An ActionAid Policy Brief

News of the famine in Malawi (like elsewhere in the world) developed as rural whispers slowly, too slowly finding their way to the ears of urban policymakers in Lilongwe and foreign capitals from October 2001. The Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN) and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace had attempted unsuccessfully to mobilize activist groups to pressurize the Government to declare a “famine”. The data provided then by these organizations and others was dismissed as lacking credibility.

0n February 22nd 2002, MEJN released a press statement calling for Government and donor action and stating “The Government should acknowledge that there is hunger in Malawi; make the holding of maize a crime, subsidize the price of maize in Malawi; government and civil society should provide food supplies to vulnerable groups”. At this point, the mainstream international media started broadcasting reports of a famine emergency, desperation and critical food shortages.

By June 2002, the disaster had claimed up to a thousand African lives. Yet, in Washington DC, media coverage and policy treatment of the disaster has been confusing. Media coverage of the discourse between the Government of Malawi, bi-lateral donors or the International Monetary headlined alternately corruption abounded or criminal macroeconomic policy. Situated within this discourse and resourced by the public release of a comprehensive report by ActionAidMalawi this policy brief isolates one important factor for examination and public scrutiny namely, the failure of macro-economic and structural policy to safeguard against the famine in Malawi.

We remain conscious of the myriad of complex variables, both causal and correlative, often associated with famine situations. As with all famines, the causes fall into two categories: ‘trigger factors’ (livelihood shocks and response failures), and ‘underlying causes’ (factors that create vulnerability to livelihood shocks). As elaborated in the ActionAidMalawi report (June 2002), the disaster can be explained as the product of a combination of both ‘technical’ issues and political challenges. Issues of poor early warning systems, market failures, structural poverty and inadequate infrastructure are also parts of this crisis.

However unlike previous famines in Malawi, this one was preceded by over a decade of structural and agriculturally related policy reforms by successive Malawian Governments advised by the International Monetary Fund. While not ignoring the many domestic factors contained in the ActionAidMalawi report, this report singles out key international policy components for attention.

MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The ActionAid Malawi report clarifies the broad array of causes for the famine.1998/99 and 1999/00 were two good production years. However, localised floods reduced the 2000/01 maize harvest and left a shortfall estimated at 237,000 metric tones in 2000-2001. In 2001-2002 the shortfall had almost tripled rising to 600,000 metric tones. Initial crop estimates suggested that the maize deficit would be partly offset by a 30% increase in roots and tubers production (especially cassava) over the previous year. This figure was wrong and generated misplaced complacency. Donors failed to react to signals of an impending food crisis, the Strategic Grain Reserve was sold, and senior members of government denied the existence of a famine until February 2002, when civil society and the media presented irrefutable evidence of hunger-related deaths.

The decision to sell the Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR) followed advice from the IMF to reduce the level of buffer stocks held from 165,000 MT to 60,000 MT. Instead, almost all of the reserve was sold, much of it on local markets, against IMF advice to export it in order to minimise disincentives to maize producers.

There is some evidence that much of the SGR was sold to local traders, who stockpiled it and profiteered from hunger. When the government attempted to cover the resulting food gap through imports, this proved extremely expensive, and a series of logistical problems caused fatal delays and an escalation of maize prices to unaffordable levels. Concern about various governance issues – including suspicions of corrupt practice around the SGR sale – caused donors to vacillate for several months before responding to signals of distress with food assistance.

Following stakeholder consultations across the Malawian Government, civil society and donor communities on a draft version of the report, ActionAid further calls on the International Monetary Fund to act quickly to institute the following measures;

1. A temporary moratorium on further structural reforms to formulate, set and meet the food security objectives of a national development strategy in conjunction with the Malawian Government, civil society and donors.

2. Review and propose legal and operational measures that support the Malawian Government to regulate various forms of manipulation, rent-seeking and un-competitive activities by sector agents.

3. Institute a tracking study that traces which sectors and interests have benefited from the dissolution of the Strategic Grain reserve and the reduction of institutional and structural regulatory and supervisory capacity. This is in line with the commitment to undertake Poverty and Social Impact Assessments.