The covenant that could really defeat hunger

On the eve of the G7 meeting in Brussels and two months before the summit that President Obama will host African leaders to promote investment and trade relations, a new report by the New Earth and the Transnational Institute reveals the pressure of multinationals in the conquest of a continent that the World Bank has called "the last frontier for global markets of food and agriculture." This new report, launched today, explains the different ways in which multinational corporations are influencing the development programs for Africa . Their financial power along with a direct involvement has given shape to the "New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition", the new "framework for cooperation" that opens the door to investment and enriches multinational companies seriously endangering the small farmers in Africa under the slogan of "development". The African farmers and civil society organizations, international oppose it at all levels, even within the Committee on World Food Security.
The report, "The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition: a coup for corporate capital?" Argues that small-scale producers - the majority of the population - are already responsible for producing 80% of food consumed in Africa and can meet the growing demand for food in African cities if properly supported. Programs such as the New Covenant, however, will have the effect of exempting land to small farmers or to close them in the mechanisms and logic of the global food supply chains resulting in further impoverish and enrich agribusiness corporations.
The New Partnership for Food Safety and Nutrition, the new "framework for cooperation" as it is called, was launched at the G8 Summit held in 2012 in the U.S. and then push in the Summit of 2013 in the United Kingdom. Currently, concerns involving 10 African countries at the table of donors, as well as the governments of the G8 and the European Union, more than 100 companies. The declared aim of the initiative is to "accelerate responsible investment for African agriculture and bring 50 million people out of poverty by 2022." The partnership includes commitments by African leaders to "redefine policies to improve investment opportunities." The private sector companies, for their part, "are committed to increase investment to more than $ 3 billion," while "the donor partners (including the EU) will support the African potential for a rapid and sustained agricultural growth, and ensure the 'assumption of responsibility. "
The report traces the birth of the New Covenant as a response to a series of complex interactions between individual companies, philanthropic foundations, the private sector forum multinational, bilateral and multilateral aid programs and African authorities. It highlights the false rhetoric about what the New Covenant is based: "defeat food insecurity", comparing the rhetoric to the reality on the ground. As in the classic deceptions based on trust, the benefits promised by the private sector and donors evaporate when the peasant organizations most critical and their supporters are trying to determine the impacts, based on how many of these programs are already in progress. In summary, what remains are the political changes that penalize small producers to the benefit of multinational corporations privatizing public goods and collective from which depend the living conditions of rural populations. One example among others is given by the reform of seed laws that promote the products of multinational companies and limit the rights of farmers to use their seed. In this way, the multinational private sector investment is protected, while those of the peasants - 90% of all agricultural investments according to FAO sources - are threatened. As if that were not enough, then, these changes are implemented without any consultation process with stakeholders.
Finally, as to suffer such negative impacts are small farmers who constitute the majority of the population of the countries involved, the New Covenant is in fact undermining the fragile democratic foundations that the governments of the G8, in words, say they want to support.
The report sheds light on the opposition movements in Africa and their activities within the Committee on World Food Security (Committee on World Food Security / CFS). The New Covenant has been heavily criticized by civil society because it promotes the interests of multinational corporations rather than of small food producers and citizens. The CFS is currently in a process of negotiation of principles aimed at ensuring that investment in agriculture to promote food security and the right to food, defending the livelihoods of small producers rather than the profits of multinational corporations.
"The covenant that could really defeat hunger is between African governments and their small-scale producers," says Nora McKeon, author of the report. "A combination of pressure from above - as in the reformed CFS-and political pressure from below - from citizens and well organized with good communication skills-may be the best way to get there."