MALAWI MUST REASSESS ITS AGRICULTURAL POLICIES TO BREAK CYCLE OF POVERTY UN EXPERT

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From: UNNews <UNNews@un.org>
Date: 22 Jul 2013 10:00:01 -0400
Subject: MALAWI MUST REASSESS ITS AGRICULTURAL POLICIES TO BREAK CYCLE
OF POVERTY – UN EXPERT
To: news11@ny-mail-p-lb-028.ptc.un.org

MALAWI MUST REASSESS ITS AGRICULTURAL POLICIES TO BREAK CYCLE OF
POVERTY – UN EXPERTNew York, Jul 22 2013 10:00AMA United Nations
independent expert today stressed that Malawi must reassess its
national food security strategy to ensure that policies designed to
combat poverty and malnutrition truly reach the most vulnerable in the
population.

"Recent high-profiled food security policies have failed to rid Malawi
of chronic food insecurity and malnutrition,"
<"http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13567&LangID=E">said
Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

"The country urgently needs a national food security strategy,
underpinned by a Right to Food Framework Law, to hold policies to
account when they do not yield benefits for the most food insecure and
to ensure a coherent approach across sectors," he said at the end of
an 11-day visit to the country.

More than 50 per cent of the country remains mired in poverty, with
one quarter of 'ultra poor' Malawians earning less than the estimated
costs of a diet providing minimum recommended calorie intake, and
about half of all children suffering from acute or severe
malnutrition.

While Malawi is often viewed as an example of how hunger can be
tackled by subsidizing inputs for farmers, long-term progress can be
missed when too little is done to empower the poor, Mr. De Schutter
said.

Through its Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP), more than one million
beneficiaries have gained access to discounted fertilizers and seeds.
However, this year the country will need to import maize for
humanitarian food aid to Malawian farmers who are unable to feed
themselves.

Mr. De Schutter argued that the country must reassess whether FISP –
which takes up more than half of Malawi's agricultural budget – is the
most effective use of available resources to protect the right to
adequate food for all Malawians.

"It is time for Malawi to move beyond the fertilizer-led 'green
revolution' and invest in the brown and blue revolutions needed to
rebuild soil fertility and water retention," Mr. De Schutter urged.
"Malawians need a durable agricultural resource base and living wages
– and currently they are getting neither."

The Malawian minimum wage, currently fixed at around $1.12 per day, is
one of the lowest in the world, and 300,000 tenant families on tobacco
plantations – where 78,000 child labourers are employed – are only
paid depending on the quantity and quality of tobacco sold to
landlords.

Meanwhile, Malawi has lost over 10 per cent of its gross domestic
product (GDP) to illicit outflows over the past three decades, with
mining companies exempted from customs duty, excise duty, value added
tax (VAT) on mining machinery, plant and equipment.

"The policy of providing abundant, cheap and non-unionized labour to
plantation owners must be consigned to the past," Mr. De Schutter
stated, adding that "Malawi's poor pay twice for the red carpet
treatment given to multinational investors – in the suppression of
their wages, and in the services deprived them by corporate tax
exemptions."

Among the steps to be taken by the Government to redress the balance
are enforcing a living wage, allowing workers to bargain collectively
in all sectors, and negotiating fair taxation arrangements for
investors.

"By improving participation and accountability in the design and
implementation of food security policies, Malawi can ensure that
public investment will truly reach the poorest within the population,"
Mr. De Schutter said.

"It is essential that the country does not pursue investment for
investment's sake, but uses it as an opportunity to engage
corporations in a genuine commitment to help improve the situation of
Malawi's poor and food insecure," he concluded.

Independent experts, or special rapporteurs, are appointed by the
Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a
country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are
honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their
work. Jul 22 2013 10:00AM
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