"Our job is to keep the pipelines full..." (drought prevention in Africa)

Despite ongoing conflicts in Africa which "exacerbate the difficulties" of dealing with the current African drought-related crisis, most food aid is "getting through" and most work is unimpeded by the conflicts, according to Maurice Strong, Executive Co-ordinator of the United Nations Office for Emergency Operations in Africa (OEOA).

"The good news is that in most places, the Governments, the international donor community and the United Nations providing the broad framework for all this activity are doing their job", he stated in an interview on 5 March on the World Chronicle television programme of the United Nations.

The "aid is flowing", he said, but the "main needs are still ahead. The next few months are the critical months and the pipelines at the other end are drying up now. Our job now is to keep that pipeline full."

It would be "a tragedy", he said, "if our attention span were limited to the times when the stories and pictures of starving African children appeared on prime time on our television screens and in the newspapers. We've got to show our interest well beyond the current emergency".

Mr. Strong also stressed that the African situation was "no ordinary emergency". It was, he said, "a deep-seated and very broad-based tragedy that is afflicting the larger part of a whole continent. We can't deal with it solely on a band-aid basis, directing our help for the moment to the immediate survival of people". While such survival was the first priority, he said "we also have to be concerned about the longer-term future of the people whose lives are today at risk because that risk is not going to disappear when the first rains begin falling".

African countries were experiencing the devastating consequences of the emergency when they were also "reeling from the effects of a world recession and the mounting debt burdens that they have had to incur over the last several years". That situation occurred "at the worst possible time for Africa", he said. Emergency assistance to the continent could not be seen in isolation from the other forms of support that the African countries needed. They also needed "more enlightened and sensitive policies" from the international community in general, from the International Monetary Fund, from the World Bank, "from those to whom they owe money".

Their burdens, he went on, had to be "realistic", permitting them to resume growth and development over the long term, "which is the only hope of ensuring that their people will not again in the future be afflicted with the kind of tragedy that they are having to suffer now".

A 'sober look'

A positive aspect of the crisis, he said, was its "shock value"--that the African countries had had to take a "sober look at themselves", at their policies and priorities for internal development. The international community, which had been supporting some of those policies, also realized a change had to take place. If such changes occurred, Africa could increase its food production and bring it into balance with its population growth, currently the highest in the world.

Natural elements, which created a "tremendous burden", also had to be considered, Mr. Strong said. "The deserts are marching, literally consuming millions of acres of cropland and grazing land every year." Khartoum in the Sudan used to be a "garden spot, an oasis", but was now enveloped by desert.

On the other hand, Africa did have significant amounts of agricultural land and a rural population of self-reliant people willing to work hard. With international support, "they can feed themselves".

The OEOA was a means of making sure that the entire United Nations system was mobilized, he said. The contribution of non-government organizations was an important factor for Africa, both in the short- and long-term.

"In a situation like Africa", he concluded, "there is simply no substitute for the United Nations. Others can do part of the job, but the United Nations is the only organization that can provide the kind of co-operative framework that is now needed to deal with the African emergency. The same is true of so many world situations that are developing and will develop in the future."