East African Business Week

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA - As the global population hits 7 billion this month, ActionAid has warned that a triple crisis of climate change, depleted natural resources and rocketing food prices, could dwarf the world's ability to feed them all.
  A report by ActionAid, 'Who's best prepared for a climate and hunger crisis?, based on new research in 28 poor countries, has revealed poor nations including Tanzania and Rwanda are most prepared to face the triple crises.
  According to the report, Tanzania and Rwanda have been named among  five poor countries in the world which are ready to face the triple crises.
  ActionAid's Chief Executive, Ms. Joanna Kerr said: "Countries most ready to face the triple crises have been named as Brazil, Malawi, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania."
  Ms. Kerr added, the 10 countries ranked most vulnerable are the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, South Africa, Haiti, Bangladesh, Zambia, India, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia, which account for nearly a quarter of the world's population.
  "The world is coming to the end of an era of cheap food, that large scale agriculture has depleted the natural resources that sustained it," said Ms Kerr
  She added that food prices which are driven by the rich nations' insatiable demand for bio-fuel and food commodities, will continue to rise, unless urgent action is taken.
  "Children born at the end of this month will join millions facing a unique 'trilemma', never before witnessed in history," she said.  
  How sustainable our expanding population is, she said will depend entirely on how we tackle the interlocking crisis of climate change, dwindling resources and rocketing food prices.
  She further observed that this year's famine in East Africa was a harrowing example of how overexploited ecosystems, erratic weather and soaring food prices when left unchecked have catastrophic consequences for poor people.   "We urge world leaders meeting at the G20 next month to scale up investment in women and small farms in poor countries, deliver the climate cash promised to help poor people adapt to climate change and eliminate the bio-fuel targets that are driving land grabs in Africa, Asia and the Americas," she stressed.
  However, the world leaders are likely to give their Financial Stability Board more clout next month to implement a welter of new financial rules as cracks and slippages emerge in the face of strong lobbying by banks.
  "With 78 million more children to feed each year by 2050, there is not a minute to lose," she warned
  The ActionAid's key findings reveal that, at least 10 countries, accounting for more than 1.5 billion of the world's population, are highly vulnerable to a climate-related food crisis.  
  Overall, climate change could add another half a billion people to those facing chronic hunger around the world by 2050. Every rural community surveyed across Africa, Asia and the Americas said that erratic and extreme weather was crippling their ability to feed themselves.
  Other findings show unsustainable farming practices and an unprecedented rush by foreign investors to control resources such as minerals, oil, biofuel and water, could leave millions of the poorest people without enough arable land to produce food.
  In Africa alone, over 6 million hectares of degraded farmland must be regenerated to meet the demand for food from a population set to double by 2050.  
  The finding further showed that a dangerous new era of high food prices is set to push 44 million more people into poverty. The demand for bio-fuel - produced from wheat, corn, soybean and sugarcane - means that food prices will keep rising unless rich countries find alternative sources of energy.
  Brazil scored top of ActionAid's preparedness survey by announcing US$10 billion to support small scale farms, enshrining the right to food in its constitution and making national plans to climate proof its agriculture.  
  Rwanda has set an ambitious 25 year plan to reverse land and forest degradation, while Malawi is promoting organic fertilisers, building up a nation-wide system of food reserves and drafting a national adaptation plan to help rural communities cope with climate shocks.
  ActionAid urges world leaders meeting at next month's G20 to put the triple crises at the top of the agenda.