SOUTHERN AFRICA: Fighting Hunger May Not Always Require Food

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Christi van der Westhuizen

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 11 2006 (IPS) - Several studies in Southern Africa show that the direct transfer of cash to people living on or below the breadline not only prevents hunger, but also further impoverishment.

International organisations have conducted studies in Malawi and Zambia to measure the effects of cash transfers on poor people’s lives. These studies were presented at a conference held this week (Oct. 9-10) near South Africa’s financial centre of Johannesburg.

The gathering was hosted by Oxfam Great Britain and a Pretoria-based non-profit, the Southern African Regional Poverty Network – as well as the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme, which is backed by the British and Australian governments, and headquartered in Johannesburg.

In a paper presented at the conference, Stephen Devereux from the Centre for Social Protection at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom says that cash transfers not only improve beneficiaries’ lives and livelihoods but also those of secondary beneficiaries, as well as boosting local economies.

Cash transfers thus hold the potential of addressing the shortfall in the achievement of development demands as set out in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the Southern African Development Community’s Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan.

An important factor determining the success of cash transfers is whether recipients spend the money on essential items. The pilot studies disprove the negative cliché about social security making people act irresponsibly.

For example, Oxfam GB’s study on cash transfers in Zambia shows that households spent 85 to 95 percent of the money on food. In another project currently underway in Zambia and spearheaded by the government, 80 to 90 percent of the cash transfers are being used for food.

Ian Mashingaidze from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reports a lower level of spending on food in a project conducted in Malawi in 2005. Households spent between from 50 to 60 percent of the transfers on food.

Part of the problem for the WFP project was the issue of inflation, as the price of maize shot up by 145 percent because of a food supply crisis induced by drought. However, the evidence in this case and others does not suggest that cash transfers cause food prices to rise.

The WFP project showed that gender is another important factor. The project found that men were more prone to spend cash transfers on non-essential items, says Mashingaidze. In instances of joint decision-making between women and men, the money went towards food. Female beneficiaries reported that they preferred food to cash because their husbands did not ordinarily take food away from them – as they might with cash.

The Food and Cash Transfer project (FACT) in Malawi, run by the Concern Worldwide non-governmental organisation, also found that men spent the money on alcohol and second wives. Female-headed households tend to spend cash transfers on food, while male-headed households do not. Sensitisation of men is recommended, as well as giving cash to women to address the imbalance in power relations within households.

Indian development economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has identified four factors which affect people’s access to food and thus their vulnerability to hunger. These are: inadequate production; the inability to find work, or insufficient wages; lack of assets to sell or the collapse of the exchange value of assets; and having no informal support through family or friends, or access to formal support from the state.

Devereux applies these categories to the problem of hunger in Southern Africa. The unpredictable variations in rainfall in the region lead to insufficient production of food. This causes substantial food shortages in households every year. Farmers try to minimise risk, in the process under-investing and exacerbating stagnation in the agricultural sector.

Many households fare badly even in times of good rainfall. Devereux conducted a survey which showed that only 23 percent of households in Malawi achieved food self-sufficiency or had a surplus in 2000, despite it being a bumper year for maize production. This was the result of constrained access to land, water, fertiliser, seeds, credit and labour.

Employment opportunities are few, even in good years. When crop production collapses, more people are looking for jobs at a time when there is even less demand for labour because of poor harvests. Along with real wages, casual work opportunities have been falling in Southern Africa as farmers who used to offer work are looking for jobs themselves.

Food prices in Southern Africa are seasonal and fluctuate, being at their lowest level just after the annual harvest time when supplies are abundant, and at their highest just before the annual harvest when supplies are scarce, according to Devereux. In such times, poor households sell their household assets – ranging from clothing and livestock to radios.

The resulting oversupply of goods causes prices to fall, meaning families get less than the market value of what they are selling. This contributes to their further impoverishment, especially where productive assets such as farming equipment are sold. Such coping strategies push families into a cycle of vulnerability, says Devereux.

Lastly, the ability of communities in Southern Africa to support their more vulnerable members is being eroded. The reasons for this include bad weather and subsequent crop failure; HIV/AIDS, market liberalisation and poor economic performance; and social change.

According to Devereux, the single most significant factor determining the success of cash transfers is whether recipients can reach markets to buy food and goods. If markets are accessible, transfers are a particularly good way to bridge the gap between household food production and consumption needs.

Cash transfers also alleviate the plight of the unemployed, as recipients’ demand for goods and services creates a market for such goods and services, which in turn could create jobs. Furthermore, cash transfers make families on the verge of destitution less prone to selling their hard-earned assets.

To ensure optimal results, governments and donors have to be responsive to the needs of beneficiaries. The WFP project mixed cash transfers with infrastructure support, while FACT combined food and cash.