Farmers in Malawi are attributing the abundant harvest they are looking forward to - a total of 3.2 million metric tonnes of maize this year - to a combination of good rains and subsidised fertiliser, although there are still remaining pockets of vulnerability.
"What the government did - to reduce fertiliser [prices] to enable the poor buy cheap fertiliser - has increased food production. It is my sincere hope that government will continue implementing the programme, so that Malawi does not suffer from hunger any longer," said Amos Banda, a farmer on the outskirts of the capital, Lilongwe.
The government has also attributed the high maize production to subsidised fertiliser, which was sold to farmers at 950 kwacha [about US$6.50] per 50kg bag; in 2004 the price was around K4,000 [about US$27] per 50kg bag.
With a 22 percent increase over last year's production - 73 percent higher than the average for the last five years, according to government estimates - Malawi's agricultural sector seems to be recovering after a drought in 2005 left almost five million people in need of food aid.
Banda said that working hard "is the only solution to deal with persistent hunger in our households. We have had good rains in the past few years, but good rainfall without farm inputs and hard work cannot produce better crop yields."
Joana Kambale, another farmer, praised the government for reducing the cost of fertiliser but suggested that the most poverty-stricken people be given fertiliser free of charge.
"Some of us are keeping orphans, and to raise money to feed the children and buy fertiliser is not easy. However, I have to be thankful to government for the reduction, but free fertiliser to the poor would be helpful," she said.
Despite forecasts of a good harvest throughout the country, a maize shortage is expected in Karonga district, in the Northern part of Malawi, after a lack of rain in February.
Nevertheless, the farmers have proven resilient. "Although we may not harvest enough maize from this area, we still believe we can survive by growing winter crops. What most people would like, however, is the support from government. We need to irrigate our crops and we can only succeed if we have proper equipment," said Daniel Mwagomba, a farmer in Karonga.
An estimated 65 percent of Malawi's 12 million people live below the poverty line, so the vast majority cannot afford irrigation equipment. The government has said it would distribute about 400 treadle pumps - a simple and inexpensive human-powered pump - but farmers in most areas have not yet received them.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Binton Kuntsaira said there were no plans to discontinue the government's subsidy programme. "Due to high maize ... production last year, government has allowed traders to sell their crops outside Malawi. This year we expect more from our farmers, and this is what the government wants. People must be able to feed themselves."
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Confronting the Contradictions
The case against the IMF on education
In the world’s poorest countries many children have gone without quality education for far too long, and as a result, the human capital that these countries need to grow and develop sustainably is still in desperately short supply.
One reason is that the key ingredient to learning is missing: there are not enough trained teachers. Our research in Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone shows that a major factor behind the chronic and severe shortage of teachers is that International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies have required many poor countries to freeze or curtail teacher recruitment.
The report recognises that wage bill ceilings are closely linked to wider economic policies imposed by the IMF - and suggests that it is time for us all to challenge an approach "which encourages nations to believe that there is just one truth, one concept of macroeconomic stability and that this is an on-off position, stable or unstable, on-track or off-track."
The report makes the following core recommendations:
The IMF should stop attaching specific policy conditions to their lending and surveillance programmes;
Any advice they give must provide a range of policy options to enable governments and other stakeholders – including parliaments and civil society – to make informed choices about macroeconomic policies, wage bills and the level of social spending;
Governments should place education and development goals at the centre of their macro-economic planning. They should develop long-term and costed education plans detailing the actual need for teachers and resources for training in order to provide quality learning for all;
Donors need to keep their promises by committing to close the annual US$15bn financing gap needed to achieve education for all with increased and predictable aid over the long term. There is an urgent need to front-load increases in aid to education and
Civil society organisations need to develop their own economic literacy so they can better scrutinise government budgets, increase the sensitivity of budgets to the needs of girls, poor people and other excluded groups, and engage in discussions about alternative macroeconomic policies.
In the world’s poorest countries many children have gone without quality education for far too long, and as a result, the human capital that these countries need to grow and develop sustainably is still in desperately short supply.
One reason is that the key ingredient to learning is missing: there are not enough trained teachers. Our research in Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone shows that a major factor behind the chronic and severe shortage of teachers is that International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies have required many poor countries to freeze or curtail teacher recruitment.
The report recognises that wage bill ceilings are closely linked to wider economic policies imposed by the IMF - and suggests that it is time for us all to challenge an approach "which encourages nations to believe that there is just one truth, one concept of macroeconomic stability and that this is an on-off position, stable or unstable, on-track or off-track."
The report makes the following core recommendations:
The IMF should stop attaching specific policy conditions to their lending and surveillance programmes;
Any advice they give must provide a range of policy options to enable governments and other stakeholders – including parliaments and civil society – to make informed choices about macroeconomic policies, wage bills and the level of social spending;
Governments should place education and development goals at the centre of their macro-economic planning. They should develop long-term and costed education plans detailing the actual need for teachers and resources for training in order to provide quality learning for all;
Donors need to keep their promises by committing to close the annual US$15bn financing gap needed to achieve education for all with increased and predictable aid over the long term. There is an urgent need to front-load increases in aid to education and
Civil society organisations need to develop their own economic literacy so they can better scrutinise government budgets, increase the sensitivity of budgets to the needs of girls, poor people and other excluded groups, and engage in discussions about alternative macroeconomic policies.
Confronting the Contradictions
The IMF, wage bill caps and the case for teachers
A new report by ActionAid’s multi-country International Education Team and based on in-depth country case studies from Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone, shows that a major factor behind the chronic and severe shortage of teachers is that International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies have required many poor countries to freeze or curtail teacher recruitment. The IMF may have varying degrees of influence in directly setting the wage bill ceilings. However, by insisting on overly restrictive macroeconomic policies that constrain government spending on wages, it is in part responsible for the persisting teacher shortage. In all three countries examined, the wage bill ceiling is too low to allow the government to hire the teachers they need to achieve the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of 40:1 recommended by the Education for All – Fast-track Initiative (EFA-FTI). There is considerable evidence that the current ceilings compromise the quality of education in each of these countries. There is a growing contradiction between donors who are trying to “scale-up” aid and spending to train and hire enough teachers meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the IMF macroeconomic policies that are discouraging recipients from spending the new aid. This contradiction must by confronted by education advocates.
A new report by ActionAid’s multi-country International Education Team and based on in-depth country case studies from Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone, shows that a major factor behind the chronic and severe shortage of teachers is that International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies have required many poor countries to freeze or curtail teacher recruitment. The IMF may have varying degrees of influence in directly setting the wage bill ceilings. However, by insisting on overly restrictive macroeconomic policies that constrain government spending on wages, it is in part responsible for the persisting teacher shortage. In all three countries examined, the wage bill ceiling is too low to allow the government to hire the teachers they need to achieve the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of 40:1 recommended by the Education for All – Fast-track Initiative (EFA-FTI). There is considerable evidence that the current ceilings compromise the quality of education in each of these countries. There is a growing contradiction between donors who are trying to “scale-up” aid and spending to train and hire enough teachers meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the IMF macroeconomic policies that are discouraging recipients from spending the new aid. This contradiction must by confronted by education advocates.
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