Scribbles

The Perfect Storm.

The world is heading towards a global food crisis. A number of factors contribute to what could be described as ‘A Perfect Storm’:

The price of fuel increased dramatically in the past years, thus the cost of food production and transport increased dramatically, pushing the price of food higher than ever before.

Last year, for the first time in many years, the world’s food production went into a deficit, pushing up the price of the commodities, based on a supply and demand dynamic, even higher. The US, one of the world’s largest food grower, says the grain silos are as empty as in the 70-ies when the then-USSR bought most of the reserves.

Fast growing economies like China pulls people away from rural areas, causing massive urban expansion. A double spin: a smaller agricultural work force and a loss of farm land. China lost an average of 1.23 million hectares of farmland annually in the past years and is now looking for foreign farms because the nation can’t feed its 1.3 billion people.

To make matters worse: following the market economy, if there is an expected shortage of supply, and an vastly increased demand, the commodity is speculated upon in the international financial markets with one goal: profit. The futures market is a traditional tool for farmers to sell their harvests ahead of time. In a futures contract, quantities, prices and delivery dates are fixed, sometimes even before crops have been planted. They can buy futures contracts for wheat, for example, at a low price, betting that the price will go up. If the price of the grain rises by the agreed delivery date, they profit. Some experts now believe these investors have taken over the market, buying futures at unprecedented levels and driving up short-term prices. Since last August, this mechanism has led to a doubling in the price of rice. (More)

High prices, high demand, and a shortage in supply, has driven several government to limit or ban exports in staple food, either to protect its own population, or to ride on a speculation wave. That has led to a sharp reduction of rice available for trade in the global market. For example, in 2007, India and Vietnam, two of the world’s biggest rice exporters, reduced their rice shipments. Since then, Cambodia, Egypt, and Brazil have all halted rice exports. Many observers worry that Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, might jump on the bandwagon. This in its turn will increase the shortage on the international market, and have the prices potentially spiral out of control (More)

In several countries the positive average wealth trend is leading consumers to eat more meat products. Meat products need more vegetable food products to get the same nutritional level as vegetable products. Thus, a shift from human vegetable products to meat, leads to a higher demand of meat production, resulting in an increased demand for vegetable products, staple food for poorer countries.

The Most Vulnerable Pay the Highest Price…

The increased food prices hit the most vulnerable countries the hardest: where people used to survive on the ‘edge’: Their income is no longer sufficient to feed themselves. International wheat prices in January 2008 were 83 percent higher than a year earlier. Protests turned riots in Bangladesh, Morocco, Mozambique, Venezuela and Burkina Faso last week, will be the first in a long row, showing people simply can not cope with the price increases.

Aid agencies, traditionally able to feed the most vulnerable, are scrambling too: as the fuel prices increased, so did the cost to transport food aid. Add to that the increased price of the food commodities, for the same aid-dollar, less food is being delivered. This will have donors ask questions about the effectiveness of their aid-dollar invested in food aid. There are signs donors are easing away from food aid. Real pessimists state that due to the high inflation (guess what, caused by high fuel prices and sharp price hikes on basic commodities such as food), will decrease the global aid – and not just food aid – significantly this year.

The Outlook is Not Good Either!

Because of the increased fuel prices, and the recent worldwide rally about global warming, the price of biofuel has gone up, having many farmers move away from food production, to a more lucrative biofuel production. The U.S. is now using more corn for the production of ethanol than the entire food crop in Canada.
This takes away a lot of resources (land, assets, production and distribution capacity) from the food production, not only in the West, but even in food deficit countries in Africa and Asia. Less food being produced once again pushes the prices even higher.

On top of record-breaking rice prices and corn, a warning is circulating amongst financial investors that this is just the beginning: a wheat fungus, known as Ug99, first discovered in Uganda in 1999, is spreading across the African continent and beyond. The fungus has the potential to wipe out a large part of the global wheat crop, prices of food commodities on the futures market spiked, causing panic buying. This in itself chases prices even higher. (Full)

The global warming has shifted weather patterns, causing more natural disasters: tropical cyclones causing vast flooding hit Central America, Africa and Asia harder than ever before. Winters are harsher and longer in Central and South Asia. Dry spells bring longer periods of droughts cause crops to dry up, and cattle to die.

True, the Kyoto Protocol tries to put an end to the global warming caused by the Greenhouse Effect. But there is a nasty tail to the story: those countries which emit too much carbon, can purchase “carbon credits” to offset their “carbon emission deficit”. A country can ‘create’ carbon credits, amongst others, by planting forests. Some say “Carbon Credits” will become a precious trading commodity (example), pushing countries to plant forests. In principle this is a good thing. The fear however is that, as the price of Carbon Credits will increase, more and more fertile agriculture land will be used to plant forests, once again decreasing the food production, further driving the price and world hunger up…

Roughly one tenth of the earth’s land surface is used to produce crops. Two tenths is grassland of varying degrees of productivity. Another two tenths is forest. The remaining half of the land is either desert, mountains, or covered with ice. The area in desert is expanding, largely at the expense of grassland and cropland. Deserts are advancing in Africa both north and south of the Sahara and throughout the Middle East, the Central Asian republics, and western and northern China. As an example: Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is losing 351,000 hectares of rangeland and cropland to desertification each year. (More)

And last but not least:

The world’s population is expected reach 9 billion by 2050, a growth, of almost 50% compared to today, concentrating mostly in the less developed countries.

More demand for food, less production, higher prices. A vicious circle, felt the hardest in developing countries. How can this cycle be broken?

Update Jan 26 (one day after posting this): Worldwide wheat prices rose by 25% in one day to an all-time record high

Pictures courtesy WFP (Evelyn Hockstein, R.Chalasani, Lou Dematteis) and National Geographic. Graph courtesy The Economist

On the eve of Kosovo’s independence, I am thinking of the people I met there in 1999 and 2000, right after the war. I wish for them the transition to the independence would go peacefully and smoothly.
Many of those that worked with me, remained in contact through the years. I am proud that all of them have found their own path in life.

Ardian was one of our radio operators in Pristina. The first time we talked, was via the radio, when I drove into Pristina for the first time, and Ardian was the one trying to guide us to our office. We are still laughing today how he used the word “Semaphore” instead of “traffic light”. “First Semaphore to the left and then second semaphore to the right.” I had no clue what a “semaphore” was, so we got completely lost in town.
Years later, Ardian joined FITTEST, our ICT intervention team, and worked for us in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfur. We often sat together joking about our times in Kosovo. Even just thinking back of our stories about Herman makes me chuckle…
Ardian is back home in Kosovo since almost two years now, employed by an ISP, doing core routing and switching. He is married and has a lovely daughter Jora (“J” in Albanian is pronounced as “Y” in English), with a second little one on her way…
Ardian is the one who sent me an update of our common Kosovar friends.

Nap, I met for the first time in Ferizaj, a few days after she joined our organisation. She was one of our radio operators, a petite girl with a dazzling smile and sparkling eyes. A sunshine to work with. We stayed in touch for all these years. She is now married, and works for the Kosovo broadcast companies, where she has her own TV show, covering foreign affairs.

Arijana (on the left) was one of our drivers in Pristina, going with the now-famous call sign PW7-1-7.. No doubt she was the prettiest driver we ever employed. And the most temperamental. One day she and I had an argument, and she locked me up in my office, running off with the key. Ariana is now married and has twins. Last heard, she was working in one the Western Union Offices, in Pristina.

Vjosa (in the middle on the previous picture) was another member of our Pristina radio room gang. She is about to graduate in Law and working as a “Rule of Law” Legal Assistant in American Bar Association/Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative. She has two kids now, a boy and a daughter.

Bekim, or “Uncle Bekim” as Ardian and Vjosa used to call him, he is working for one of the biggest bank in Kosovo. He is the main programmer in the bank, developing software and maintaining the bank’s databases. He is married and has a son.

Laura, another radio operator from Pristina, is a Customs officer now. She has two kids.

Toni and I met the day I entered Kosovo from Albania. From all the people in the office, I spent the most time with him, so he told me a lot from the times Kosovo was under Serb ruling. How he wanted to become a medical doctor, which was nearly impossible then, as there was no university for Albanians at that time. Tony worked as a radio operator for us in Prizren. And guess what, he now graduated from the Pristina University medical faculty and is doing his master’s in Austria, where he lives with his wife. His dream of becoming a doctor did come true!

Lulzim, or Luli as we called him, started as a radio operator in Peja. He then got promoted to finance assistant, moved to Pristina and stayed with our organisation until the office closed in 2002. Later that year he became a certified accountant and started a new carrier as lecturer in Society of Certified Accountants and Auditors of Kosovo – SCAAK, internationally recognized professional body for accountants and auditors. In 2006 he became licensed auditor. Currently he is heading the professional and education activities of SCAAK.

Haki, the colleague of Nap in Ferizaj, moved to IOM and soon after that went on mission for few years to Afganistan and Indonesia. After coming back to Kosovo, he managed the “East West Management Institute and is now the representative of the “Rockefeller Brothers Fund ” for Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro.

So you see: each of them found their way in life. Just knowing that, fills me up with joy. It is almost like my kids growing up,… Let’s hope they live through the Kosovo independence phase in safety and prosperity.

I am still looking at the pictures we took last weekend, during our evening walk along Flander’s coast…

I was born and raised in Ostend, and left only after I graduated, at the age of 23. But I always come back, even if it was only for the sea. She has always attracted me. The scent of the silt, the mighty power and potential to harm or kill at any moment. Yet endlessly beautiful, inspiring and gracious. Ever changing colours and behaviour, changing moods in a flash.

Maybe it was the sense of endlessness, the travel, “leaving but never knowing when you would come back” which always attracted me to the sea. Or the freedom. Just take off in a boat and… go!

This boardwalk (“staketsel” in Flemish), runs along the entrance of the port, once busy with a active fishing fleet, cargo vessels and ferries to England. Every so often, a large vessel looses control over its helm, and rams the boardwalk, chewing out a whole piece. And every time, it is repaired. As a kid, we used to climb from the side of the boardwalk down to water level, and drop fish heads strung on a cord in the water, waiting for the crabs to bite into the bait. Or on the beach, next to the board walk, we would collect empty bottles, and get money from the shop when we returned them. Always good for a handful of fresh candy.

I am pissed off. Two articles were published in the last days that make me ashamed to work for the UN.

Before we start, let me make something clear: The “UN” is one “brand” consisting of several parts which have completely different goals, operational practices and funding mechanisms. In fear of over-simplifying, I would distinguish three main parts in the UN:

1. “The Political Side”, UN secretariat in New York and UN security council, are probably the UN’s most visible side. In this large forum “where world issues are debated and decided upon”, every nation has its vote and voice. The critics would say “all equal, but some have a bigger vote and a louder voice than others”.
   This side of the UN is funded through direct contributions by the UN member countries, and as such by the taxes citizens like you and me pay.
2. “The Peace Keeping Side”, codenamed “UNDPKO”, are the famous blue helmet-ed forces we see on TV. Stationed in conflict zones like Sudan, Eritrea, DRC etc… they often work hand in hand with the UN Department of Political Affairs in enforcing political and military stability in (potential) conflict zones. Just as “the Political Side”, the “Peace Keeping Side” is funded by the UN members. Once again, your tax dollar “at work” (well.. “not at work” would sometimes be more appropriate).
3. “The UN Humanitarians” are not one organisation, but a few hundred organisations. Well-known names in this branch are UNICEF, WHO, WFP, UNHCR, UNDP etc… Most of these organisations are “voluntary” funded. This means they do not receive annual funding from the UN headquarters, but they launch appeals for each of their projects, be it in the development or emergency relief sector.

The “voluntary funding” scheme the humanitarian organisations work under, is somewhat an insurance those organisations are “kept on their toes”. If you screw up a project well enough, donors will be less eager to fund your projects next time. The “humanitarian market” (as I like to call it), is a competitive market. The need for funding exceeds the “capacity of the world to donate”. So “competition” keeps the humanitarian organisations somewhat in line. “Somewhat”, is the right term though, but we will expand on this another time.

Now, what pisses me off on a regular basis, is that the “UN number 2″ from above, the “Peace Keeping Side”, often gets involved in all kinds of bad press.
You still remember the reports about UN peacekeepers unable to prevent the Rwanda genocide? Or the Srebrenica massacres where the Dutch UN peace keepers “stood by”. There were many reasons why these tragedies happened. And even more excuses.

Totally UNexcusable are, amongst others, the sex scandals (the whole works including pedophilia, rape and prostitution) by UN Peace Keepers in DRC and in Haiti. Or the gruesome stories of Belgian UN Peace Keepers “roasting” a Somali boy. (read also this this article).

Shame, deep shame, we should all have. All of us.

While most of the time, I can still tell myself, “Ok, this is not concerning the UN humanitarians, this is not ‘us’, this is the ‘other UN arm’.” Still, the criminals wore the same colour as I do: “UN Blue”. They went into a country supposedly to help the population, and not to kill people and urinating on them afterwards, sexually abusing them.

I want to be able to keep my head up high, tough. Once of the reasons I continue to work for the UN (For a number 3, a UN humanitarian organisation), is to be able to say: “I not only criticize. I actually try to make a change.”! And the best way to make a change is a “change from within”. I try to speak up when confronted with any wrongdoing. While it gave me the reputation of being “difficult” (they say “a pain in the a**”), I do need to live with my conscience. I need to be able to say “I tried my level best”. And to be honest, I feel people *do* listen. At least where *I* work!

But still, … still, there are those days, like today, where I get frustrated, pissed off, wandering if all the fighting is worth it. Those are the days, like today, where I read that the audit of the UN peace keeping mission in Sudan wasted millions of dollars: (Below is an extract but the full post is here):

U.N. officers in Sudan have squandered millions by renting warehouses that were never used, booking blocks of hotel rooms that were never filled, and losing thousands of food rations to theft and spoilage, according to several internal audits by the U.N. Office for International Oversight Services. One U.N. purchasing agent has been accused of steering a $589,000 contract for airport runway lights to a company that helped his wife obtain a student visa, while two senior procurement officials from the United States and New Zealand have been charged by a U.N. panel with misconduct for not complying with rules designed to prevent corruption. The U.N. procurement division “did not have the necessary capacity and expertise to handle the large magnitude of procurement actions” in Sudan, particularly during the early phases of the mission, according to a confidential October 2006 audit. Investigators also detected “a number of potential fraud indicators and cases of mismanagement and waste.”

It pisses me off that millions of dollars are wasted through mere miss-management or for personal gain, in a country where millions fight to survive starvation every single day.
Also today, I read how the United Nations forces failed to help East Timor’s president Jose Ramos Horta after he was shot in an assassination attempt in Dili this morning:

Mr Carrascalao told ABC Radio’s PM that when UN police arrived at the scene of the attack they refused to help. “I have to regret that we advised the United Nations Police who went to the scene but 300 metres before reaching there, they refused to proceed,” he said. “The President was lying on the road and bleeding and already shot, and they refused to continue to give him assistance. It was finally the family and an ambulance from our hospital that went and rescued the President when he was more than half-an-hour bleeding and losing a lot of blood. The United Nations Police didn’t take action until the Portuguese Generale got there. That’s one of the worst things that could happen to this country; have police from everywhere, everyone within one system and mostly looking after themselves than looking after the situation here.” (full article)

Those are the days I am ashamed. Ashamed to say “I work for the UN”!

Pictures Die Burger and Chad Hanning (UNinvolved), WhatReallyHappened and Gamma Liaison (Belgian Peacekeepers).
Source: The Other World News