COMMENTATOR (COMM): Previously on Life...
JAMES WOLFENSOHN: What we want is developing countries and the people in them to have a chance to work their own way out of poverty.
AUGUSTINE ADONGO: It's not just a matter of pushing and pushing and pushing, and digging deeper and deeper into the same hole but finding a smarter way to be able to do things.
PASCAL LAMY: Fifty years ago was: "Aid, Not Trade"; ten years ago was: "Trade, Not Aid." I think it's definitely "Trade and Aid" for the next 10 years to come.
COMM: In the southern African country of Malawi, nurse Sister Modesta, is visiting the village of Kapulikira. There are fears that 2002 could be a famine year across Southern Africa and Sister Modesta has heard that some of the families in the village are running out of food. She knows the most vulnerable are the very young and the very old. It's just as Sister Modesta fears. The woman, who's already frail, is starting to suffer from malnutrition.
SISTER MODESTA: So she's having nothing to eat. She said she's a mother of four children. Two are staying here - even them, they have nothing so they are unable to give her anything to eat. She has nothing.
COMM: The villagers of Kapulikira are among over six million in Southern Africa now at risk from hunger. They face the deadly combination of circumstances which can lead to what's been called "Perfect Famine" - the kind of famine that happens when everything that can go wrong does go wrong, either because of natural disasters or because of the activities of man.
COMM: But how should the world react when one reason people face starvation is the failures of their own government? Should the world really bail them out? As world leaders discuss this dilemma at the Sustainable Development Summit in Johannesburg, the arguments are being played out here in Malawi.
SISTER MODESTA: This one, he says he's a father of five children and he's unable to look after them because even him himself has nothing to eat, even to feed the children. He felt bad because of the wife and the children. They have nothing. The other days they were eating the husk seeds of the maize.
COMM: Maize husks are a traditional food for hard times.
SISTER MODESTA: It's bitter but still people have to eat them. They're supposed to be given to goats, pigs or even to the chickens. But because people have nothing to eat, that's why they're eating these things.
COMM: Even the families who do have food have only a few vegetables left.
SISTER MODESTA: They're eating these pumpkins this rainy season. As we said, this season is coming up to an end, everything's coming up to dry. Once these things are finished they will have nothing to eat. They just run for everything, just to keep something in the stomach.
COMM: No Biblical famine perhaps but a village, Sister Modesta has found, at the edge of hunger. Malawi itself is a land at the edge. With a little rain the fields would be green and fertile, especially in the hands of hardworking, if ill equipped, farmers like Charles Chawanthat.
CHARLES CHAWANTHAT, Mliro Village: Oh, these are my area where I do farm now. I grow green vegetables - that's rape, mustard leaves, cabbages. When it rains we planted the maize - we planted everything we need in our area. But the land was not much - er the, the land dries fast. Two, three, four, five years back the rain was good and we were, we were yielding much. Having no much crops in our area, the result is famine and hunger wherever.
COLLINS MAGALASI, Malawian Economic Justice Network: Yes there's no food. People do not have anything to eat. We have evidence according to the field where we have seen people dying. Um and the figure that we are hearing now are exceeding over one thousand now of people who have died simply because they didn't have anything to eat. So the question of hunger in Malawi is real. We had, of course, drought just before planting started. But then a few months later we had flooding and this flooding covered seven districts of the country, which happened to be the most productive districts. Because of that, there was already no assurance yet that people were going to harvest enough.
COMM: But weather is only the first cause of the food shortage in Malawi. It's also man-made. Local NGOs say the government followed the advice of some Western donors to liberalise markets and let fertiliser prices soar to levels many farmers just couldn't afford.
COLLINS MAGALASI: Malawi just adopted free trade stroke liberalisation policies and that in itself removed the subsidies and other things that we had on the farm inputs, like fertiliser and seeds. So the poor farmers in the village - the GDP of the country of course is so low and we have a very different, er a very deep gap between the rich and the poor anyway - so the poor were not even able to buy the, er the required fertiliser stroke the right material of er seed. So what happened was those people did not plant enough, or if they did, they planted the wrong sort of seed but also without, let's say, fertiliser. Then that followed also with the flood and other things - things didn't move the way, say, they were supposed to have gone.
COMM: Charles was one of those affected by this deadly combination of natural and manmade hazards, weather-ravaged land and rising prices. He took us back to his home to show us what it meant for his family.
CHARLES CHAWANTHAT: So as you see, this is in - you are in the village now. Yeah, that's where I'm living. I was born here and I'm growing here and this is my destination.
COMM: He grows just enough to feed his wife and two children and to sell a few green vegetables in the market.
CHARLES CHAWANTHAT: This is a hard life because we don't have machines to use while farming but just we use our hands... yeah. And we sweat very much -we sweat very much! It's a hard life.
COMM: Life's hardest when the maize crop fails. It's the staple diet, but this year's harvest is one of the worst Charles and his family can remember.
CHARLES CHAWANTHAT: The last year's maize crops were not as fine as - compared to others three years back when we did not have much rainfall so there are just a few maize crops in the granary. Last year's harvest was over this level. But, as you can see, this can only take us three months for us to eat. Now we say we are in the "danger zone". We call it the "danger zone" because we don't, we don't have er food - we don't have maize.
COMM: It's not only Charles's stocks that are in the danger zone. Last year - before it became obvious how bad the harvest was going to be - the government of Malawi sold off most of the country's National Grain Reserve.
ROBERT JAMIESON, Editor, The Chronicle, Lilongwe: The problem has been created in Malawi because of several factors. I think the problem is mainly a political one, one of strategic planning - or lack of strategic planning. We are meant to have strategic grain reserves in this country. Every year we develop it and we keep stocks to allow us to go through our lean months. Unfortunately those stocks were sold off and were not replenished - if they were replenished I don't think we'd be in the same position that we're in today.
COMM: The results of the failure to replenish the National Grain Reserve can be found in feeding centres where mothers bring their malnourished children.
SISTER MODESTA: This is my first year - since I came here in I986 I have never seen the people dying as they have done this year. And even I have never seen children like these ones - malnourished as they are.
COMM: Sister Modesta's centre is in Nambuma, 100 km from the capital, Lilongwe.
SISTER MODESTA: This is also the first time seeing the people eating what they have been eating -the roots, the leaves - they were. The husband died of hunger because he was also malnourished. Without a husband, without having the seeds - the seedlings to plant in the garden, that's why she is now landing in this problem. But because they have nothing - that's why the children are like this. She said in her breast she couldn't produce enough milk because she didn't have enough food to eat. When they were bringing this child the whole body, even the legs, were swollen. After staying here for two weeks now, that's when we see that there's this much improvement. She was just er... miserable, yeah. This girl came here last week, Wednesday. The problem is the same: they are malnourished and the, the things which are here - they are scabies - even the mother had the scabies. And the other problem is the child is also - is also anaemic, she has the anaemia. It's the same - because they were not eating good food there at home. Maybe the government can help, can help this year with improvements. Maybe they can give the people the seeds and the fertiliser. Because, as you see, these are local people who have nothing.
COMM: There are feeding centres with malnourished kids in many African countries. But countries with malnourished kids don't usually sell off their national grain reserve and then find they can't trace the proceeds.
ROBERT JAMIESON: I think the decision to sell off the maize stocks was probably a good one - if it was meant to be replenished. At the end of the day, what we learn is that the maize stocks were sold by people within the ruling party and was not either returned to the National Strategic Grain Reserves so that they could replenish the stocks. Um, and as a result, of course, we don't have the stocks. I would imagine that um somebody benefited from the sale of this maize. Who it is, I couldn't tell you - I have absolutely no idea - it certainly was not anyone outside of the ruling party.
COLLINS MAGALASI: It's true that the government sold off the maize from the National Food Reserve Agency that we had. Um, there are several allegations - I can call them allegations now because nobody has accepted responsibility yet - whereby government is saying that IMF and the World Bank had "advised" or had "forced" government to sell off all this maize simply because had some deficit - some budget deficit - so they had to cover up that. But then er the other interesting thing is after even the sale of this maize - ideally - any sensible person expects that if you sell out something from the reserve there must be some methodology that has been put that you can replenish those. But with the case of the National Food Reserve Agency, the maize that was sold off, there was nothing which came in.
DR ELLARD MALINDI, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture: I think in terms of the story that seemed to indicate that government was responsible in the manner in which it handled the strategic grain reserve, I explained earlier what happened. This maize was sold by tender; it was in the papers and people responded. And it's not a few people bought it, many people bought it - and companies. That - the, the second one is that we have carried out an audit, so the results of the audit will be published. Er we trust that will clear the air... now.
COMM: While the audit's awaited, Malawi's borrowed money to import maize into its depots. But donors like the EU - who, like the IMF and World Bank, say they did not advise getting rid of the grain reserve - remain seriously concerned.
POUL NIELSON, EU Commissioner for Development & Humanitarian Aid: We did not advise the government to sell the grain from that reserve and it looks a little short-sighted - to put it mildly - to have done it. There is a risk that this has aggravated the situation - it looks like that - and the, the honesty of handling the money will have to be looked into.
COMM: Already looking into the scandal of the missing grain is Malawi's press. After decades of dictatorship, Malawi now has a free press and some basic democratic institutions - although the editor of The Chronicle, for one, is concerned at the President's bid for what some call an "unconstitutional" third term.
ROBERT JAMIESON: I wear a purple ribbon because that purple ribbon signifies that I am against the third term. Not because I have anything against our President, not at all - it is the principle. We had been under 30 years of dictatorship and that became - and that started off as a democracy, it became a dictatorship - ours was supposed to have only two limited terms, two terms of five years, and I think we shouldn't tamper with our constitution. And what's been happening in the country is not, is not necessarily good for our country.
COMM: Some big aid donors to Malawi are also concerned about allegations of dishonesty and tampering with the constitution. The Danes have even pulled out altogether, closing down their embassy. Some donors like the EU have made future aid conditional on assurances of good governance. Good governance they say, meaning not full-blown Western democracy, just an assurance aid will be spent for the good of the people.
POUL NIELSON: It is possible to have governance without having democracy. It's a way of describing - in a not very clear manner - but it's a way of describing the achievement of some sort of stability, some sort of decency, some sort of predictability. It's a primitive version of law-and-order, or rule-of-law, or a primitive version of what we normally understand as democracy.
COMM: Despite the accusations and rumours, life in Malawi goes on - most people get by somehow. But elsewhere in southern and central Africa poor governance has accelerated into dictatorship, hunger has spiralled into famine. And that's led to an increasingly heated debate as to whether countries with hungry people but poor governance - or worse - really should be bailed out by the rich donor nations.
J K GALBRAITH, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Harvard University: One cannot put money into a country where it's wasted. And this then raises the question of the depth of international sovereignty. When a country is destroying its own people, - starving them, denying them any of the fruits of development or progress - one has to examine the concepts of sovereignty; the defence of sovereignty, which can be useful, good in allowing people to have their rights to govern themselves, but can also be a defence for dictators and rascals.
STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you mean there may sometimes be a case to intervene to protect people against their own governments?
J K GALBRAITH: Absolutely! Er, if a population is suffering, then there's a justification for intervention.
STEVE BRADSHAW: Is there anything the rest of the world can do to promote good governance and the rule of law in developing countries?
FRED L SMITH JR, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute: Absolutely! The major thing that the rest of the world can do is never get between a fool and his mistakes. One of the tragedies of Western society is that we have rushed in to rescue nations from observing the consequences of their foolish policies. Over and over again the IMF, the World Bank, aid organisations have rushed in to prevent the learning experience that would have made it possible for these nations to have gradually moved towards sound policies. The worst thing you can do is to allow a person to ignore the folly of their ways, because then they'll just be foolish in the future.
STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you go along with those who say that we should restrict foreign aid to countries that do not have good governance (and I think largely people are talking about Africa)?
PAUL KRUGMAN, Professor of Economics, Princeton University: Well of course, I mean, it has to be, there has to be a conditionality - to use that awful word. Um now - again, if you're going to demand that they all be run like Sweden then you're getting nowhere. But if you're going to say that we require that there be some indication that stuff is really going to be use to vaccinate children and not to buy furniture for the minister's palace, fine - I, I don't really think that's a hard issue. I think it's, it's - it's not that hard, given what we now know, to, to direct most of the aid in a way that actually does some good.
COMM: Meantime in Malawi the cycle goes on. Food shortages - manmade and artificial - followed by appeals for aid. Charles has come to the local warehouse of ADMARC, the national grain agency. He's heard stocks are running low.
CHARLES CHAWANTHAT: How much do you charge per 50 kg?
MAN IN OFFICE: Eight hundred and fifty.
CHARLES CHAWANTHAT: OK.
COMM: He uses cash he's earned from his vegetable patch. There are still some imported stocks left in the ADMARC warehouse. Charles can afford just one sack. But while Charles is buying grain for his family, others - we were told - have been buying grain to hoard for profit.
COLLINS MAGALASI: People managed to buy off this maize from ADMARK, and then they were hoarding it. I believe there was an artificial scarcity they created which pushed up the cost of er maize. So when, we had that crisis, we moved around in the er - say, the country. And it was fascinating to find that an ADMARC depot is standing there without any bag of maize, but just across the road - maybe five metres across the road - you find there are piles and piles of bags of maize, which are being sold at that exorbitant price. Now the question that I for one had was: what should we say the problem here is? Is it that we don't have anything? No, we have something but which is being held by just a few. That's our - contentment. The local person in the village didn't have the maize but somebody, somewhere else in town had lots of maize, which he was able to hoard.
COMM: Bad weather, poor governance, profiteering: all the ingredients for "the perfect famine". As more children go hungry the warning signs are already clear. The worst cases of malnutrition end up in hospitals like this: the Mtenga Wa Tenga, eighty kilometres north of the capital Lilongwe.
LEMSON MALOLA, Clinical Officer, Mtenga Wa Tenga Hospital: Um there have been a lot - several cases of malnutrition because of this hunger disaster which has happened this year, in the country, you know? Malawi was heavy inflicted with hunger so it was difficult for people to find food.
SISTER BRIDGET MORETA, Matron, Mtenga Wa Tenga Hospital: This baby is just one year-old and the weight it is six kilos, it is supposed to be ten. It has anaemia and some other complications like pneumonia, in this case - because the baby has not enough defence to fight.
LEMSON MALOLA: I can say we are going to have a tough job in two months coming because the harvests they are very low, which means even the rate of malnutrition it will be higher than last year. Like in November and December, they had a high rate of death due to malnutrition - even in adults it was happening this year and it was for the first time myself to experience such a terrible situation.
COMM: It's said over three million in Malawi could be at risk. As the cycle goes on, the government makes a familiar request.
DR ELLARD MALINDI, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture: We are doing what we can do but we think that on own we cannot deal with the problem successfully. We need assistance from others.
COMM: It is an appeal which many in the Malawi believe the government is right to voice but in this country of hard-working, entrepreneurial people, natural wealth and emerging democratic institutions repeated appeals to the rich donor nations for help can leave a bitter taste.
COLLINS MAGALASI, Malawian Economic Justice Network: Yeah, my wish is to see Malawi move out of this pathetic poverty - it's pathetic down there. I just have a vision that maybe one day, one time we might have a country that is: 1) free of poverty; 2) with leaders - technicians that are accountable to Malawians, not accountable to outsiders; and 3) a country that is, I think, self-sustaining.
COMM: Until countries like Malawi really are self-sustaining the international community will have to decide whether to withhold aid - to punish poor governance - or whether that just risks harming helpless children. Meantime, back in the Nambuma feeding centre, Sister Modesta has no choice but to hope appeals for aid are successful.
SISTER MODESTA: Most of these people who are here, they say they have nothing at home, once they are discharged from here they don't know what they are going to do. Since this hunger started I have never seen a truck from the government leaving maize. If nothing is coming these people are going to die. That's why everybody's scared. Even us at the centre, we are scared.