Malawi and southern African food emergency

RADIX has just begun to develop a page devoted to the current food
emergency in southern Africa
(http://www.anglia.ac.uk/geography/radix/malawi.htm ). We would welcome
any materials (brief comments, reports on work-in-progress, suggestions
of web links, electronic reprints of good background essays, etc.) from
anyone and everyone.

We are particularly interested, from both scholarly and humanitarian
points of view, in the differences between 1991 and 2002. The earlier
event amounts to a 'success story' in drought mitigation and prevention
of famine. A preliminary analysis suggests three sets of differences:

* Stresses: more numerous and severe in their interactions this time
(HIV-AIDS, cholera, flood followed by drought, standing crops
damaged by hungry mega fauna/ stolen by hungry thieves,
mismanagement of stored food reserves, deterioration of democratic
governance, level of corruption)
* Regional cooperation: possibly less vigorous SADC level activity
(could this be because of tensions due to members taking different
sides in the conflict in Congo?)
* International response: slower (?) (Are there signs of 'compassion
fatigue'? or distraction by Afghanistan and the Middle East? or
reluctance to provide aid to regimes seen as corrupt?).

Among the countries currently included in WFP bulletins on the food
emergency (Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, and
Mozambique), there are very great differences in terms of history,
political economy, political ecology, regime stability and credibility.
Nevertheless, the composite factors give rise to concern that this time
around more lives could be lost (400% rise in the price of maize in
Malawi in the face of which many of the rural poor who have already sold
off all assets simply starve).

Another question is why Botswana appears to be escaping the current
crisis.

We are also particularly interested in what happened to the large number
on NGO initiatives in this region in the early 1990s that were designed
to build local capacity to cope with drought and other hazards. Have
some been successful? Is the current crisis simply too large for these
to provide much protection or resilience?

Are women faring much better this time around? (Megan Vaughan's book on
the 1949-50 famine in Malawi -- then Nyasaland -- provides an excellent
baseline study of gender and famine: The Story of an African Famine,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

We invite comments in this discussion list and also contributions of
documents for posting on the RADIX web site addresses to [email protected]
or [email protected].