inequality

IMF must abandon demands for austerity as cost-of-living crisis drives up hunger and poverty worldwide

April 19, 2022

87 percent of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) COVID-19 loans are requiring developing countries that have been denied equal access to vaccines and are facing some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises to adopt tough, new austerity measures that will further exacerbate poverty and inequality.

New analysis by Oxfam finds that 13 out of the 15 IMF loan programs negotiated during the second year of the pandemic require new austerity measures such as taxes on food and fuel or spending cuts that could put vital public services at risk. The IMF is also encouraging six additional countries to adopt similar measures.

In 2020, the IMF deployed billions in emergency loans to help developing countries cope with COVID-19, often with few conditions or none at all. Recently, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva urged Europe not to endanger its economic recovery with “the suffocating force of austerity”. Yet, over the past year, the IMF has gone back to imposing austerity measures on lower-income countries.

“This epitomizes the IMF’s double standard: it is warning rich countries against austerity while forcing poorer ones into it. The pandemic is not over for most of the world. Rising energy bills and food prices are hurting poor countries most. They need help boosting access to basic services and social protection, not harsh conditions that kick people when they are down”, said Nabil Abdo, Oxfam International’s Senior Policy Advisor.

Kenya and the IMF agreed a US$2.3 billion loan program in 2021, which includes a three-year public sector pay freeze and increased taxes on cooking gas and food. More than 3 million Kenyans are facing acute hunger as the driest conditions in decades spread a devastating drought across the country. Nearly half of all households in Kenya are having to borrow food or buy it on credit.
9 countries including Cameroon, Senegal and Surinam are being required to introduce or increase the collection of value-added taxes (VAT), which often apply to everyday products like food and clothing, and fall disproportionately on people living in poverty.
Sudan, where nearly half of the population is living in poverty, has been required to scrap fuel subsidies which will hit the poorest hardest. The country was already reeling from international aid cuts, economic turmoil and rising prices for everyday basics such as food and medicine before the war in Ukraine started. Over 14 million people need humanitarian assistance (almost one in every three people) and 9.8 million are food insecure in Sudan, which imports 87 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.
10 countries including Kenya and Namibia are likely to freeze or cut public sector wages and jobs, which could mean lower quality of education and fewer nurses and doctors in countries already short of healthcare staff. Namibia had fewer than six doctors per 10,000 people when COVID-19 struck.

New analysis by Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) also published today reveals that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totaling US$183 billion over the next five years. If these cuts are implemented, their chances of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will likely disappear. In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that the Fund encouraged 33 African countries to pursue austerity policies in the aftermath of the health crisis. The pandemic has not ended but these policies are already taking shape across Africa.

The analysis also shows that African governments’ failure to tackle inequality ― through support for public healthcare and education, workers’ rights and a fair tax system ― left them woefully ill-equipped to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. The IMF has contributed to these failures by consistently pushing a policy agenda that seeks to balance national budgets through cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest, and moves to undermine labor rights and protections. As a result, when COVID-19 struck, 52 percent of Africans lacked access to healthcare and 83 percent had no safety nets to fall back on if they lost their job or became sick.

“The IMF must suspend austerity conditions on existing loans and increase access to emergency financing. It should encourage countries to increase taxes on the wealthiest and corporations to replenish depleted coffers and shrink widening inequality. That would actually be good advice”, said Abdo.

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam and DFI’s “Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: Africa”. Our analysis of the IMF’s COVID-19 loans during the first year of the pandemic is also available for download.

Oxfam estimates that over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of COVID-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine. For more information, download Oxfam’s brief “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe”.

The IMF negotiated 22 COVID-19 loans with 23 countries between 15 March 2021 and 15 March 2022. 15 are loan programs that came with a full suite of conditionality or policy requirements, six are conditionality-free emergency financing and one is a Flexible Credit Line that does not usually include conditionalities. The IMF’s USUS$1.4 billion (SDR 1,005.9 million) disbursement to Ukraine was not included in Oxfam’s analysis, as it intended to help meet urgent financing needs and mitigate the economic impact of the war.

In December 2021, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told Euronews that the European Union should not put economic recovery in danger with “the suffocating force of austerity”. The IMF’s own research shows austerity worsens poverty and inequality.

Photographs and video from East Africa are available. As many as 28 million people across East Africa at risk of extreme hunger. West Africa is facing its worst food crisis in ten years, with over 27 million people suffering from hunger.

According to Sudan’s latest household survey (2014), 44 percent of the population lives in poverty. However, this data does not reflect the impacts of the recent economic decline, high inflation and recent flooding. The IMF estimates that the ongoing economic crisis, exacerbated by COVID-19, will likely have significantly negative effects on living conditions and poverty.

According to the World Food Program, 9.8 million people in Sudan are food insecure. 14.3 million are estimated to need humanitarian assistance in 2022 — the highest in the past decade.

According to the World Bank, Namibia had 0.59 doctors per 1,000 people before the pandemic began.

Add link when available. [AT1]

“Terrifying prospect” of over a quarter of a billion more people crashing into extreme levels of poverty and suffering this year

April 12, 2022

Over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of Covid-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine, reveals a new Oxfam brief today.

“First Crisis, Then Catastrophe”, published ahead of the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington DC, shows that 860 million people could be living in extreme poverty — on less than US$1.90 a day — by the end of this year. This is mirrored in global hunger: the number of undernourished people could reach 827 million in 2022.

The World Bank had projected COVID-19 and worsening inequality to add 198 million extreme poor during 2022, reversing two decades of progress. Based on research by the World Bank, Oxfam now estimates that rising global food prices alone will push 65 million more people into extreme poverty, for a total of 263 million more extreme poor this year —equivalent to the populations of the UK, France, Germany and Spain combined.

“Without immediate radical action, we could be witnessing the most profound collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and suffering in memory,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher. “This terrifying prospect is made more sickening by the fact that trillions of dollars have been captured by a tiny group of powerful men who have no interest in interrupting this trajectory.”

As many people struggle now to cope with sharp cost-of-living increases, having to choose between eating or heating or medical bills, the likelihood of mass starvation faces millions of people already locked in severe levels of hunger and poverty across East Africa, the Sahel, Yemen and Syria.

The brief notes that a wave of governments is nearing a debt default and being forced to slash public spending to pay creditors and import food and fuel. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay US$43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports. Global food prices hit an all-time high in February, surpassing the peak crisis of 2011. Oil and gas giants are reporting record-breaking profits, with similar trends expected to play out in the food and beverage sector.

People in poverty are being hit harder by these shocks. Rising food costs account for 17 percent of consumer spending in wealthy countries, but as much as 40 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Even within rich economies, inflation is super-charging inequality: in the US, the poorest 20 percent of families are spending 27 percent of their incomes on food, while the richest 20 percent spend only 7 percent.

For most workers around the world, real-term wages continue to stagnate or even fall. The effects of COVID-19 have widened existing gender inequalities too — after suffering greater pandemic-related job losses, women are struggling to get back to work. In 2021, there were 13 million fewer women in employment compared to 2019, while men’s employment has already recovered to 2019 levels.

The report also shows that entire countries are being forced deeper into poverty. COVID-19 has stretched all governments’ coffers but the economic challenges facing developing countries are greater, having been denied equitable access to vaccines and now being forced into austerity measures.

Despite COVID-19 costs piling up and billionaire wealth rising more since COVID-19 than in the previous 14 years combined, governments — with few exceptions — have failed to increase taxes on the richest. An annual wealth tax on millionaires starting at just 2 percent, and 5 percent on billionaires, could generate US$2.52 trillion a year —enough to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, make enough vaccines for the world, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle-income countries.

“We reject any notion that governments do not have the money or means to lift all people out of poverty and hunger and ensure their health and welfare. We only see the absence of economic imagination and political will to actually do so,” Bucher said.

“Now more than ever, with such scale of human suffering and inequality laid bare and deepened by multiple global crises, that lack of will is inexcusable and we reject it. The G20, World Bank and IMF must immediately cancel debts and increase aid to poorer countries, and together act to protect ordinary people from an avoidable catastrophe. The world is watching”.

Oxfam is calling for urgent action to tackle the extreme inequality crisis threatening to undermine the progress made in tackling poverty during the last quarter of a century:

Introduce one-off and permanent wealth taxes to fund a fair and sustainable recovery from COVID-19. Argentina adopted a one-off special levy dubbed the ‘millionaire’s tax’ that has brought in around US$2.4 billion to pay for pandemic recovery.
End crisis profiteering by introducing excess profit taxes to capture the windfall profits of big corporations across all industries. Oxfam estimated that such a tax on just 32 super-profitable multinational companies could have generated US$104 billion in revenue in 2020.
Cancel all debt payments for developing countries that need urgent help now. Cancelling debt would free up more than US$30 billion in vital funds in 2022 alone for 33 countries already in or at high risk of debt distress.
Boost aid and pay for Ukrainian assistance and the costs of hosting refugees with new funding, rather than shift aid funds earmarked for other crises in poorer countries.
Reallocate at least US$100 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDR), without burdening countries with new debt or imposing austerity measures. The G20 promised to deliver US$100 billion in recycled SDRs but only US$36 billion has been committed to date. A new SDR issuance should also be considered and distributed based on needs rather than countries’ quota shares at the IMF.
Act to protect people from rising food prices, and create a Global Fund for Social Protection to help the poorest countries provide essential income security for their populations, and maintain these services in times of severe crisis.

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam’s briefing “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe”.

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US$1.90 per day.

The World Bank projected that COVID-19 will increase the number of people living in extreme poverty by 198 million people in 2022. This projection assumes that the Gini coefficient of income inequality will increase by two percent in all countries. The IMF, World Bank and OECD agree that COVID-19 is highly likely to drive up inequality.

New Oxfam estimates, building on World Bank projections and prior research conducted by the World Bank and Center for Global Development on food price spikes, show that 65 million more people could be pushed below the US$1.90 poverty line because of the harsh increases in food prices. See “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe” for more information.

Population of Germany (83 million), France (67 million), the UK (67 million) and Spain (47 million) from the World Bank. Total: 264 million.

Photographs and video from East Africa are available. As many as 28 million people across East Africa at risk of extreme hunger.

Data on debt servicing is from UNCTAD. FAO estimates food import bills for all low-income countries to be $46 billion (2021).

The COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020, equivalent to more than the combined GDP of 98 countries.

Billionaires’ wealth has risen more since COVID-19 began than it has in the last 14 years combined.

Download “Taxing Extreme Wealth” for more information about an annual tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires, what it would raise and what it could pay for.

Argentina has collected 223 billion pesos (around $2.4 billion) from its one-off pandemic wealth tax.

Oxfam estimated that a ‘Pandemic Profits Tax’ on 32 super-profitable global companies could have generated $104 billion in revenue in 2020 to address COVID-19. Download Oxfam’s report “Power, Profits and the Pandemic” for more information.

Some governments are contemplating raids on aid funds earmarked for other crises to pay for the new costs of Ukrainian support. Oxfam is aware that the EU has more than halved its humanitarian funding to Timor-Leste, for example, and that some donors have indicated that they will cut their aid to Burkina Faso by 70 percent, with other West African countries hearing similar news. At the same time, West Africa is facing its worst food crisis in ten years, with over 27 million people suffering from hunger.

SDRs are distributed based on countries’ quota shares at the IMF. As such, the US$650 billion SDR issuance delivered almost US$400 billion in added reserves to the world’s richest economies, US$230 billion to middle-income countries, and US$21 billion to low-income countries. Last October, G20 countries pledged to reallocate $100 billion in SDRs to “vulnerable countries whose economies have been hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis.”

Oxfam reacts to Pfizer’s financial results on COVID-19 vaccine sales

February 9, 2022

In response to the publication of Pfizer’s financial results on COVID-19 vaccine sales for last year and projections for its Covid-19 vaccine and antiviral pill this year, Oxfam’s Robbie Silverman said:

“Pfizer’s results today are clear evidence of how the company has used its monopoly to enrich its shareholders at the expense of almost half the world’s population who still have no access to lifesaving vaccines.

“Millions are dying from COVID because companies like Pfizer have prioritised profits over saving lives. And it’s paying off for Pfizer, raking in as much as US$1 million every hour in profit.

“It is obscene that we have allowed pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer to put their profits before the good of humanity as the pandemic drags on. No corporations should decide who lives and who dies.”

Notes:

The latest data (from Dec 21) available shows that just one percent of Pfizer’s vaccines have been delivered to low-income countries.
Oxfam estimates Pfizer is making over US$1m an hour profit from the vaccine alone.
Pfizer and the other drugs companies are unable to produce enough vaccines for the world. Oxfam has issued a shareholder filing calling on Pfizer to study the feasibility of transferring vaccine technology and know-how so that production can urgently ramp up around the world.

Over 40 NGOs warn of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Somalia and urge donors to urgently fund the UN appeal

February 4, 2022

7.7 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, as 98% of Somalia’s humanitarian appeal remains severely underfunded

Oxfam, together with over 40 NGOs representing the Somali NGO Consortium urged donors to immediately fund the current the current UN humanitarian appeal for Somalia, in order to prevent a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe.

In an open letter to donors and the international community the signatories said:

We, the undersigned organisations, are deeply concerned for the lives of millions of Somalis facing a severe food crisis and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. We call upon all donors including institutional donors, corporates, foundations, and individual philanthropic donors to urgently fund the current UN humanitarian appeal in order to respond to the escalating drought crisis in Somalia before it is too late.

Currently, 98 percent of the UN humanitarian appeal for Somalia of 1.46 billion USD has yet to be met and remains severely underfunded.

7.7 million people in various locations across Somalia are currently witnessing a shocking increase in humanitarian needs as the rains fail for a third consecutive season – possibly the worst drought in 40 years. Of those, an estimated 3.2 million people – in 66 out of 74 districts – are already suffering from a worsening drought. 1.4 million people will also be displaced in the coming months, congesting already overcrowded displacement camps and generating conflict over resources. Moreover, diarrhoea is spreading due to lack of sufficient clean water and hygiene services.

Malnutrition is on the rise across the most drought-affected states, as experts warn of a risk of famine as predictions for the next rainy season are worrying. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations reports that the drought severity has notably worsened since December 2021 and will continue to worsen. Local humanitarian leaders are saying that they have never seen such a drought; and that their biggest concern is an imminent famine if funds are not immediately received.

Despite this unprecedented need, only less than 2% (26.3m USD) of the total UN humanitarian appeal needed to respond to the Somali crisis has been funded to date. A few donors have contributed so far: CERF (mostly Norway), the US Government, Germany, the EU, Canada, and Switzerland. Whilst we acknowledge that the overall humanitarian appeal tends to increase as the year progresses, we know that financing early prevents a catastrophe from happening and a costly response later and saves lives. The next few months are thus extremely critical to urgently respond to the needs on the ground.

In 2011, despite the warnings, the international humanitarian system did too little too late and an estimated 260.000 people lost their lives to a famine. We must make sure that history does not repeat itself. By contrast, in 2017 the international community responded in force to the same indicators and averted widespread disaster, the same scale of response is needed again.

We, local and international NGOs, stand ready to increase our response to meet the need. Many of us, thanks to donor support and private funding, are already scaling up our existing programming to better meet the people’s needs. However, we cannot respond to the escalating crisis without a sharp increase in funds by donors.

We urge you to increase your commitments, cut and/or reduce red tapes to release and allocate funds. The time to act is now.

Signatories

ACTED
ActionAid International Somaliland
Action Against Hunger
Aid Vision
AVSI Foundation
Candlelight for Environment, Education and Health
CARE
Catholic Relief Services
Centre for Peace and Democracy (CPDD)
Cesvi Fondazione (CESVI)
CISP – International Committee for the Development of Peoples
Danish Refugee Council
Development Action Network – DAN
Development Now Initiative
Diakonia
Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe -DKH
GREDO
Humanitarian Translation for Somalia
International Medical Corps (IMC)
International Rescue Committee (IRC)
Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW)
Juba Foundation
Life & Peace Institute (LPI)
MEDAIR
Mercy Corps
Nagaad Women’s Network
Nexus Platform
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
Oxfam
Polish Humanitarian Action (PAH)
SSWC
SADO
Save the Children
Social Empowerment Rehabilitation and Development Org. (SERDO)
Somali Lifeline Organization (SOLO)
Somali Women and Child Care Association (SWCCA)
Sustainable Development & Peace building Initiatives (SYPD)
Taakulo Somali Community (Taakulo)
Volunteers for Relief and Development (VRD)
WASDA
Welthungerhilfe (WHH)
World Concern
World Vision International
ZamZam Foundation

Notes

Figures on humanitarian need and hunger levels are based on latest UN OCHA in Somalia website and UNICEF Somalia Humanitarian Situation Report No. 11 as of November 2021

Oxfam and Save the Children “Dangerous Delay” report was published in 2011: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/a-dangerous-delay-the-cost-of-late-response-to-early-warnings-in-the-2011-droug-203389/

Contact information

Spokespersons are available for interviews. Please contact:

In Somalia : Abdi Azizi | Senior Advocacy & Communications Officer | abdiaziz.adani@oxfam.org

Massive cuts in public spending and regressive taxes fuelling inequality in East Africa

February 4, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed millions into poverty and dramatically increased inequality in East Africa, but not all are equally affected. 52 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa were projected to be pushed into extreme poverty between 2019 and 2021. But today, the richest 10 per cent of East Africans are earning an average of 47 per cent of pre-tax national income across the region. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent of citizens earn 13.3 per cent of national income.

Instead of taxing the wealthy, East African governments are planning to slash their public spending on pro-poor services like healthcare, education, agriculture and social protection in the coming years.

These cuts will worsen East Africa’s economic crisis, and deepen poverty and inequality in the region, but it is not too late to change direction – says the latest edition of Oxfam and DFI’s Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index (CRII) report. Titled “The Inequality Crisis in East Africa,” the new report will be launched publicly at an international forum of government, civil society, private sector and donor representatives from East Africa and beyond, in Nairobi on 9th February, 2022.

Parvin Ngala, Regional Director (Interim) of Oxfam Horn, East and Central Africa, says:

“With these spending cuts, the region and respective countries risk spiralling into a never-ending cycle of inadequate health services, poor education facilities, economic decline with women and youth caught at the centre of the fall out/unable to maximise and indeed shape the future that the continent has potential for.”

East African countries have seen impressive economic growth in the past two decades, and significant reductions in poverty in most of the countries. But three have seen a widening gap between the richest and the poorest, and there has been little progress in reducing inequality in the other countries.

The pandemic, compounded by locust infestations and climate crises across East Africa, has brought the region’s worst economic crisis in decades, with millions losing their incomes, working hours, and education; exacerbating poverty, inequality and food insecurity:

Over 60 per cent of citizens reported losing income or work due to the pandemic, according to surveys from four East African countries.
The pandemic will push 11 million people into poverty in DRC, 6 million in Tanzania and 2.4 million in Uganda, according to UN estimates.
Some 900,000 Rwandans or 7 per cent of the population will have fallen into poverty by 2021, according to the World Bank.
1 million people in Kenya and 3.8 million people in Somalia are at risk of starvation due to drought.

According to the report, COVID-19 revealed that East African countries were unprepared for a pandemic. They had:

limited access to essential health services – reaching less than 60 per cent of the population in all countries;
an average of 7 per cent of people spending catastrophic proportions (more than 10 per cent) of their income on healthcare;
limited commitment to spending on healthcare, with under 10 per cent of government budgets dedicated to health in almost all countries;
extremely low access to social protection benefits (using pension coverage as a proxy), with only 10.5 per cent coverage on average, and under 10 per cent in six countries;^[1]
very low social protection spending of only 7 per cent of budgets (only 40 per cent of the global average);
an average of only 20 per cent of workers on formal contracts, therefore having rights to sick pay, job protection etc.

During the COVID-19 crisis, many governments increased their spending on health and social protection. But now they have long-term plans to slash public spending, which are being encouraged by lending bodies such as the IMF. From 2022 to 2026, five East African countries plan to reduce annual public spending by $4.7bn compared to 2021, IMF projections indicate. According to “The Inequality Crisis in East Africa,” not implementing these cuts would allow East African countries to quadruple health spending from now until 2026.

In South Sudan, where military generals outnumber doctors, health spending could rise by 13 times if these spending cuts are reversed. On the other hand, the cuts threaten to hamstring the abilities of East African governments to spend on health, education, social protection and food security so as to protect and support those marginalised by the pandemic and the economic crisis.

Matthew Martin, Director of Development Finance International, says:

“All the countries of the region are nowhere near reaching their national development goals on education, health and social protection. If these cuts are allowed to happen, this will mean East Africa is abandoning all hope of reaching the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and allowing extreme inequality to grow unchecked.”

To make matters worse, most East African governments have been forced to use more and more of their budgets to service their ballooning debts, rather than investing in their people. The report notes that from 2020 to 2021, 35.2 per cent of government revenues in East Africa were spent on debt repayment, an average of five times as much as they spent on health. South Sudan spent 28 times as much on debt servicing as they spent on health.

So, what can be done to reverse this crisis?

According to DFI and Oxfam, the report shows that taxing wealthy East Africans and corporations would give governments a way out of the crisis, and allow them spend more on public services that reduce inequality. Surveys from Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda show that over 71 per cent of citizens think it is fair to tax the rich more to fund programmes that benefit people living in poverty. If East African governments increase their tax revenues by just 1 per cent of their GDP, they would raise an additional $4.9bn each year for the next five years, which would be enough to raise health spending by an average of 77 per cent annually.

DFI and Oxfam also argue that comprehensive debt relief is essential for many countries in the region to have enough money to increase spending on basic services

Matthew Martin, Director of Development Finance International, says:

“All countries in the region need to increase taxes on the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations, and stop giving them tax exemptions. But this alone will not produce anywhere near enough money to fund universal free health care, education, social protection, food and water. External creditors should cancel all debt payments between now and 2030 to help pay for these basic needs.”

DFI and Oxfam recommend that East African governments urgently:

reverse the planned budget cuts and increase spending for health, education and social protection.
fund these enhanced spending efforts by increasing taxes on the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations and ending wasteful tax exemptions.
dramatically improve labour rights, including introducing or raising minimum wages.

They also recommend that the IMF and World Bank should transform their lending programmes to encourage East African countries to increase pro-poor and social spending, redistribute wealth through progressive taxation, and enhance labour laws and protections.

They urge the international community to accelerate the distribution of free COVID-19 vaccines to all East African countries, to ensure high levels of vaccine coverage by June 2022; and to cancel all debt service obligations between now and 2030, in order to allow East African countries to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.

Finally, DFI and Oxfam recommend that the African Union and East African Community urgently recognise their members’ inequality crises, and establish a plan and monitoring systems to track government measures to reduce inequality.

Notes to editors

Download the “The Inequality Crisis in East Africa,” report here after Feb 9, 2022 at 00:01 EAT.

The report launch event will take place on 9th February, 2022 at Kenyatta International Conference Centre (Abadares conference hall) in Nairobi, Kenya, and have in attendance dignitaries including (remote or physical):

E. Dr. Abdirahman Dualeh Beileh, Minister of Finance, Federal Government of Somalia (Keynote address)
Haji Farhiya Ali – Senator, Deputy Majority Chief Whip, & member of Committee on Finance and Budget (Kenya)
Eric Wafukho – Chief Administrative Secretary, The National Treasury and Planning Ministry
Usher Wilson Owere – Chairman General, The National Organisation of Trade Unions (Uganda) (remote)
Jason Rosario Braganza – Executive Director, AFRODAD
Filbert Baguma – General Secretary, Uganda National Teachers’ Union (remote)
Gilbert Wangalwa – Deputy Country Director – Amref Health Africa
Alvin Mosioma – Executive Director, The Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA)
Tang Xiaoyang – Vice Chair, Department of International Relations | Tsinghua University (remote)

^[1] Pension coverage is used as a proxy because data on overall social protection coverage are not available for all countries.

Tough, urgent choices for African leaders as they launch “Year of Nutrition” to help millions of people facing hunger

February 2, 2022

African governments should boost funding for agriculture, address peace and security challenges, and do more to genuinely tackle inequality.

African Union leaders face one of their most important summits (Feb 5-6) in launching a “year of nutrition” amid worsening levels of hunger and malnutrition that are now threatening sustainable development across the entire continent.

One in five people (282m) is now under-nourished and 93 million in 36 African countries are suffering extreme levels of hunger. Women and children are hit hardest. In Sub-Saharan Africa, one in three children under five is stunted by chronic undernutrition while two out of five women of childbearing age are anaemic because of poor diets.

The UN estimates that food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa are now 30-40% higher than the rest of the world, taking into account comparative levels of GDP per capita.

“The triple threat of the climate crisis, COVID-19, and conflict will require an extraordinary response from African leaders. Many countries have already taken important steps, increasing investment in healthcare, providing shock responsive social protection systems and empowering local, women-led, peacebuilding initiatives. However, such actions are still too few and far between,” said Oxfam’s Pan-African Program Director Peter Kamalingin.

“People are having to skip meals to feed their children, selling livestock and other assets, begging, pulling children out of school, or harvesting immature crops. Over three million people in Somalia have recently migrated, in large part because of hunger, while millions of households in pastoralist communities in Chad, Benin, Niger, Mali and Mauritania say they are having to sell more animals than they otherwise would to pay for more food”, said Kamalingin.

Historical injustices, inequality and wealth extraction have left generations of Africans poor and national economies indebted. Africa has stood last in line for Covid vaccines as the rich world hogged supplies. The continent has also been hit hardest by climate change and is already heating at a faster rate than the global average of 1.2 degrees.

“While the deck seems stacked against Africa, there is a lot more that African leaders can do to improve food security. Instead of allocating 15% of national budgets to the health sector and 10% to agriculture, military spending across Africa rose by over 5% in 2020. African’s leaders must prioritize food, trade and medicines over bullets, guns and bombs” said Kamalingin.

Twenty African countries are today facing insecurity and conflict including seven coups in the last year alone. In Ethiopia—the home of the AU—conflict has contributed to catastrophic levels of food insecurity in the Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions.

“AU leaders must make better, more effective use of all existing mechanisms they have to prevent and resolve conflicts,” said Kamalingin.

Here are how regions have been impacted:

The Horn of Africa is experiencing one of its most severe droughts in 40 years, following three back-to-back poor rainy seasons, and there are active conflicts across Ethiopia and Somalia. Nearly 15 million people are suffering from extreme hunger and severe water shortages.
In West Africa, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance could rise to 35.7 million during the lean season from June to August 2022.
In Southern Africa, communities in southern Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Malawi are struggling to cope with the cumulative consequences of climatic shocks and COVID-19 economic shocks. Until the 2022 harvest begins in April, many countries, including Madagascar, will continue to rely on food assistance.

Farmers and pastoralists have been particularly hit by food insecurity. Droughts on the continent have decimated thousands of hectares of crops and depleted livestock, often a primary source of income. COVID-19 restrictions have caused delays in the trade of critical agricultural inputs like fertilizer.

Jean-Paul Ndopoye, president of the Union des Riziculteurs de Paoua (URP) in the Central African Republic told Oxfam: “Our major problem is the sale of farm products. With the security crisis and the calamitous state of the roads, we can no longer travel to sell these products in neighboring towns and countries such as Chad. Our wish is to be connected to profitable marketing channels to sell all these products.”

Achta Bintou, who was displaced from her home and now lives in the Amma site in Lake Chad told Oxfam: “Today, the crisis has completely changed our lives. We had to move from Boma to the Amma site where we live in a makeshift shelter that barely hides the sun. Our water is not drinkable and we cannot get enough to eat. Imagine your diet dropping from three meals a day to one.”

Ahead of the Africa Union Summit, Oxfam calls upon African leaders to:

Meet the targets laid out in the 2014 Malabo Declaration to halve poverty and end hunger by 2025 by increasing agricultural investment to at least 10% of government budgets; encouraging women and youth in agricultural businesses and boosting intra-African agricultural trade.
Develop national agricultural investment plans that are gender-sensitive and climate-proof, which seek primarily to support small-scale farmers in non-cash crop sectors.
Commit to non-violent conflict resolution and enforce the African Peace and Security mechanisms that prevent and resolve conflict. They should ensure that international humanitarian law is respected in conflicts and condemn human rights violations and bring perpetrators to account.
Ensure that safe humanitarian access is granted to those most in need.
Adopt the draft Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Citizens to Social Protection and Social Security and encourage member states to sign and ratify it, in order to ensure universal access to adequate food and nutrition and to address vulnerability and inequality.
Ensure national humanitarian organizations at the forefront of addressing the hunger crisis, are at heart and centre of the political effort to resolve it.
Drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic injustices, and collectively investing in partnerships that secure long-term health for Africans, including allocating 15% of annual budgets to health as per the Abuja declaration.
Redouble Africa’s political voice to urge heavy carbon emitters, like China and the United States, to reduce their emissions, pay for the loss and damage that the climate crisis is causing in Africa, and to support Africa in mitigating the impact of climate change.

Notes

Oxfam has reached nearly 12 million of the most vulnerable across 22 countries in Africa with lifesaving support including clean water, food, and cash. In addition, together with our local partners, we work on gender, climate, and income generation programs to help people rebuild their lives, demand for their rights and cope with the devastating impact of climate change.
The number of people unable to afford a healthy diet in Africa is 1 billion, or one third of the global figure. Source: FAO et al., “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021”
FAO figures on the prevalence of undernourishment in Africa (including N. Africa) = 21% in 2020, up from 17% in 2015. That translates to 282 million people, up from 200 million in 2015. Ibid.
Figures of “nearly one out of five Africans experienced hunger in 2020 – more than double the proportion of any other region” from Policy Brief: Africa and Food Security. United Nations, Office of the Special Adviser on Africa October 2021
Figures on extreme coping mechanisms are from WFP food security analysis monitoring survey. Data is collected on a rolling basis. For more details on the methodology kindly check the Hunger Map
Figures of sub-Saharan women being anaemic and children under five being stunted is from the Global Report on Nutrition 2021.
The number of African countries facing conflict based on figures from Uppsala Data Conflict Program and International Crisis Group reports.
State of Climate in Africa https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/climate/wmo-statement-state-of-global-climate/Africa
Data on arms sending and conflict in Africa from SIPRI trends in World Military Expenditure 2020
Food price figures from OECD report. Also, in the 20 Sub-Saharan African countries for which there is monthly price data, food prices were up 11% in October 2021 as compared to a year earlier.