Higher incomes and more employment in rural areas. These are the goals of the 15 Green Innovation Centres established in Africa and Asia on behalf of the BMZ. But how are these goals put into practice in Bamako, Mali?

Some good ideas never become reality. It takes patience, long-term thinking and the courage to learn from mistakes. Based on a conversation with software developer Simon Riedel, journalist Jan Rübel focused on the challenges of innovation in an international development context.

The special initiative One World no hunger (SEWOH) is one donor nation's attempt to decisively push forward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2). Observations and conclusions from the accompanying discourse.

In the summer of 2019, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), raised the alarm on the growing number of people going hungry. A “World Food Systems Summit” (UNFSS) in the autumn of 2021 intends to draw the necessary public attention to the issue of combatting hunger and increasing sustainability and provide fresh impetus for transforming the entire food system. In 2014, Germany’s Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Müller, launched a remarkable experiment: SEWOH, the Special Initiative ONEWORLD No Hunger. The idea was to drastically advance UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) with a sector approach initially driven by a single donor nation. Germany has invested around 1.5 billion euros annually towards achieving the UN goal, becoming the world’s second-largest donor in the fields of food security, rural development and agriculture. The initiative has explored new possibilities, yet it also had to face its limits. Vastly exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, it had to realise the vulnerabilities of global food security.  

Claudia Ringler, Deputy Division Director of EPTD at IFPRI, describes the adverse impacts of climate change and its related risks on populations in poor countries. What can be done to reduce the impact of climate change on food and nutrition security?

Population growth, lawlessness and dwindling resources, accelerated by climate change, are leading to conflicts that leave thousands dead across the Sahel every year. "Many will leave their homelands or perish from hunger, disease or wars. Only rapid socioeconomic development [...] would be able to prevent this disaster."

Unresolved land ownership and rights of utilisation contribute to hunger and poverty and lead to conflicts over land, especially in Africa. The SEWOH therefore promotes various approaches to eliminate conflicts over land and to ensure responsible and sustainable agricultural land use.

Covid-19 drastically exacerbated the nutritional situation of millions of people and demonstrated that SEWOH's claim to strengthen resilient food systems and its flexible structures are the right approach to cushion and mitigate acute emergencies in crisis situations.

With the special initiative "One World Without Hunger" (SEWOH), the German government has set an example. Dirk Schattschneider, Commissioner for the Special Initiative at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) on achievements to date, lessons learned and the future of SEWOH.

With its special initiative for “ONE WORLD – no Hunger”, the German federal government issued a clear statement of intention. Soon commonly known as “SEWOH”, the initiative provided the opportunity to react flexibly within budgeting regulations and make an extensive contribution to fulfilling SDG 2. The political calendar provided various occasions to engage the international community through Germany’s G7 and G20 presidencies. The fact that the number of people suffering from hunger has increased since then does not undermine SEWOH’s efforts. Instead, it underpins the call to further intensify efforts on the national, European and global levels. The calendar still offers good vantage points. Great expectations rest on the United Nations Food Systems Summit, and in 2022 Germany will again take over the G7 presidency.

In order to make rural areas fit for the future and to sustainably improve the nutrition of many people, innovative approaches and solutions are needed. That is why SEWOH has created Green Innovation Centers, thereby providing important impetus for progress and innovation.

Perspectives must be created and existing potentials in the agricultural and food sector must be intensified so that people have the courage to pursue their future in rural areas. In its projects, the SEWOH promotes a comprehensive approach that focuses in particular on the needs of young people.

810 million people suffer from hunger. Many more people are affected by "hidden" hunger. With the goal of "Zero Hunger" in mind, the SEWOH has implemented numerous measures and training programs to contribute to an improved nutrition situation.

Through a series of projects, SEWOH is working to promote the rehabilitation of degraded soils, stop deforestation and restore forests and other wooded landscapes to create the basic conditions for intact and sustainable agriculture.

10,000 young adults in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa were surveyed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit on their current living situation and their aspirations for career and future. The result: The initial situation in rural areas is difficult, but still attractive - if the framework conditions change for the better!