Corporate, Foreign Government land grab

World Bank land grab report: Beyond smoke and mirrors

GRAIN

2010-09-23, Issue 497

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/67208

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cc CIATThe World Bank’s long-awaited report on the global farmland grab is ‘both a disappointment and a failure’, writes GRAIN. The bank provides little ‘new and solid on-the-ground data’ and is silent about its own ‘neck-deep involvement’ in ‘large scale land acquisitions’. Looking ‘beyond the smoke and mirrors effect’, the report is ‘more significant for what it doesn't say than what it does’, says GRAIN.

On 7 September 2010, the World Bank finally decided to publish its much-anticipated report on the global farmland grab. After years of work, several months of political negotiation and who knows how much money spent, the report was casually released on the bank's website – in English only.[1]

The report is both a disappointment and a failure. Everyone was expecting the bank to provide new and solid on-the-ground data about these ‘large scale land acquisitions’, to use their terminology, that have created so much controversy since 2008. After all, the bank should have access to governments and corporations in a way that journalists and non-government organisation (NGO) researchers never would. The bank itself says this was its central ambition. But there is hardly anything new in the whole 160-plus page document. The bank said it was going to look concretely at 30 countries, but it only looked at 14. As it turns out, companies refused to share information about their farmland investments, as did governments providing the lands. So the bank turned instead to farmlandgrab.org a website run by GRAIN, made a database of all the deals that the media reported on there, and then sent out teams of consultants to see if they were real or not.[2] Is this the best that the World Bank could do?

UGLY FINDINGS

What its researchers and informants found corroborates what many have been saying for two years now. Yes, there is an ‘enormous’ farmland grab going on around the world ever since the 2008 food and financial crises and it shows no signs of abating. The bank says that the 463 projects it tallied from farmlandgrab.org between October 2008 and June 2009 cover at least 46.6 million hectares of land and that the majority of these are in sub-Saharan Africa. Field reports validated that 21 per cent of these projects are ‘in operation’, more than half are under ‘initial development’ and nearly 70 per cent have been ‘approved’.[3] The bank downplays these numbers, presenting them as evidence that the land grab deals are more hype than reality. We think, on the contrary, that they demonstrate that a lot of projects are moving forward, all the more so since the bank's figures are out of date, with new deals happening all the time.

The bank's findings also corroborate what others have been saying about the impacts of these land grabs. Its general conclusion is that investors are taking advantage of ‘weak governance’ and the ‘absence of legal protection’ for local communities to push people off their lands. Additionally, it finds that the investments are giving almost zero back to affected communities in terms of jobs or compensation, to say nothing of food security. The message we get is that virtually nowhere, among the countries and cases the bank examined, is there much to celebrate:

‘Many investments (...) failed to live up to expectations and, instead of generating sustainable benefits, contributed to asset loss and left local people worse off than they would have been without the investment. In fact, even though an effort was made to cover a wide spectrum of situations, case studies confirm that in many cases benefits were lower than anticipated or did not materialize at all.’[4]

The bank provides a table with some very brief summaries of foreign investments in farmland in seven countries (see Appendix 1). It is one of the only instances where the bank goes into detail about how these investments are actually playing out on the ground. The table paints a horrific picture. Whole communities are getting thrown off their lands, workers are being exploited, violent conflicts are erupting (one senior company representative was killed), investors are breaking laws and promises and so on. What does the bank say about these ‘immense risks’ and ‘real dangers’, as it calls them? That we should not get alarmed, for there are ‘equally large opportunities’.

WHAT THE REPORT DOESN'T SAY

Most of the report is smoke and mirrors talk about potentials for agricultural production, not ‘the global land rush’ as it was previously titled.[5] It clouds the reader's mind with facts and figures about yield gaps and land usage, and how productivity can be increased with innovative research or technology. We are treated to a barrage of agroecological zoning maps and charts that do not say much except where the most potential to produce food is apparently located.

Anyone who looks beyond the smoke and mirrors effect can see that the report is more significant for what it doesn't say than what it does. Had the bank really wanted to shed light on this new investment trend it would have at least peeled back the curtain on the investors. Who are they? What are they after? How much of the investment flows are private and how much are public? Without this kind of information, you cannot analyse much. For example, we have heard companies say on numerous occasions that their investments have nothing to do with ‘food security’ – that this is business, pure and simple. Weighing up exactly who is involved and for what purpose, without the fantasies attached, would have been most useful. In fact, at the beginning of this year, the bank shared some data of this nature when it identified for the Global Donor Platform the top countries targeted by these land grab deals and the top countries of origin of the investors between 2008 and 2009 (see Table 1). But in its final report, the bank chose not to name names, forcing everyone to speculate why.



This is not all that the bank left out of the report. ‘The veil of secrecy that often surrounds these land deals must be lifted so poor people don't ultimately pay the heavy price of losing their land,’ World Bank managing director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, declared upon releasing the study. It's true. And she could have started by making available to the public all of the contracts and investor-state agreements that the bank's study team was able to access in the course of this research. Communities need to have access to the actual terms of these deals in order to judge them for themselves. Government and corporate propaganda will not do. Yet these documents are very difficult to get hold of. If the bank really wanted to lift the veil of secrecy it would start by putting these legal documents in the public domain. We would be glad to host them at farmlandgrab.org and help ensure their translation into local languages.

Another matter that the report is silent about is the World Bank's own neck-deep involvement in these deals. For decades, the bank has been actively promoting market-based approaches to land management through its lending practices and policy advocacy. This means privatisation of land rights, both through the conversion of customary rights into marketable titles as well as the disengagement of the state, and legal reforms necessary for Western style land markets to function. If the bank now says that so many countries, especially in Africa, are ‘ill-equipped’ to deal with the ‘sudden influx of interest’ from farmland investors, then what good were the policy advisory services it performed over the last 30 years?[6]

Even more directly, the bank's commercial investment arm, the International Finance Corporation, is a major investor in numerous private equity firms that are buying up rights to farmland while its Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is providing land grab projects with political risk insurance (Table 2). MIGA has put up US$50 million, for example, as cover for Chayton Capital's US$300 million business investments in Zambia and Botswana. For other firms, like British hedge fund SilverStreet Capital, MIGA's role in protecting farmland investments is crucial. If problems arise, ‘you'll have the World Bank on your side,’ Gary Vaughan-Smith, SilverStreet's chief investment officer, puts it.[7] MIGA, like IFC, is a for-profit agency, with a mission to promote profitable agribusiness investments in developing countries for its shareholders. Given these multiple levels of vested interest in farmland deals, it should come as no surprise that the bank promotes them despite dismal realities on the ground.

BOTTOM LINE

The bottom line is that there is a huge disconnect between what the World Bank says, what is happening on the ground and what is truly needed. Right now, numerous governments and civil society organisations are calling to put a brake of one form or another on these deals. Australia, Argentina, Brazil, New Zealand and Uruguay are just some of the countries currently debating whether to introduce, at the highest policy levels, restrictions on foreigners getting farmland ownership. Egypt is one of those trying to get tougher to keeping new farmland investment programmes limited to domestic investors. Much of this, the non-xenophobic part, is or could be about establishing new forms or expressions of sovereignty over land, water and food at a time of tremendous pressure on all three. And many farmers' organisations, academics, human rights groups, NGO networks and social movements are clamouring for all sorts of moratoria and bans and halts to this land grabbing. In the meantime, the hunger of private investors for farmland deals is proliferating. A group of former Cargill traders, for instance, have just launched a US$1 billion fund that aims to buy into farmland in Australia, Brazil and Uruguay.[8]

The World Bank has shown it is not a trusted arbiter or wellspring of good ideas on how to move forward. Too bad if it took the agencies that commissioned this report a very long wait, and a pile of taxpayers' money, to see that.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was first published by GRAIN.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.


APPENDIX 1: SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

DRC - MAIZE PROJECT:
‘Investment displaced local cultivators, pushing them into a national park where farmers now pay guards to let them cultivate within the reserve; other farmers forced to relocate 50 km away where they rent land from local people. Mineral poor soils highly susceptible to erosion following biomass clearance. No EIA required...’

LIBERIA - RICE PROJECT:
‘Economic problems caused investor to encroach on fertile wetlands, in contravention of agreements reached with the community (which cannot be enforced), displacing 30 percent of the local population. Compensation is not offered to all who lost rights. 400 full-time jobs have been created for unskilled workers (mostly ex-combatants) but there is concern about hiring foreigners who are willing to work for lower wages. As a result of deforestation, more than 50 ha of swamp have been silted from the first year of operations.’

LIBERIA - TIMBER CONCESSION (example of attaching a ‘social pact’):
‘Social agreement clearly specifies rental payments and benefit sharing with government, but prohibition of investors' interference with good faith exercise of customary uses of timber and other forest products is not adhered to. Investment has thus restricted community access to forest products in context of increasing population and decreasing farmland.’

MOZAMBIQUE - SUGARCANE:
‘Only 35-40 [people] were employed full time plus some 30 on a seasonal basis [despite investor's promise of 2,650 jobs]. (...) Local people lost access to forest for fuel wood, game meat, fish. Investor uses local water supply and roads without compensation; thus negatively affecting women who gather the water. EIA noted potential negative impacts of agro-chemicals on soil, air, water and recommended mitigation measures. Also negative impact of forest clearance for sugarcane production.’

TANZANIA - LIVESTOCK + JATROPHA:
‘Joint venture between Dutch and Tanzanian companies; land belongs to four villages, who still must approve transfers to the investor; only one village has so far granted land rights. Investor wants to lease land directly from the local villages, in violation of the Village Land Act. Potentially negative impacts on pastoralist communities' access to grazing land, fire wood and water. Expected employment benefits not quantified.’

ZAMBIA - EXPORT CROPS:
‘Local fears about potential displacement. Potential population displacement, loss of access to forest products, including edible caterpillars. Intact miombo woodlands on site would be negatively impacted by clearing for cultivation; current environmental impacts limited to land clearing for road and dam construction and related soil erosion.’

Source: World Bank, ‘Rising global interest in farmland’, Appendix Table 2, pp 106-108

+

APPENDIX 2: EXAMPLES OF WORLD BANK SUPPORT TO FARMLAND INVESTORS VIA IFC AND MIGA

ALTIMA ONE WORLD AGRICULTURE FUND (US):
The Altima One World Agriculture Fund, registered in the Cayman Islands, was created by the hedge fund Altima Partners to invest in farmland in South America, Eastern and Central Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. In 2009, the IFC made a US$75 million equity investment in the Fund. One senior Altima Executive says the Fund aims to create the "first Exxon Mobile of the farming sector".

CHAYTON ATLAS AGRICULTURE COMPANY (UK):
Chayton is a UK-based private equity firm investing in farmland in southern Africa. In 2010, MIGA signed a contract with Chayton to provide it with up to US$50 million in political risk insurance for its development of farm projects in Zambia and Botswana. It's CEO, formerly with Goldman Sachs, says its "goal is to feed Africa."

CITADEL CAPITAL (EGYPT):
In 2009, the IFC invested US$25 million in Citadel's Middle East North Africa fund, which is investing in agricultural projects. Citadel, one of Africa's largest private equity funds, is pursuing farmland investments in Egypt, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

MRIYA AGRO HOLDING (UKRAINE):
Mriya, which is incorporated in Cyprus and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, is the 7th largest farmland operator in the Ukraine. In 2010, IFC provided US$75 million to Mriya in equity and loans for the company to increase its landholdings to 165,000 ha.

SENA GROUP (MAURITIUS)/TEREOS (FRANCE):
In 2001, MIGA provided a consortium of investors from Mauritius, known as the Sena Group, with US$65 million in political risk insurance to support their acquisition of a sugar plantation in Mozambique. The company also announced that it intended to expand its cattle operations from 1,800 head to 8,000. The Sena operation has since been taken over by the French multinational sugar company Tereos.

SLC AGRICOLA (BRAZIL):
SLC, a publicly traded company partly owned by foreign investors such as Deutsche Bank, is one of the largest landowners in Brazil, with a land bank of 117,000 ha in 2008. In 2008, IFC provided a US$40 million long-term loan to SLC, enabling it to increase its holdings to over 200,000 ha.

VISION BRAZIL (BRAZIL):
Vision is a Brazilian investment company with over 300,000 ha in cropland and another 400,000 ha in "options". In 2008, IFC provided Vision with US$27 million in securities financing.

NOTES
- The World Bank report can be downloaded in English from: http://www.donorplatform.org/content/view//457/2687 The Spanish executive summary is here: http://ediscussion.donorplatform.org/ wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Land-Report_es.pdf. The French summary will presumably be available from the same site shortly.
- For a selection of reactions to the report, many of which provide summaries of its contents, see http://farmlandgrab.org/cat/world-bank
- An open electronic forum on the World Bank report is being hosted from 13 September to 8 October 2010 by the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development and the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Visit http://www.donorplatform.org/ component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,2686

REFERENCES
[1] World Bank, ‘Rising global interest in farmland: can it yield sustainable and equitable benefits?’, Washington DC, September 2010, http://www.donorplatform.org/ component/option,com_docman/task,doc_view/gid,1505 A week after its release, the Bank decided to issue translations of the executive summary into Spanish and French.
[2] Ibid. See pp 33-35 and p 38 for an explanation of this methodology.
[3] Ibid, p 36.
[4] Ibid, p 51.
[5] See Javier Blas, ‘World Bank warns on 'farmland grab' trend’, Financial Times, 27 July 2010, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/62890172-99a8-11df-a852-00144feab49a.html and John W Miller, ‘World Bank land grab report under fire’, The Wall Street Journal, 29 July 2010, http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2010/07/29/ world-bank-land-grab-report-under-fire/tab/print/
[6] See World Bank, op cit, p 91
[7] Drew Carter, ‘Fertile ground for investment’, Pensions & Investments, 19 April 2010, http://farmlandgrab.org/12218 The Crowder quote in the photo caption is from Edward West, ‘Africa: Agri-projects at 'unprecedented' levels’, Business Day (South Africa), 1 September 2010, http://allafrica.com/stories/201009010190.html
[8] Barani Krishnan, ‘Galtere says raising $1 bln agribusiness fund’, Reuters, 1 September 2010, http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN0113842720100901

37% of Ghana’s Farmland Recolonized

Posted by xcroc under Ghana, agriculture, biofuel, environment, jatropha curcas, recolonize
[4] Comments 

In the quest for biofuel plantations, and for export food crops, foreign countries and corporations are grabbing land, “using methods that hark back to the darkest days of colonialism” in Ghana and throughout Africa.

Foreign companies now control 37 percent of Ghana cropland. The spread of jatropha is pushing small farmers, and particularly women farmers off their land. Valuable food sources such as shea nut and dawadawa trees have been cleared to make way for plantations.
…
A total of 769,000 ha has been acquired by foreign companies such as Agroils (Italy), Galten Global Alternative Energy (Israel), Gold Star Farms (Ghana), Jatropha Africa (UK/Ghan), Biofuel Africa (Norway), ScanFuel (Norway) and Kimminic Corporation (Canada). According to the CIA World Fact Book Ghana has 3.99 million ha arable land with 2.075 million ha under permanent crops. This means that more than 37 percent of Ghana’s cropland has been grabbed for the plantation of jatropha.

Large-scale jatropha plantation with forest in background, Brong Ahafo region,Ghana. Photo by Laura German

What is worse in most cases the companies involved in the production of the biofuel import labour from outside the communities where production sites were located, and “there were drastic lay-offs as the project progressed from land preparation and planting stages.”

Friends of the Earth published Africa: up for grabs: The scale and impact of land grabbing for agrofuels PDF describing the problem throughout the continent. It contains maps and tables showing more detailed information about specific countries.

With its relatively stabile political situation and suitable climate, Ghana is an apparent hotspot for acquiring land to grow jatropha.

Harvesting jatropha in Ghana

Examples of land allocated reportedly for biofuel investments in Ghana:

FoE table of examples of land allocated reportedly for biofuel investments in Ghana (click to enlarge)

The following story from Ghana shows how the Europeans, often with the help of some government enablers, trick local communities into giving up their land. The company representatives imply they are bringing jobs and income, but do not contract in any way in which they can be held legally accountable to keep their promises. It is not just Europeans who are siezing land in Africa. The US, China, Brazil, and other countries are involved. In Ghana so far, most of the appropriated land has been taken over by Europeans.

Biofuel land grabbing in Northern Ghana PDF is the story of how a Norwegian biofuel company took advantage of Africa’s traditional system of communal land ownership and current climate and economic pressure to claim and deforest large tracts of land in Kusawgu, Northern Ghana with the intention of creating “the largest jatropha plantation in the world”.
Bypassing official development authorization and using methods that hark back to the darkest days of colonialism, this investor claimed legal ownership of these lands by deceiving an illiterate chief to sign away 38 000 hectares with his thumb print.
This is also the story of how the effected community came to realize that, while the promised jobs and incomes were unlikely to materialize, the plantation would mean extensive deforestation and the loss of incomes from gathering forest products, such as sheanuts. When given all the information the community successfully fought to send the investors packing but not before 2 600 hectares of land had been deforested. Many have now lost their incomes from the forest and face a bleak future.

Land stripped for biofuel production near Alipe, Northern Ghana.

Rural communities who are desperate for incomes are enticed by developers who promise them a “better future” under the guise of jobs with the argument that they are currently only just surviving from the “unproductive land” and that they stand to earn a regular income if they give up the land for development. This argument fails to appreciate the African view of the meaning of the land to the community. While the initial temptation to give up the land to earn a wage is great, it portends of an ominous future where the community’s sovereignty, identity and their sense of community is lost because of the fragmentation that the community will suffer.
The strategy for the acquisition of the land often takes the following course: The imaginations of a few influential leaders in the community are captured. They are told about prospects for the community due to the project and they were swayed with promises of positions in the company or with monetary inducements. The idea is that these people do the necessary “footwork” in the villages where they spread the word about job opportunities. A document is then prepared, essentially a contract, to lease the land to the company. In the event of problems the developer can press their claim by enforcing the ‘contract’ or agreement. When the legality of the process is not adequately scrutinized, the developers have their way but, subject to proper scrutiny, it emerges these contracts are not legally binding as they have not gone through the correct legal channels. This is what happened in this particular case in the Alipe area.
…
In this community, like in most parts of Ghana, over 80 percent of the land is held under communal ownership and more that 70 percent of this land is managed by traditional ruler-chiefs mainly on behalf the members of the their traditional areas. The chief was very categorical that he had not made such a grant and that he had also been battling with those “white people” to stop them – without much success. He confirmed that he “thumb printed” a document in the company of the Assemblyman of the area which had been brought to his palace by the “white people” but he did not confirm its contents.
The Chief was initially unwilling to go against the wishes of his people as his efforts to stop the developers were being interpreted by the community as driving away opportunities to earn an income during the current dry season”.
…
The facts began to emerge – a big fish in Government was promoting the project and had deployed his business associates in the Region to front for him. This front man was immediately employed as the Local Manager of BioFuel Africa. The EPA then insisted that they must go through the processes of having an Environmental Impact Assessment made. We then had a public consultative forum in the community where we had a face-to–face confrontation Mr. Finn Byberg, Director of Land Acquisition for BioFuel Africa in the village square in front of the Chief’s palace. The audience and judges were the village communities affected by the proposed project.

The Chief and his elders waiting to hear the presentations.

…
… the promises of jobs and a new improved life would not materialize because Mr Finn Byberg, the Chairman of BioFuel Africa confessed, during his presentation that he could not state categorically what commitments the company would make He said, “Commitments are not very easy and so when I am required to make these, I need to be very careful. I do not want to be caught for not keeping my word.”. … This made it clear that our land is being used for experimentation. Mr Byberg’s promise of jobs …were mere campaign gimmicks.
Most vocal indeed were the women at the session. Looking Mr Finn Byberg in the face a women asked, “Look at all the sheanut trees you have cut down already and considering the fact that the nuts that I collect in a year give me cloth for the year and also a little capital. I can invest my petty income in the form of a ram and sometimes in a good year, I can buy a cow. Now you have destroyed the trees and you are promising me something you do not want to commit yourself to. Where then do you want me to go? What do you want me to do?”
…
We need a more aggressive campaign to halt land grabbing. We need to engage with traditional rulers, District Assemblies and Politicians about this ominous phenomenon. We need visibility through print and electronic media to put our message across effectively to a wider audience. RAINS has a strategy to build on the rapport that it has developed through the OSIWA project with traditional rulers to open up another channel for engagement. We cannot afford to be caught unawares in this war with the biofuel companies. The ancestors are on our side and we shall win the war!
by Bakari Nyari, Vice Chairman of RAINS - Regional Advisory and Information Network Systems, Ghana, and Ghana and African Biodiversity Network Steering Committee member

At the same time, from the Friends of the Earth study:

Reports from India, however, indicate that yields of 1kg per plant have been difficult to achieve. Food Security Ghana is yet to hear of any commercially viable biofuel production from Jatropha, and it looks more and more as though the jatrophy frenzy is a big bubble waiting to burst.
The FoE report is indeed alarming if one considers that Ghana has allowed this massive land grab to take place in the absence of a biofuel policy and with no environmental impact studies undertaken – on the possible negative effects on both natural resources and on the communities – of huge jatropha plantations.
The report further states that proponents of agrofuels generally argue that agrofuel production will address the economic crisis facing many developing countries; they will create wealth and jobs and alleviate poverty.
According to the FoE these arguments overlook the other side of the story and leave many questions unanswered.
• Is the push for agrofuel production in the interest of the developing countries or are the real beneficiaries Northern industrialised countries?
• Will the production of agrofuels actually provide more jobs and enhance economic development at the community level?
• Will it address the issue of food insecurity plaguing the developing world?
• What are the social and environmental costs of agrofuel production to host communities?
• Who stands to benefit from the entire process?
The FoE concludes its report with the following:

• “Hunger for foreign investment and economic development is driving a number of African countries to welcome agrofuel developers onto their land. Most of these developers are European companies, looking to grow agrofuel crops to meet EU targets for agrofuel use in transport fuel.
• Demand for agrofuels threatens food supplies away from consumers for fuel in the case of crops such as cassava, peanuts, sweet sorghum and maize.
• Non-edible agrofuel crops such as jatropha are competing directly with food crops for fertile land. The result threatens food supplies in poor communities and pushes up the cost of available food.
• Farmers who switch to agrofuel crops run the risk of being unable to feed their families.
• While foreign companies pay lip service to the need for “sustainable development”, agrofuel production and demand for land is resulting in the loss of pasture and forests, destroying natural habitat and probably causing an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
• Agrofuel production is also draining water from parts of the continent where drought is already a problem
  .
• While politicians promise that agrofuels will bring locally sourced energy supplies to their countries, the reality is that most of the foreign companies are developing agrofuels to sell on the international market.
• Just as African economies have seen fossil fuels and other natural
  resources exploited for the benefit of other countries, there is a risk that
  agrofuels will be exported abroad with minimal benefit for local communities and national economies. Countries will be left with depleted soils, rivers that have been drained and forests that have been destroyed.”

The Government of Ghana announced that a biofuel policy will soon be introduced. Now is maybe the time for the people of Ghana to ask if the critical questions posed by the FoE have been addressed in the development of this policy.
from Food Security Ghana

________
September 17 from GhanaWeb: Tema fishermen halt sale of land, agricultural land is not the only land being seized by nationals from other countries.

About 200 fishermen and fishmongers Thursday resisted attempts to clear debris and erect a fencewall around a fish processing area near the Tema Canoe Beach.
The area was being cleared for the construction of a palm oil processing firm to be owned by Wilmor Edible Oil Refinery-Project (WEORP) a Singaporean firm.
The 64 hectare land was leased to the company by the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA).
The demonstrators wearing red arm bands and headgears singing traditional songs with the refrain “wo kpene ni ashishi wo,” to wit, “we will not allow them to cheat us,” stopped the bulldozer from preparing the ground and sealed holes dug up to erect pillars for the fencewall.
…
Rebecca Ashong, one of the fish processors, said she had been on the business for more than 15 years and had been supporting her family with proceeds from it and driving them out of the land will spell doom for them.
Wolenye Korkor Abo, said more than 2,000 people depended on the fish processing business for survival and displacing them will bring about untold hardship into the Tema Manhean community and asked government to take another look at it.
Nii Shippi Armah of the Tema Traditional Council wondered why the people of Tema would not be left alone to occupy this piece of land after so many acres of their land had been taken over by the State.
He said in 1959 when the construction of the Tema harbour and industrialisation of Tern a displaced the indigenous people, government resettled them at Tema Newtown.
In addition, government pointed the landing beach and this piece of land where our people could continue fishing processing their catch and mending nets as we did at our previous location.
He said “after almost 51 years of using the place, it has by convention and usage become ours“.
He said over 2,000 people were involved in the fish processing business in the area and it is from that they support their families and children’s education and sacking them would bring untold economic hardships. “We will, therefore, resist all attempts to displace us again,” he warned.
Nii Shippi Armah said a committee set up to study the implications of the project to the community was yet to present its report to the Tema Traditional Council.

And these sound like empty promises:

Mr, Asiedu said over the last five months it had been meeting the committee members and they had agreed that those affected by the project will be relocated and the cost paid by the project so that their livelihood were not destroyed.
He said for instance, “it had been agreed that a fish processing platform will be built across the road near the lagoon where business can be done in a more hygienic manner.”
He said a new 50 seater toilet facility will be provided to replace the 40 seater one which is currently located at the centre of the land.
Mr. Asiedu said the concerns of the community were being addressed and the construction of the project would be carried out alongside the relocation plan and, therefore, advised those affected by the project not to panic.
The project is expected to directly employ between 1,800 and 2,400 people.

The local fishing business already supports that many. Will the processing plant employ Ghanaians, or will it import labor? If Ghanaians will be relocated, the relocation spot should be prepared and ready before they move. Promises mean nothing. No one can live on promises. And why should these people be forced to move again?
I wish the fishermen and fishmongers of Tema much success in holding on to their land and livelihood. And I wish farming and working communities throughout Ghana success in holding on to their land. The dangers are wealthy, powerful, and growing. Local people need some help and support from their government. Government needs to provide this backing to stay legitimate. If you want people to vote for you, they need to see you are supporting their interests or they will vote you out. That just happened in Washington DC, where a mayor who repeatedly ignored and insulted a majority of his constituents, the people who had previously supported him, just lost his bid for reelection. It can happen in Ghana too. It is what a lot of Ghanaians were looking for in the presidential elections at the end of 2008.
________
Unfortunately, Fifteen fishmongers arrested.
________
The first part of this article was published, text only, on GhanaWeb on September 19.  You can read comments there.


The Multifunctionality of Agriculture
WTO Agreement on Agriculture
GM Crops and Foods
Food Subsidy and local economies
Corporate, Foreign Government land grab
The Right To Water


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CHALLENGING DOGMA AND PROPAGANDA

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AMBUSHING AN IMMINENT CONJUNCTION

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to help reinforce the vibrant flames of panafricanism burning throughout the diaspora and on the continent and to equally promote the increasingly urgent and enduring imperatives of the struggle for the total liberation and unification of Africa as a single sovereign entity requisite for the consolidation of her political independence, and as a bulwark against neocolonialist subversion and manipulation of the peoples' right to self-determination, in order to withstand imperialist sabotage in all their ramifications and be able to create real opportunities for effective democratic institutions, self-determination and social mobility, social justice, economic development, and thereby contribute positively in the all-round development of the individual as a member of society, and help in improving the quality of life for all;

 

 2. Networking for change:   

to assist in the engineering and the construction of a political platform to facilitate self-mobilisation and to service and power bottom-up, people-to-people, polycentric and democratic mass movement constantly networking for synergies and seeking common grounds for effective strategies, non-violent joint-actions, and to create infrastructure appropriate to our needs to live in peace and in dignity, in a common determination to help put a permanent end to an old story beginning from centuries of slavery, to colonialism, neocolonialism, and today's real and continental dangers;  

 

3. Interactive information   

to help establish in a very systematic and comprehensive manner, an authentic clearing-house of research, information gathering, handling, distribution, exchanges and other consciousness-raising activities focusing attention, encouraging reflection and stimulating informed discussions and actions on the need for change, what needs to be changed, and the direction of such a change, in the light of concrete historical experience of struggle of the working classes throughout the world, theoretical analysis, identification, defence and the advancement of the interests of Africa's poor and constantly alienated peasantry and working class majority;  

 

4. Challenging Neocolonialist Dogmas and Imperialist Propaganda:  

to help promote non-violent and exclusivesly peaceful means of social and political advocacy through the promotion of political litracy, and mounting challenges to neocolonialist propaganda and subterfuges, neoliberal imperialist mantras and distortions, dogmas of the extreme right, racism, ethnocentricism, and all forms of xenophobia, discrimination based on sex, caste, religion, nationalism, and bourgeois notions of supremacy, leftwing extremism, fascist terrorrism by states and groups and generally support people's struggles, international working class solidarity, particularly in the effective reversals of the institutionalised mechanisms of social exclusion and economic exploitation beginning with the World Bank and the IMF and the international finance monopoly capital, which are nothing more than modern versions of slavery and man's inhumanity to man;  

 

5. International Solidarity   

to help in the intensification of international solidarity campaigns involving a broad range of stake-holders, inter-disciplinary team that pay more attention to solutions that address root causes of the recurrent and emerging problems facing our people in order to power the needed changes. To enter into close collaboration with local and international organisations whose interest concern the contradictions within and between states, that generate the phenomenon of the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor, the ecology, peace, and social progress.

 

The Jacobus Capiteine Award

The Jacobus Capiteine Award

A Note About Capitiene

Jacobus Eliza Johannes Capiteine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For the Dutch astronomer, see Jacobus Kapteyn.

Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein (born ca. 1717; died 1747) was a Dutch Christian minister of Ghanaian birth who was one of the first known sub-Saharan Africans to study at a European university ^[1] and one of the first Africans to be ordained as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church ^[2]. He is credited with spreading the use of the written word in his native Ghana ^[3].
Though a former slave, Capitein wrote a dissertation defending the right of Christians to keep slaves.

Contents [hide] 1 Early years 2 Dissertation 3 Missionary 4 Legacy 5 Capitein in fiction 6 Further reading 7 Sources 8 References

Early years

Capitein, whose African name is unknown, was forcibly taken from his parents in present-day Ghana in 1725, at the age of 8, and sold as a slave to a Dutch captain, Arnold Steenhart. That same year, Steenhart gave him as a present to Jacobus van Goch, a trader of the Dutch West India Company.
At the age of 11, in 1728, Capitein was brought to Holland to live with van Goch in The Hague. Van Goch treated him as an adopted son and gave him the last name of Capitein (Dutch for "captain"). Jacobus was placed in school and found to excel in the study of painting, reading and writing, mathematics and the classical languages. Capitein, who was baptized by the Dutch Reformed Church in 1735, let it be known that he wished to return to Africa as a missionary. His adopted father therefore allowed him in 1737 to attend the venerable University of Leiden in order to study theology and become a minister.

Dissertation

During his time at Leiden, Capitein did not challenge the general attitude towards slavery in the Dutch republic. In his dissertation De servitude, libertati christianae non contraria on March 10, 1742, he defended slavery as niet strydig tegen de christelyke vryheid ("not in conflict with Christian liberty"). He stressed that a slave who becomes a Christian does not need to be freed, and that slave owners therefore should allow their slaves to be baptized.
It is not clear whether Capitein actually received his doctorate with this dissertation, as he is not listed in the university's archives.

Missionary

His defense of slavery made him popular with the Dutch East India Company, and he was appointed minister of the fort of Elmina, the hub of the Dutch slave trade along the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). After a short tour of the Netherlands, where he was celebrated as the "black minister", he left for Elmina. However, his duties as minister and missionary proved difficult. The white slave traders did not like him because he was black and because he did not approve of the slave traders' extramarital affairs. Contact with the other Africans was difficult because Capitein had become too Dutch, and his efforts to baptize the local population proved fruitless. To improve his contact with the Africans, Capitein proposed a marriage with a local girl, but the church did not approve of a marriage to a "heathen" and instead found him a Dutch bride, Antonia Ginderdros, whom he wed in 1745 – the first wedding among the Europeans at Elmina.
Although he had little success as a missionary, Capitein did manage to set up a school and an orphanage at Elmina. His greatest success came in 1744 when Opoku Ware I, king of the Ashanti, requested that Capitein educate his children. Capitein tried to send the children to the Netherlands to be educated, but this was not allowed. However, one of the princes, Gyakye, was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Dutch republic, carrying a gift of ten elephants' teeth.

Legacy

Jacobus Capitein's role in history has long been neglected or dismissed as a curiosity because, as a defender of slavery, he was an unlikely role model for black emancipation. However, Capitein's position on slavery should be viewed in the light of his time. Capitein's views fitted in the 17th century climate in which the church had adapted to the slave trade, which had become one of the pillars of the Dutch republic's powerful economy. A rejection of slavery on principle was not considered an option, although some did decry the excesses of the slave trade.
The primary goal of Capitein's thesis was to encourage baptism of Africans by arguing that Africans could be baptized yet remain slave. Capitein thereby presented a counterargument to Godefridus Cornelisz Udemans, a Dutch minister who had argued that slaves should be freed seven years after they were baptized. This would have effectively rendered baptism a non-option, because slave owners were eager to keep their assets and would therefore not have allowed their slaves to be baptized.

Capitein in fiction

• Guus Kuijer, a Dutch author of children's books, wrote a novel about Jacobus Capitein's life called The redder van Afrika ("The savior of Africa").

Further reading

• Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein (2001), The Agony of Asar: A Thesis on Slavery by the Former Slave, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein, 1717–1747. Translated with comments by Grant Parker. Markus Wiener, Princeton, N.J.
• David Nii Anum Kpobi (1993): Mission in chains. The life, theology and ministry of the ex-slave Jacobus E.J. Capitein (1717-1747) with a translation of his major publications, Boekencentrum, Zoetermeer, ISBN 9023907930
• David Nii Anum Kpobi (2002): Saga of a Slave: Jacobus Capitein of Holland and Elmina. African Books Collective, Oxford, ISBN 9988812108
• Henri van der Zee (2000): 's Heeren Slaaf. Het dramatische leven van Jacobus Capitein, Balans, Amsterdam, ISBN 9050185142
• André Capiteyn (2001): Ivoorzwart: Hollands glorie en de slavenhandel in West-Afrika: "over de slaverny als niet strydig tegen de christelyke vryheid". Stichting Mens en Kultuur, Gent, ISBN 9072931912

Sources

• BlackPast.org: Capitein, Jacobus Elisa Johannes (1717?-1747)
• Feinberg, H.M., "Saga of a Slave: Jacobus Capitein of Holland and Elmina". African Studies Review. September 2003
• Ama, A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Jacobus Capitein

References

1. ^ BlackPast.org: Capitein, Jacobus Elisa Johannes (1717?-1747)
2. ^ Feinberg, H.M., "Saga of a Slave: Jacobus Capitein of Holland and Elmina". African Studies Review. September 2003
3. ^ World Bank Group, World development report 2009: reshaping economic geography, p.168. World Bank Publications, 2008.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobus_Capitein"

Categories: 1710s births | 1747 deaths | Dutch Christian missionaries | Ghanaian Christian missionaries | People with acquired Dutch citizenship | Leiden University alumni | Slaves | Year of birth uncertain

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Who Is AGRA In Ghana?

Who Is AGRA In Ghana?
by crossedcrocodiles.wordpress.com

October 25, 2010
Who Is AGRA In Ghana?
Posted by xcroc under Ghana, agriculture, development, maize
Leave a Comment

Here are AGRA’s agents in Ghana. The result of their efforts, if they are successful, will be small farmers crushed by debt and forced off their land, the land will be depleted by chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and new super weeds and insect pests will flourish. As a friend who has worked with AGRA in Ghana says, if they give you 2000, they make sure to get 4000 back from you (in dollars, cedis, or any currency you name).

AGRA Watch researchers have mapped AGRA grant recipients and some alternatives to AGRA. The map, which is linked below, covers all of Africa, this is just the Ghana section.

AGRA Watch Resources

These are the organizations and individuals in Ghana, marked on the map, who are developing and promoting AGRA’s GMO seeds and chemical agriculture:

AGRA Grants (blue markers):
Category: Seed Production for Africa


Alpha Seed Enterprise
About, Personnel, Linkages, Approach
Last Updated on May 26, 2009
Principal Investigator: Mrs. Felicia Ewool
Purpose: To provide seeds of newley released hybrid and open-pollinated maize varieties to poor smallholder farmers of the forest and forest-transition maize growing regions of Ghana, as well as educate them on the importance of using improved seeds in an effort to enhance their productivity.
Amount: $150,000
Projected Duration: 10/1/2008 — 9/30/2010

M&B Seeds and Agricultural Services Ghana Limited
Last Updated on May 26, 2009
Principal Investigator: Mr. Benjamin Anani Kwaku Kemetse
Purpose: To enhance farm productivity and increase incomes of smallholder farmers of the Volta region of Ghana through provision of high yielding improved seeds of maize, soybean, cowpea, rice, groundnut and vegetables; and education on the use of these seeds.
Amount: $149,765
Projected Duration: 5/1/2009 – 4/30/2012
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Their website, www.csir.org.gh is not working today; find some CSIR info here.
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Mr. Isaac Kofi Bimpong
Purpose: For use by its Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) to improve drought tolerance of rice through within-species gene transfer.
Amount: US$35,200
Projected Duration: 9/1/2007 – 4/30/2009
AGRA Grants (turquoise markers) :
Category: Education for African Crop Improvement

Savanna Seed Services Company Limited
Last Updated on May 26, 2009
Principal Investigator: Mr. Patrick Adingtingha Apullah
Purpose: To avail seed of maize, soybean, sorghum, cowpea, rice and groundnut at an affordable price to resource-poor farmers in three administrative regions of northern Ghana.
Amount: $149,973
Projected Duration: 6/15/2008 — 6/14/2010

University of Ghana
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Dr. Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, Ph.D.
Purpose: To establish a West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Amount: US$4,922,752
Projected Duration: 6/1/2007 – 6/30/2012

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Dr. Richard Akromah
Purpose: To catalyze the development and adoption of improved crop varieties and production of good quality seed adapted to smallholder farmer conditions in the West Africa sub-region, through supporting ten M.Sc. level training in plant breeding and seed science.
Amount: US$387,000
Projected Duration: 9/1/2008 – 8/31/2010

University of Ghana
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Dr. Eric Yirenkyi Danquah
Purpose: To provide supplementary funding toward the Establishment of a West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana, Legon (UGL).
Amount: US$859,107
Projected Duration: 6/1/2007 – 5/31/2012

Cornell University, United States
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Professor Margaret Smith
Purpose: To facilitate the start-up and development of WACCI at the University of Ghana, Legon, to train African agricultural scientists and address critical food security issues facing the region.
Amount: US$1,696,756
Projected Duration: 6/1/2007 – 3/31/2012
AGRA Grants (yellow markers):
Fund for the Improvement and Adoption of African Crops

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Crops Research Institute
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Dr. Hans K.Adu-dapaah
Crop: Cowpea
Purpose: To improve cowpea yields among poor smallholder farmers by introgression of genes for flower thrips and Cercospora leaf spot-resistance in farmer-preferred varieties.
Amount: US$184,860
Projected Duration: 7/1/2008 – 6/30/2011

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Dr. Mashark Seidu Abdulai
Crop: Maize
Purpose: To develop maize varieties suitable for use by poor smallholder farmers of the Guinea and Sudan savanna zones of Ghana.
Amount: US$184,480
Projected Duration: 3/1/2008 – 2/28/2011

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Crops Research Institute
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Mr. Manfred B. Ewool
Crop: Maize
Purpose: To develop higher-yielding, improved hybrid maize varieties for the forest and forest-transition zones of Ghana, for use by poor smallholder farmers.
Amount: US$185,000
Projected Duration: 5/1/2008 – 4/30/2011

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Crops Research Institute
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: Joe Manu-Aduening
Crop: Cassava
Purpose: To develop improved cassava varieties resistant to common pests and diseases and possessing the main farmer-preferred traits.
Amount: US$179,845
Projected Duration: 3/1/2008 – 2/28/2011
AGRA Grants (red marker):
Category: Agro-dealer Development

International Fertilizer Development Center
Last Updated on May 23, 2009
Principal Investigator: J J Robert Groot
Purpose: To create a well-functioning and sustainable input supply system in Ghana in order to increase productivity and incomes of rural food producers in Asante, Brong Ahafo, northern and central regions who account or more than half of the country’s poor.
Amount: US$2,500,000
Projected Duration: 10/1/2008 – 9/30/2011

The result of AGRA’s alien hybrid seeds, alien chemical fertilizers and alien pesticides, will be:

… smallholders will buy the new hybrid seed, fertiliser and pesticide on credit, eventually be forced off their land to repay their debts and end up in the cities, while large corporate style farms will consolidate smallholder land. (Food First)

For more information and links on this subject you can read these previous posts:
Why is Kofi Annan Fronting For Monsanto? The GMO Assault On Africa
AGRA & Monsanto & Gates, Green Washing & Poor Washing

I had wondered exactly where AGRA is operating in Ghana and who is involved. This list should provide a start. Here is this list of grants from the AGRA site.

Those doing the research claim great successes for their products. Most often, the research on effectiveness is funded by the same international corporations that are profiting from the products being researched. All tales of success should be regarded as highly suspect without independent research and verification. Generally the independent research has shown the company funded research and success tales to be highly questionable. Toxic effects have gone unreported and ignored

AGRA Watch Resources provides much more than this map. They provide a list of links to other organizations watching AGRA, and working for food and trade justice, and an excellent targeted reading list. On the map there are green markers for alternatives to AGRA. Unfortunately, there are not many marked, and none are in Ghana. Readers from other countries in Africa can identify who is AGRA in their own countries using this map.

See also:

Why is Kofi Annan Fronting For Monsanto? The GMO Assault On Africa

by Crossed Crocodiles 

under Africa, GM crops, Ghana, Monsanto, agriculture, development, globalization, hunger, recolonize | Tags: AGRA, Gates Foundation, Kofi Annan, GMOs, USAID |

  I/ RESPONDING TO REAL AND PRESENT DANGERS 

Food Sovereignty and Security/ Real and present dangers...

1. The Multifunctionality of Agriculture
2. WTO Agreement on Agriculture
3. GM Crops and Foods
4. Food Subsidy and local economies
5. Corporate, Foreign Government land grab
6. The Right To Water

II/ FACILITATING SELF-MOBILISATION:  CHALLENGING DOGMA AND PROPAGANDA  III/ EFFECTIVE NETWORK: AMBUSHING AN IMMINENT CONJUNCTION IV/ THE ENDURING IMPERATIVES OF THE PAN-AFRICANIST STRUGGLE V/ CONSOLIDATION OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY •

Real And Present Dangers

Food Sovereignty and Security

Social

The Ecology

Health

Education

Peace and Security

The Wealth of Africa

In the news:

The Right To Water
GM Crops and Foods
Corporate, Foreign Government land grab
The United States Africa Command (US Africom)
Climate Reparations

  • RESPONDING TO REAL AND PRESENT DANGERS •


• FACILITATING SELF-MOBILISATION •
CHALLENGING DOGMA AND PROPAGANDA

• EFFECTIVE NETWORK •
AMBUSHING AN IMMINENT CONJUNCTION

• THE ENDURING IMPERATIVES •
OF THE PAN-AFRICANIST STRUGGLE

• CONSOLIDATION OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY •

The Right To Water : Real and present dangers...

Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource

by Tara Lohan

Published: Oct 22, 2010

Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource is a call to action and a solution-focused guide to solving our global water crisis. With over 80 beautiful photographs and 17 thoughtful essays by some of the world’s leading writers, artists and activists, Water Matters will make you pause for a moment to remember the life-sustaining value of water in our daily lives, and then inspire you to do everything you can to preserve and protect our threatened water resources. Authors take on both the good and the bad -- the impact of climate change on water resources, the threat of privatization, and the challenge of thirsty agriculture, as well as a growing grassroots water justice movement, tools for watershed literacy, and success stories in conservation and efficiency. This book is a must read for everyone concerned about the future of our planet.
Includes contributions from the following writers: Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Maude Barlow, Tina Rosenberg, Sandra Postel, Elizabeth Royte, Cynthia Barnett, Wenonah Hauter, Jacques Leslie, Jeff Conant, Paula Garcia, Christina Roessler, Eleanor Sterling, Kelle Louaillier, William Waterway, Brock Dolman, Erin Vintinner and Tara Lohan. More...

Watch Out: The World Bank Is Quietly Funding a Massive Corporate Water Grab

Even though water privatization has been a massive failure around the world, the World Bank just quietly gave $139 million to its latest corporate buddy.

November 2, 2010  |  

  

Billions have been spent allowing corporations to profit from public water sources even though water privatization has been an epic failure in Latin America, Southeast Asia, North America, Africa and everywhere else it's been tried. But don't tell that to controversial loan-sharks at the World Bank. Last month, its private-sector funding arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) quietly dropped a cool 100 million euros ($139 million US) on Veolia Voda, the Eastern European subsidiary of Veolia, the world's largest private water corporation. Its latest target? Privatization of Eastern Europe's water resources.

"Veolia has made it clear that their business model is based on maximizing profits, not long-term investment," Joby Gelbspan, senior program coordinator for private-sector watchdog Corporate Accountability International, told AlterNet. "Both the World Bank and the transnational water companies like Veolia have clearly acknowledged they don't want to invest in the infrastructure necessary to improve water access in Eastern Europe. That's why this 100 million euro investment in Veolia Voda by the World Bank's private investment arm over the summer is so alarming. It's further evidence that the World Bank remains committed to water privatization, despite all evidence that this approach will not solve the world's water crisis."

All the evidence Veolia needs that water grabs are doomed exercises can be found in its birthplace of France, more popularly known as the heartland of water privatization. In June, the municipal administration of Paris reclaimed the City of Light's water services from both of its homegrown multinationals Veolia and Suez, after a torrent of controversy. That's just one of 40 re-municipilazations in France alone, which can be added to those in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and more in hopes of painting a not-so-pretty picture: Water privatization is ultimately both a horrific concept and a failed project.

"It's outrageous that the World Bank's IFC would continue to invest in corporate water privatizations when they are failing all over the world," Maude Barlow, chairwoman of Food and Water Watch and the author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Fight for the Right to Water, told AlterNet. "A similar IFC investment in the Philippines is an unmitigated disaster. Local communities and their governments around the world are canceling their contracts with companies like Veolia because of cost overruns, worker layoffs and substandard service." More...

AlterNet / By Scott Thill

2 COMMENTS

July 29, 2010

In Historic Vote, UN Declares Water a Fundamental Human Right

The United Nations General Assembly has declared for the first time that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. In a historic vote Wednesday, 122 countries supported the resolution, and over forty countries abstained from voting, including the United States, Canada and several European and other industrialized countries. There were no votes against the resolution. We speak with longtime water justice activist, Maude Barlow

Rush Transcript 

JUAN GONZALEZ: The United Nations General Assembly has declared for the first time that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. In an historic vote Wednesday, 122 countries supported the resolution, and over forty countries abstained from voting, including the United States, Canada and several European and other industrialized countries. There were no votes against the resolution.

Nearly one billion people lack clean drinking water, and over two-and-a-half billion do not have basic sanitation.

Bolivia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Pablo Solon, introduced the resolution at the General Assembly Wednesday.

PABLO SOLON: [translated] At the global level, approximately one out of every eight people do not have drinking water. In just one day, more than 200 million hours of the time used by women is spent collecting and transporting water for their homes. The lack of sanitation is even worse, because it affects 2.6 billion people, which represents 40 percent of the global population. According to the report of the World Health Organization and of UNICEF of 2009, which is titled "Diarrhoea: Why Children Are [Still] Dying and What We Can Do," every day 24,000 children die in developing countries due to causes that can be prevented, such as diarrhea, which is caused by contaminated water. This means that a child dies every three-and-a-half seconds. One, two, three. As they say in my village, the time is now.

AMY GOODMAN: Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Solon, urging support for the resolution Bolivia introduced recognizing access to clean water and sanitation as a fundamental human right.

For more on this historic vote, we’re joined now here in New York by longtime water justice advocate Maude Barlow. She’s the chair of the Council of Canadians, co-founder of the Blue Planet Project and board chair of Food and Water Watch. Last year she served as senior adviser on water to the President of the United Nations General Assembly.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

MAUDE BARLOW: So glad to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of this. If you asked people in this country, they would have no idea this has passed.

MAUDE BARLOW: I know, I know, which is why you matter, I just have to say. This is very, very distressing to know something this important happened and it’s been blanketed. There’s no media here; it’s just like it didn’t happen. It’s had media in other places.

There’s no human—there has been on human right to water. It wasn’t included in the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. And then, more recently, when people have realized that it needed to happen, there were very powerful forces against it—powerful countries, powerful corporate interests and so on. But Ambassador Solon and a number of developing countries decided that they were going to move this, countries from the Global South, that they were going to move this through, and they just tabled it a month ago, and yesterday, at the vote at the United Nations, they won. Not one country had the guts to stand against them, even though lots of them wanted to do it.

And basically, for the first time, the United Nations General Assembly debated the right to water and sanitation—it’s very important both were included—and acknowledged and recognized the right of every human being on earth to water and sanitation. And this matters because—as you know, because we’ve talked so many times—we are running—a planet running out of water. Brand new World Bank study says that the demand is going to exceed supply by 40 percent in twenty years. It’s just a phenomenal statement. And the human suffering behind that is just unbelievable. And what this did was basically say that the United Nations has decided it’s not going to let huge populations leave them behind as this crisis unfolds, that the new priority is to be given to these populations without water and sanitation.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the countries that abstained, could you talk about—did any of them talk about why they were not voting "yes," or did they just remain quiet?

MAUDE BARLOW: Oh, it was the usual gang. It was the United States and Canada, the European—not the European Union—the United Kingdom—some of the European countries voted to abstain; some were wonderful—Australia, New Zealand. So it was all of the Anglophone, neoliberal, you know, bought into this whole agenda that everything is to be commodified, countries who are able to continue to supply clean water to their citizens, which makes it doubly appalling that they would deny the right to water to the billions of people who are suffering right now.

They used procedural language about this and that. There’s another process in Geneva with the Human Rights Council, which we support, and they used the excuse that we have to wait for that. But that’s a long-term process, and it could or could not end in something very specific. So they just cut through it. A bunch of brave countries from the Global South said, "We can’t wait. We need this now." And it’s not a surprise that it came from Bolivia, because, remember, Bolivia is suffering double whammy with a, you know, dearth of water, dearth of clean water, but also melting glaciers from climate change.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go back to Bolivia. I want to go back to Bolivia’s UN representative, Ambassador Pablo Solon, at a speech he gave in Toronto, the event that you organized, Maude, last month, shortly before the G20 meetings. He outlined the need to support a UN declaration on the human right to water, referencing the long struggle for water rights in Bolivia, which successfully fought against Bechtel’s water privatization efforts ten years ago.

PABLO SOLON: In those days, I was a water warrior. Now I’m a water warrior ambassador. We have to have water declared as a human right in the UN. It is not possible to see that we have declared in the UN food, the right to food, the right to health, the right to education, the right to shelter, the right to development, but not the right to water. And we all know that without water, we can’t live. So nobody can argue that it’s not a basic and fundamental and universal human right. But even though, until now, it’s not recognized as a human right. So, we have presented, two weeks ago, a draft resolution so that this coming month, in July, we expect to have a vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations. And we want to see which countries are going to vote against that resolution. We want to go to vote to see which governments are going to say to the humanity that water is not a human right.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Solon, speaking in Toronto. Which nations are not going to say that water is a human right? Well, you said the United States didn’t vote for this. Canada didn’t, though they didn’t vote against. What is their rationale?

MAUDE BARLOW: Well, it depends on the country. The United Kingdom says they "don’t want to pay for the toilets in Africa." That’s a direct quote from somebody who wouldn’t be quoted, from a senior diplomat in the government of Great Britain, that was in—quoted in a Canadian paper.

Canada hides behind the false statement that we might have to share our water, sell our water to the United States, which is nonsense. We’re in way more danger from NAFTA, which declares water to be a commodity.

The United States, as you know, has not been supporting rights regimes for decades now, so this is just a continuation. And I have to tell you, listening to the statement from the United States yesterday at the United Nations, I wouldn’t have thought there was any difference between George Bush and Barack Obama’s administrations. It was haughty language. They scolded Bolivia. Bolivia came under a lot of heat, a lot of insults yesterday from these countries.

New Zealand and Australia are both going private. Australia

You are here: The Right To Water : Real and present dangers...

In the news:

The Right To Water
GM Crops and Foods
Corporate, Foreign Government land grab
The United States Africa Command (US Africom)
Climate Reparations

  • RESPONDING TO REAL AND PRESENT DANGERS •

• Food Sovereignty and Security

• Social

• The Ecology

• Health

• Education

• Peace and Security

• The Wealth of Africa

• FACILITATING SELF-MOBILISATION •
CHALLENGING DOGMA AND PROPAGANDA

• EFFECTIVE NETWORK •
AMBUSHING AN IMMINENT CONJUNCTION

• THE ENDURING IMPERATIVES •
OF THE PAN-AFRICANIST STRUGGLE

• CONSOLIDATION OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY •