Much of the material in this paper is excerpted from the authors upcoming book Humanitari-an System Resilience – Crises-Societies Engagement in Humanitarian Action

The Human Deprivation-Policy Nexus: Disaster Scenarios & Options for Prevention, Preparedness &

Mitigation in the Horn of Africa - 2015 Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies, College of Business and Economics, AAU

Public Lecture Series, CDVIII, MMXV

Abstract

In 2011, famine had begun to strike the Greater Horn of Africa with apocalyptic force, with rows of fly-haunted corpses and the skeletal orphans crouched in pain, the nomads and pastoral-ist desperately scrambling for help. Despondent Somali mothers were abandoning their dying children as they travel to engulf crisis centers in Kenya and Ethiopia. The Horn of Africa wit-nessed a devastating drought, the worst in 60 years, causing widespread famine with 13 million people affected. The AU held a Pledging Conference at joint Summit at which they declared their firm commitment to end drought emergencies in the Horn. In Ethiopia in 2015, contrary to the forecast at the beginning of the year, inadequate Belg (mid-February-May) rains received this year drastically changed the humanitarian context in Ethiopia. Increasing water and pasture shortages were reported in parts of the country, leading to deteriorated livestock production and productivity, deepening food insecurity and rising mal-nutrition. The Belg harvest is expected to be significantly less than the projection in the 2015 Humanitarian Re-quirements Document. Ad hoc requests were coming from regional (state) authorities for increased food aid. Pre-venting the spread of the measles outbreak is also crucial to avert higher morbidity and mortality rates, especially in nutrition hotspot areas (UN OCHA, 2015:1). For once, the Horn of Africa‟s food insecu-rity responses need not be fire fighting as this is not an act of God in the Old Testament; neither should they be a subject of conferences and committees. It requires calculative reflec-tion as the most viable refined sphere of a potentially promis-ing region, whose labyrinthine trek towards transformation necessitates a visionary filament of disaster prevention, pre-paredness and a matching mitigation plan that must all be embedded in entrepreneurial development rooted in the hu-man security dictum of Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want.

Key words: preparedness, prevention, mitigation, policy, strategy, operations

1 | The Human Deprivation-Policy Nexus The Horn of Africa

1. Introduction:

The famines of the past few decades have indeed been a cruel test in Greater Horn of Africa. While the outpouring sympathy and generous response of the international community have been phenomenal, the actions of the fire fighters of international disasters had brought to light some serious doubts about the ability of such fire fighting interventions to reduce peoples' vulnerabil-ity. Today, the crises assume new dimensions as changing production relations, spurred by socio-economic adjustments set the pace of livelihood security. Conflicts, corruption, deprivation that leads to famine and pandemics now threaten the region with a calamity unforeseen even during the Great Famine of the 1980s, so much so that the G8 has made this a basket case for interna-tional action, as nations become a new insignia of human bestiality, a failed or collapsed state, to use a nauseating acronym.

When the basic functions of the State are no longer performed, they breed widespread inter-nal conflict, revolutionary and ethnic wars, adverse regime change, genocide, politicides, and de facto or de jure loss of state authority. The consequences have domestic effects in terms of conflict trap, wild arms spending and economic consequences. The neighborhood effects breed conflict spill over and havens for terrorists. Determinants of potential state failure are material depriva-tion of citizens: unfulfilled expectations, difficulty of delivering quick results, urban bias, security constraints. It also has international influences: openness to trade, conflicts in neighboring coun-tries, large illicit influx of money, corruption, foreign aid footprint. In addition, „war lords‟ jock-eying as statesmen capture the regime. It is the dilemma of re-building country vs. the state; where alternative delivery mechanisms de-legitimize government, slow the process of genuine institution building, advance an unrealistic reform agenda, and focus on pseudo-democracy fa-çade in response to multiple donor agenda.

Hence, the demand for some important attitudinal shifts among thinkers and policy makers and the challenges of designing concepts and models that will help harmonies the human dimen-sion in development will never be more acute. Inspired by a new orthodoxy that has evolved with the upsurge of professionalism on such emerging ideals; the eighties had provided a fertile ground for the discourse on the debate that ensued regarding human wellness which, in its own right, is long, trying and, at times, counterproductive. Nevertheless, while many proposals for re-medial action have been formulated, real commitment to positive and collaborative processes at in-ter-organizational levels has always been limited. Mobilizing the action required has also remained a daunting challenge, as many practical and structural constraints militate against commitment to in-ter-organizational initiatives.

Furthermore, the tragedy taking such a heavy toll of life has highlighted fundamental weak-ness of state five-year development strategies and emasculated actions of donors. This has en-sued questions about many preconceived notions and new ideas proposed, including efforts that can be made to improve our understanding of human insecurity, to estimate the risks resulting there from, accurately and to make adequate preventive measures ahead of time. Because there is always a tendency to find a solution that is smart, simple, and immoral to every human problem in Africa, states and their international backers tend to have a linear or at best binary logic and way of thinking that cast skepticism in their collective aptitude and is inadequate to unravel the many complex inter-relationships underlying vulnerability. It is neither popular nor scientific. The issue is about the need for collective learning. The responsibility to those whose suffering provided the basis for that learning will never be more urgent than it is now. Unfortunately, such lessons, which may be learned through the shocks administered by an uncompromising reality, are rarely translated quickly into personal or organizational memories and the inherent will to change.

The reasons for this are rooted in human inertia, weakness, and self-interest and are equally often the products of a genuine confusion about how to act most effectively in an environment that is growing more complex. Indeed, the celebrated argument of Amartya Sen that no famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy, and its corollary, that a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threatened by famines can have, is no longer open to dispute.

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2. Statement of the Problem

2.1. Corrupt governance

Within a life span of a few decades, the states in the Horn of Africa have exhibited an en-hanced degree of coercive power. This has resulted in a pervasive military ethos leading to the emergence of „socialist‟-cum-military oligarchies through a long and painful process of ideologi-cal schooling. A major obstacle to efforts to install and consolidate livelihood system in Africa is the all-powerful, highly centralized and hierarchical bureaucratic structure; further exacerbated by economic adjustment program. The organizational imperative of the massive bureaucratic machine is to command and control and is preoccupied with its own survival and enrichment. It is unlikely that the powerful bureaucracy will abandon its privileged position and control of the state appa-ratus to democratically elected political leaders or respect the institutional restraints of democrat-ic rule without struggle. The state has proved to be the main channel for personal wealth accu-mulation and securing privileged position. The rewards of the public sector are so much greater than the private sector for the majority of people that politics has become a brutal struggle (Cos-tantinos, 1998).

Thus, perennial attempts have been made to restrict the freedom of the press and to incor-porate such organizations as trade unions, women‟s, youth and professional associations into the state party system. As political position becomes the only competing alternative for high level income generating, the number of people who want to go into that business is very large. Local government apparatus are operated by unqualified personnel or they simply cease to function. Vigilant and obsessed by preservation of power, local officials are pre-occupied by clerical and political tasks, than ensuring rights or fulfilling their governance fiats. Grand corruption is the major threat to rights to livelihood security; hence, the vicious cycle of corruption needs to be bro-ken. A situation, in which poverty encourages petty corruption and makes the people vulnerable to manipulation by the elite, deepens and aggravates deprivation that leads to famine. Citizens are too busy eking out a living to be concerned about the problematics of rights and the crusade against corruption, resulting in a culture of silence (Ibid).

2.2. The international aid architecture

Multilateral, bilateral and non-governmental external agencies have in recent years taken a large number of initiatives aimed directly or indirectly at helping Africa democratize its way out of economic chaos and political instability. In doing so, they rely on a wide variety of programs, in-

stitutional mechanisms and policies. Indeed, growing external involvement in projects of democratization and development has resulted in increasingly challenging problems of concep-tualizing the role and function of agencies, which seems in marked contrast to the lim-ited thought and effort exerted to put the interventions in coherent theoretical or stra-tegic perspective. Questions have also been

raised as to whether international actors have so far been effective in institutionalizing empow-erment if they show sufficient awareness of the difficult socio-political choices facing famine prone countries. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether they can establish coherent voices on issues crucial to them or to the „victims‟ they serve.

2.3. Hunger is a terrible way to go…

There is a need to explore the changing nature of international debates about the rights to livelihood security. Nonetheless, food aid may well make it worse, writes Adian Hartley (2011:1), it seems wicked to question charity appeals for starving people in the Horn of Africa.

Hunger is a terrible way to go, as I discovered when I once asked a dying Somali near Mogadishu to tell me what he was feeling. He was just passing into that zombie-like state with staring eyes. He said how the first ache was replaced by burning thirst that never leaves you. Marasmus turns children into Martian-headed skeletons. Kwashiorkor swells their bellies. Glossy black hair turns reddish. Teeth fall out and ulcers like

Aid has become an essential, indispensable fact, chan-neling assets into and catalyzing the rise of social forces it finds compatible, and aborting those that are hostile to it. While external resources are crucial catalysts to develop-ment, our initiatives must proceed from the acknowledge-ment that all those involved with the development process must and should broaden their perception and realize that the key to transformation is with the ordinary people.

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gunshot wounds eat into the cheeks. Inside, the body cannibalizes itself, eating up fat reserves, then muscle proteins. Immune systems crash, diseases pour in and terminal release comes with organ failure. I am haunted by the people I have seen die in Somalia, and by news pictures of the latest famine, but aid agencies are pre-senting this crisis misleadingly. Charities were blaming it on the worst drought in 60 years. They are still call-ing it the ‘worst drought ever’ when in recent days torrential rains have flooded refugee camps in Mogadishu. The reality is that war caused this famine, not a drought, and the heart of it is in the battlefields.

The important issues that the above issues suggest, are not sufficiently addressed, or even raised, in much of the current discussion of rights to livelihood security. Insofar as the activities of state agencies are not understood and engaged in societal responsibilities, their democratic (and developmental) impact may diminish. This can mean little more than a weakly coordinated multiplication of programs which have immediately recognizable effects in limited areas, but which seem to suspend rather than serve the rights to livelihood security. The strategic coordina-tion of diverse activities can become a challenge for the all involved, in part because of limita-tions in individual characteristics of their activities (narrow technocratic orientation) and partly because of shortcomings in the contextual articulation of programs, limited generalisability and variability.

Using qualitative methods, the research questions augur on how breaking up states levitate into a famine crisis. In seeking the participation of crises–affected societies, what mechanisms and mediums are used to express their injury, resolve and expectation? How are their indigenous coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies that constitute their resistance & resilience articulated to preserve their self-esteem, integrity and innovativeness?

3. Has the lesson of the 1980s been learned?

Jacques L. Hamel (2011:1) underpins the Strategy of Subversive Rationalization, emphasizing the internalization of the scientific method and rational modes of thinking as well as the assimilation of crucial scien-tific knowledge, as the epistemological foundation of any kind of modernity. He stresses the necessity of revoking conformist, traditionalist or totalizing belief and knowledge systems, worldviews and cultures that stand in the way to essential changes, a project of liberalization, trans-nationalization, systematization and humanization processes. Denials by leaders notwithstanding, it relies on calculative thinking as the most viable civilized horizon of a potentially budding region, whose tortuous march to modernity may necessitate an imaginative strand of thinking and a complementary strategy. Triumphant techno-scientific dogmas need not lead inevitably to the devastation, excesses and wastefulness of post-industrial consumerist cultures; nor be a model for an African modernity, avoiding being exceedingly framed by technology. Humans, knowledge and tech-nology are co-emerging, co-evolutive and mutually co-constitutive of each other. Nevertheless, how does this modernization emerge under phantom states in the Horn? Daniel L. Byman (2012:1) articulates this as

Phantom states stoke wars, foster crime, and make weak states even weaker. Leaders of phantom states champion state control of the means and instruments of livelihoods and the right to national self-determination while the countries from which they seek independence stress the need for stable borders. Stuck between these incompatible principles, phantom states tend to point out uncomfortable precedents and double standards and latch on to foreign patrons. Even when they become genuine states, the problems do not necessarily end there. The international community must push phantoms to reform (or regime change), otherwise, millions will linger in legal and political limbo: rebels with a cause and soldiers with a ready-made grievance, while neighborhoods remain at risk.

For the „victims‟ it boils down to Shakespearean dictum, unfortunately, To be or not to be is the question; Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune; Or to take up arms and by opposing them to end them, to die to sleep the heartache & shocks that flesh is heir to. It is a con-summation devoutly to be wished for, to die to sleep. Framing the conundrum of famine agents correctly is as significant, if not equally eminent, as unpacking the predicaments that render nerveless the considered opinions of humanitarian fire fighters. In such a situation, that lends itself to introspec-tion of the complexity and uncertainties such issue lend themselves to. The orthodox, if not democratic, notion of famine victims demanding accountability from the state posits the exist-ence of a shared principled-cosmos wherein such accountability is encapsulated in Shared Values, a paramount dictum of the 2012 African Union Summit. While the much tooted summits have borne little fruit in terms of immediate action for a starving Horn, international policy dialogue

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on these timely and apposite issues will legitimately enhance leadership capacity to effect change in stemming the tide of hunger; however constrained they may be by ideological leanings.

4. What is deprivation that leads to famine?

The definition of deprivation that leads to famine is based on two different models of depri-vation. The physiological deprivation model focuses on the non-fulfillment of biological needs (food, etc.) The social deprivation model uses a wider conception of deprivation, which may include vulnera-bility, powerlessness, lack of self-respect, etc. The physiological deprivation model is prom-inent in two approaches in poor nations: Income/Consumption (I/C) Deprivation and some versions of the Basic Human Needs (BHN) Approach (Shafer, 1998, Fig 1).

4.1. Conceptions of social change: how is deprivation (famine) reduced?

Different strategies tend to focus on different processes of social change and the underlying forces, which impel them. One way of conceptualizing forces of social change is in terms of different forms of capital (Gasper 1993; Swift, 1989 in Shafer, 1998). For this purposes, seven forms are capital are par-ticularly relevanti . Seven deprivation-relevant forms of capital are at stake here: human, economic, cultural, social, political, coercive and environmental along with five approaches to famine mitigation based on the underlying con-ception of deprivation, forms of capital on which they draw and crosscutting themes of gender and participation. It augurs on an analysis of schematic rela-tionships between conceptions of deprivation, forces of social change and ap-proaches to mitigation. Changes in anyone of the above forms of capital interact in com-plex ways with other forms of capital that leads to social change, in many cases; these are mutually supportive of the same social objective (Shafer, 1998)

4.2. Approaches to deprivation that leads to famine reduction

The Human Capital Approach focuses on the links between investment in education, health and nutrition and the primary incomes of the poor (Beh-rman, 1990 in Shafer, 1998). The Production Function approach to gender responsive deprivation that leads to famine mitigation focuses on those mech-anisms, which increase the primary income of the poor. Emphasis is placed on factors, which increase the level or price of output and/or the returns received by poor producers. The approach, based primarily on the analysis of economic and human capital, evinces close affinity to the I/C variant of the physiological deprivation model, as far as the objective is to increase basic preference ful-fillment by increasing incomes (Ray, 1998, in Shafer, 1998).

The governance approach to famine mitigation has been deemed in technocrat terms to refer to public sector management issues (e.g. civil service reform), in public policy terms to refer to publicly supplied prerequisites of market liberalization (private property, enforceable contracts, etc. (World Bank 1994). In its present use, governance embodies three basic principles: inclusive-ness, lawfulness and accountability. The Sustainable Livelihood Approach situates famine mitigation within the framework of security of livelihoods. The livelihood aspect draws on an analysis of as-sets, which parallels the above analysis of capital. Livelihoods depend on tangible assets (savings), intangible assets (legitimate social demands or appeals for material, moral or other support), and capability to use a resource, store or service for one's benefit.ii

Inclusiveness presupposes that deprivation and impoverishment are due to exclusion from effective decision-making authority and seeks to redress this by empowering groups, which have been historically disenfranchised. Empowerment (internal & external) is central and subsumes issues of participatory democracy. Decentralization has figured prominently as one means of promoting inclusiveness. Conceptions of deprivation may be gendered as far as men and women are differ-entially afflicted by different forms of deprivation. Men and women have diverse relationships to various forms of and changes in capital that have differential gender impacts (Thus, women may be restricted from ownership of land (economic capital), assigned inferior status, (cultural capital)

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5 | The Human Deprivation-Policy Nexus The Horn of Africa

or they may be less-organized (social capital). In light of these, policy interventions are likely to differ across gender lines, so too will be the interventions be gendered (Shafer, 1998).

4.3. Poor people in a potentially rich continent

Ethiopia has launched major schemes to make famine history. Ethiopia, a nation known as the water tower of North-East Africa has been the epicenter of famines while surface water re-sources flow in 12 major river basins. It is estimated that about 122.19 billion m3 of water is an-nually discharged from the Abay, Tekeze, Baro, and Omo-Gibe river basins with an estimated 3.5 million hectares of irrigable land. In 1984, a famine began to strike Ethiopia with apocalyptic force. Westerners watched in horror as the images of death filled their TV screens: the rows of fly-haunted corpses, the skeletal orphans crouched in pain, the villagers desperately scrambling for bags of grain dropped from the sky. What started out as a trickle of aid turned into a billion-dollar flood. The rescue effort was plagued by delays and controversy, and some one million Ethiopians eventually died, but more would have perished if the world had not responded so generously. Such were the horrors of famine perpetrated by rogue rulers that famine should be history.

4.4. Policy and program framework

4.4.1. Vision: Indeed, the Ethiopian economy has recently been growing at 10% and provides opportuni-

ties to self-finance famine prevention. Development practitioners and pundits ensemble, believe that massive food production and the energy required to fuel such development is the only way that the nations can shed the stigma of famine. The vision is to curtail the spread of disasters and to sharply reduce their impact on human suffering and promote human and social capital devel-opment.

4.4.2. Mission: The mission is to mobilize nations, local, national and sub-regional organizations to a con-

certed economic, social and political program for the coordination of disaster management at the continental level with the requisite national financial commitment and action to address the ef-fects of natural disasters and their impact on human life and the progress of nations (Costanti-nos, 2000).

4.4.3. Strategic Objectives The first strategic objective is to reduce the impact of disasters through a continuum of socio-

political processes, policy advocacy and program development, focused primarily on vul-nerable populations, which address local, national and sub-regional vulnerabilities. It addresses the most significant administrative and technocratic factors contributing to regional vulnerability and disaster proneness. Secondly, enhancing adaptive strategies that lead to sustainable live-lihoods through intensified capacity building. Finally, it is to enhance comprehensive sub-regional disaster management program and supportive policies and guidelines and response monitoring system for their efficacy. Strategic coordination of policy and program interventions are required to address disasters in adequate scope and depth, elaborated along several distinct axis or dimensions including the political and policy environment, thematic and geographic strate-gies and institutional capabilities. Within each arena, local, national and sub-regional coordination will require each stakeholder to (Ibid):

Increase their action on and resource allocation to elements of the response, which fall under their respec-tive mission and mandate and in which they hold a competitive and comparative advantage.

Seek, apply and evaluate effective ways to collaborate and co-operate with other partners towards a united international response to natural disasters spearheaded by the OAU/UN

Uphold the ultimate aim of disaster management coordination, which is to promote self-reliance;

These will be achieved through the following outputs and actionable program areas in the short, medium and long term. The first strategic output relates to development of technical capacity for local, national and sub-regional information management coordination - to receive/collect, collate, analyses and interpret data on disaster and formulate preparedness, pre-

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vention and mitigation plans that can be incorporated in the Local, national and sub-regional de-velopment plan will have been enhanced. This output here points towards the establishment of an effective local, national and sub-regional policy and program on disaster management. The activities include inter alia strengthened framework for receiving, synthesizing information and data analysis (Ibid).

The second strategic output relates to enhancing Africa’s capacity to respond to both food and non-food emergencies arising from natural disasters as well as other. Local, na-tional and sub-regional organizations become more responsive and effective to natural disasters by undertaking in-depth analysis of inter-sectoral needs and encouraging government and popu-lar participation in capacity building for disaster management. The third strategic output is a well-coordinated local, national and sub-regional integrated disaster recovery program at national, sub-regional and regional levels. The policy and program-planning framework that will be developed provides a guiding handrail for social mobilization that will create an irreversible momentum addressing the value ordinary human beings can control the decision making pro-cess. The fourth strategic output addresses the challenges surrounding the interface between na-tional and sub-regional programs (Ibid).

4.5. Program domains

Hence, the following local, national and sub-regional coordination program domains for dis-aster management address the actionable agenda described above.

Program domain 1: Institutional strengthening for the coordination of early warning, emergency food security reserve, relief logistics, community coping mechanisms, disaster prevention and management train-ing, and strengthen local organizations. This includes the coordination of emergency, project and program food assistance, employment generation schemes and sub-regional disaster preparedness fund and strategic food reserves.

Program domain 2: This entails coordination of policy analysis and advocacy for an enabling envi-ronment in disaster-prone localities to enable participation in policy formulation, promotion of local, national and sub-regional awareness on disaster prevention policies. It further establishes policy and directives for local, national and sub-regional disaster management policies, strategies and action plans.

Program domain 3: Community-based disaster prevention are civic education, sustainable agricul-ture - crop, animal production, human development, preventive health care, entrepreneurship, bio-diversity con-servation and development and institutional strengthening;

Program domain 4: Coordination for environment, human settlements, infrastructure and settlement planning, rural development and service centers, resettlement and migration and gender sensitive development to alleviate the effect of migration on women;

5. Guiding Principles for Self-Reliant Famine Mitigation

5.1. Connecting with famine ‘victims’

In the wake of African renaissance, the state has to approach development by connecting with the “famine „victims‟”, joining in on their aspirations, complementing their abilities with our resources and creating true partnerships. It must commit to a common discipline of empower-ment among all people, to a fundamentally new value system based on justice, peace and the in-tegrity of creation, a system that recognizes the rich resources of human communities, their cul-tural and spiritual contributions and the wealth of nature. It will be radically different from the value system on which the present economic and political orders are based and which lies behind the famine crises; a new deal in which those who have been marginalized by political, economic, sex, age, ethnicity, disability, homelessness and displacement take their place at the center of all decisions and actions as equal partners. In essence, the vision for the state is to become a center for promoting self-directed and self-reliant development, arising from a deep conviction that the state and in-ternational actors can assist Africans to use own resources and build their future through the adoption of new approaches. The collective mission is directing resources to realize Africa vision for self-reliance, a new paradigm should emerge on how development could be done in a qualita-tively different way.

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In strategic and practical terms, this means an asset-based empowerment approach so that technical assistance and resources provided brings additionality rather than dependency. Instead of supplanting people‟s initiatives with exogenous models, which undermine their agency, such succor is deliv-ered in such a way as to build on the assets people already have - their knowledge and aspira-tions; premised on transformation of the prevailing stewardship dictum to one based on accountable partnership. Given time, the empowerment approach entailed in this paradigm, it can significantly enable people‟s struggle to meet their survival objectives. Self-reliant development means, while external resources are crucial to national development, development must proceed from the acknowledge-ment that all those involved in the process must and should broaden their perception and realize that the key to human well-being is with the famine ‘victims’. The so-called famine „victims‟ have adaptive strategies that they have used to face the challenges faced by constantly changing ecological, political, eco-nomic and social environments, long before states, NGOs and donors came into the scene. This fundamental paradigm shift requires transforming knowledge assembly, organization and its utili-ty in programming.

5.2. An actionable framework for sustainable livelihoods programming

The “Sustainable Livelihoods Approach” is an integrated package of policy, technology and investment strategies together with appropriate decision-making tools which are used together to promote sustainable livelihoods by building on famine victim‟s adaptive strategies.

While the approach has been developed in-dependently, it nonetheless resonates with the spirit and practices of these earlier ap-proaches, overcoming their limitations while adding independent value. Primarily, it provides an integrated framework in which aspects of several earlier approaches come together synergistically, with strong emphasis on questions of sustainability in economic, environmental & social terms.

It assesses community assets, adaptive strategies and livelihood activities as an en-try point, which sets the stage for integrated outputs, different from sector entry points.

Governance and policy questions and their inter-linkages are addressed in a cross-sectoral manner by focusing impacts analysis on the totality of the livelihood system and its sustainability. It examines the inter-locking nature of macro-micro linkages, sectoral and macro policies with governance arrangements that refer to rela-tionships, roles and capacities of both local government and civil society actors.

Using an empowerment approach, it seeks to create opportunities to improve livelihood systems through in-vestment and technology inputs and a framework for monitoring livelihood systems and their sustainability (UNDP, 1998:2).

5.3. Functional commercial farms can stem the tide of food insecurity

The development of the commercial farming has become an internationally accepted devel-opment strategy to improve the living condition of peoples in developing countries, a basic char-acteristic of a free market economy. While the dominating policy influences in the different his-torical periods have had impacts on its development, depending on the philosophical orientation of the state in power, it is agreed by many that promulgation of policies and legislative measures alone are not enough to encourage the development of commercial farming. In this regard, it has only enjoyed the privileges on paper and a lot remains to be done in practice to remove the legal and regulatory constraints that would adversely affect its development. Therefore, some measures needed to alleviate the fundamental and pressing problems are recommended in the following paragraphs. The Government, in its efforts to strengthen the sector based on its de-clared intention in economic policy, may need to consider these measures.

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5.3.1. Assess the benefits and risks of the new land acquisition strategy.

Foreign ownership of land and water rights is potentially associated with significant risks for host nations. Hence, they must improve legal and technical capacities, conduct impact assess-ments on the benefits, costs and risks of land acquisition; promote shared food security interest; improve transparency and participation, create development and employment opportunities and provide tools to all stakeholders. States must engrain the principles into investment contracts, domestic law and ultimately into practice are critical (UNDESA, 2010:6).

5.3.2. Contracts must be structured to maximize impact on sustainable develop-ment.

This includes devising incentive systems to promote inclusive business models, and giving le-gal teeth to commitments on investment levels, job creation, infrastructure development, public revenues, environmental protection, safeguards in land takings and other aspects. Skillful negoti-ation is important and governments may need to invest in their own capacity to negotiate. Mech-anisms should be developed to discourage purely speculative land acquisitions. High-level state commitment and capacity across administrative structures are essential to enforce compliance with investment plan requirements. Innovative thinking must forge ways to discourage non-compliance beyond early stages of the project. Investment decision-making must be transparentiii (IIED and FAO, 2008).

Some aspects of the investment law that prohibit individuals from participating in large-scale investment activities such as finance and telecoms must be reconsidered. The labor law must spell out clear-cut guidelines to make employee-employer relationship smooth and healthy. Ter-mination must be quick and easy so that long processes of litigation could be avoided.

5.3.3. Measures to promote small-and intermediate-scale farm entrepreneurship:

The investment aspect of entrepreneurship is identifying market opportunities and acting upon them. The managerial side is running all aspects of the business: finance, production, tech-nology, labor relations, marketing, advertising, research and development. Entrepreneurs operat-ing on a small-to intermediate-scale usually exhibit rather sophisticated organizational skills. Nevertheless, as their businesses grow along the small-to intermediate-scale continuum, they often face constraints such as limited managerial capabilities; difficulties with technology transfer and adaptation; and inadequate or inappropriate public provision of enterprise-level support. Measures to promote and develop entrepreneurial capacity at these levels of the business struc-ture must seek to surmount managerial constraints, difficulties with technology transfer and adaptation, enter-prise-level support systems, information systems on micro-economic behavior and public-Private Partnership (PPP):

5.4. Conclusion

Despite the economic quantum leaps of the past few decades, central to defining the nature of mass poverty and deprivation has been the remit of theories of development. Interest in de-velopment issues is of rather recent origin, dating back not much earlier between the nineteen fifties; schools of thought that reflect theories of modernization, dependency, world economy view, basic needs approaches and modes of production perspective and sustainable develop-ment. Nonetheless, because discussions leading to self-reliant development tend to be one of pessimism and despondency, famine mitigation history is fast replacing economics as the morbid science. Participants in the complex traffic web of development studies could be torn between professional caution and the genuine desire for a better grasp of poverty and famine. Neverthe-less, repeated attempts to dispel the prevailing gloom by pointing to the bright spots that MDGs & SDGs are constituted of, to check the overall drift towards hunger-free world have not yielded to popular demands.

The vision of a new era of democratic citizenship for self-reliance underpinning the SDGs raises some fundamental questions. What does self-reliant development mean in the first place? Does self-reliant development have indigenous roots that lean towards a visionary tangent in creating a livable environment? What are the exogenous and endogenous factors that brought about this discourse as a new chapter in SDGs?

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Lurking in the background of all these questions is the rather disturbing one: is perhaps all this talk of MDGS & SDGs against the backdrop of famine and hunger an academic or a public rela-tions exercise.

“The stark reality of phantom states makes this last question less cynical than it would otherwise appear at first sight. Having had little impact in the betterment of the changing quality of life, the target that most African nations set themselves is the attainment of institu-tions and practices that have been the basic ingredients of the „democratic‟ tradition. Never-theless, keen observers have not been oblivious to the limits of this declared paragon of de-mocracy, pointing to its formal character and the struggle in recent decades of marginalized groups with an alternative, participatory vision of democracy to achieve the empowerment of the com-mon person. The strengthening of civil society that underpins the alternative vision of de-mocracy is germane to the discussion of the democratization process; for the ultimate hope of self-determination lies precisely in such strengthening of civil society.

“Here, ideological constructs emerge as the very constitutive structure of the SDGs, commonly characterized by a number of distinctive and shared additional elements, including concepts and rules of government, national and cultural values, traditions of political discourse and arguments, and modes of representation of specific interests, needs and issues. These elements, or complexes of el-ements, will tend to assume varying forms and to enter into shifting relations of competition, co-operation and hegemony during political reform. Generally, the broader the range of ideological elements at play and the more varied and uncertain their relations are, the greater the possibilities of process-oriented vision definition. Hence, self-reliant development is of-ten tied more or less closely to major transitional ideological constructs that tend to be unset-tled and, at times, unsettling.

“Particularly at the initial stages of transition, it is more likely to be uncertain rather than stable structures of ideas and values, resulting in the opening up the reform process, of free-ing the process from simple domination by any one organized stakeholder or coalition of them. Yet, such elements and relations take shape and come into play within a hierarchy of global and local agencies and groups. A determinate order of institutions, powers, interests and ac-tivities operate through complexes of ideas and values, filling out, specifying, anchoring and, often shortcutting their formal content or meaning. In addition, this may impose ideological as well as practical limits on the extent to which and how reform processes can be opened up or broadened (Costantinos, 2015:6).

Thus, the fact that advocates of self-reliant development often do not efficiently realize in prac-tice the potential of the ideas and goals they promote, that the volume of their interventions is not nearly pro-portional to their impact, raise the issues whether the ideas in question are fundamentally constrained at their conception by the very technocratic structures that ground their articulation. For exam-ple, while the explicit concepts of self-reliant development and capacity building that current in-ternational initiatives operate may be consistent with goals of empowerment of indigenous commu-nities, of enhancing local institutional and human capacities, the initiatives tend to work toward these goals in narrow economic and technocratic terms, equating technocratic rationality and capacity with totality of institutional purpose and strength.

As important as it is, this is only one context, level, or analysis of the breadth and depth of process on the terrain of self-directed development. There is another level of analysis, concerned with the extent and nature of openness of distinct ideological constructs to one another, with modes of articulation of given sets of ideas and values and of representations of specific issues relative to others. The concern here is not so much the number and diversity of ideas; values and opinions allowed gaining currency as modes of their competitive and co-operative articulation. For example, does self-reliant development enter societal processes as an external idea, constructing and deploying its concepts in sterile abstraction from the immediacies of indigenous traditions, beliefs and values? Do ideas of self-reliant development come into play in cooperation with historic national values and sentiments? In the struggle over the establishment of democratic rules of political engagement, do leading parties equate the articulation

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of their partisan development ideas and agenda with production of broad-based concepts, norms and goals that should govern their leadership of development?

In the light of these questions, it is possible to draw a conceptual distinction between two levels of articulation and to note the implications of their relations for process openness. There are first, representations of specific interests, identities, needs, wishes, goals, claims, and de-mands, distinct in different individuals, groups and communities; to be distinguished from a se-cond level of production and circulation of development ideology where broad-based concepts, principles and rules take shape and come into play. Explicit general forms refer to systemic cate-gories and institutional mechanisms; they objectively, mediate and generalize particular represen-tations.

Ultimately, the key to self-reliant development is a qualitatively meaningful and loftier para-digm of participation for citizenship, the basis of all other forms of participation in development. The 1990 UN Arusha Declaration on Popular Participation was right to underscore that democracy underpinned successful development and that successful development was the out-come of popular participation of not only popular participation of not only not only popular par-ticipation not only at the project level, but far more importantly - participation in citizenship. Di-vorced from participation in citizenship, the concept of popular participation in development becomes a mere administrative strategy-- a callous manipulation of the innocent peasantry and urban poor even if the result might be a successful project - but the end can never morally justify the means. Sadly, much of the current jargon about popular participation is based on the donor driv-en administrative desire for project success and effectiveness rather than a genuine drive for as-sisting people in their own development

This brings up the fundamental weaknesses of these crises of objectives that are not in the answers they provide but in the new questions, they engender and challenge us with. The questions necessary for an understanding of the crisis refer to those structural elements of society that strive, in the face of ap-parent bountifulness, to make resources unavailable to those in need. There is convincing evidence that so-cieties evolved complex and sophisticated social and managerial mechanism to exist relatively comfortably even in rigorous climatic conditions. Development of the past few decades has brought fundamentals changes to indigenous production systems. These have meant new defini-tions of vulnerability and a loss of effectiveness by traditional social managerial mechanisms.

The virtual absence of civic education training as a key component of many development programs is an in-dicator of how misunderstood is the idea of empowerment and participation. civic education - learning about and appreciating one's rights, duties, obligations and responsibilities as a citizen and the immediate rules, laws and governance structures within which one exercises citizenship is the first and fundamental step in development participation. Without it, we will not make sig-nificant headway with self-reliant development nor with their pendulous lurch towards demo-cratic governance. Democracy could easily degenerate into anarchy if popular participation in citizenship is not viewed as a critical factor in both socioeconomic development and democratic governance.

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References &endnotes

Behrman J. The Action of Human Resources and Poverty on One another (LSMS Working Paper No. 74, Washington, D.C: The World Bank. 1990)

Byman, Daniel L. The Mystery of Phantom States, (Washington DC., Brookings Institution, Article, Summer 2012 http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2012/07/phantom-states-byman)

Costantinos, Berhutesfa, Framework for disaster management co-ordination in Africa (Addis Ababa, Af-rican Union, Resource paper Symposium Towards a safer Africa in the 21st Century UNCC, 15-17 June 2000)

Gasper D. Entitlements Analysis: Relating Concepts & Contexts (Development and Change Vol 24 1993) Hamel, Jacques L. Subversive Rationalization for Revealing Modernity in Africa (blog post, Google,

2011, https://sites.google.com/site/revealingmodernityinafrica/subversiverationalization) Hartley, Aidan. Drought did not cause Somalia's famine: War did (London, The Spectator, 6 Aug 2011,

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/7141183/part_4/drought-didnt-cause-somalias-

famine.thtml) Hoon et al. Sustainable Livelihoods: Concepts, Principles and Approaches to Indicator Development: A Draft

Discussion Paper (Mimeo. New York, UNDP, 1997) Ray D. Development Economics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) Shaffer P. Poverty reduction Strategies: A Review (New York UNDESA, UN Publications, 1998a) Shaffer P. Gender, Poverty & Deprivation: Guinea (World Development Vol. 26 No. 12. 1998b) UNDP. The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, (Executive Board Note – New York, 1998) UNOCHA. Ethiopia: Humanitarian Snapshot (New York, UN OCHA,

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/hum_snapshot_may15-1.pdf) World Bank (WB) Governance: The World Bank Experience. (Washington D.C.: The World Bank.

1994) i Human Capital refers to individual characteristics or attributes which are central for the

achievement of human goals. A short list would include satisfactory levels of physical and cogni-tive development due to adequate health, nutrition and education. Economic Capital corre-sponds broadly to those factors of production (land, labor, capital) which generate primary in-comei as well as economic assets (livestock, jewellery, etc.). Cultural Capital includes those norms, beliefs and values, which assign roles, confer status and determine entitlements and obli-gations of different social groups (based on gender, caste, age, ethnicity, etc.). Social Capital re-fers to those social organizations, relationships and networks which facilitate co-ordination and management of extra-market and collective tasks and which provide critical support in times of crisis. Social capital relates closely to concepts of trust and reciprocity. Political Capital comprises the network of informal and formal political alliances, which provide access to resources and confer decision-making authority. Coercive Capital (sources of violence, intimidation, force, etc.), is a means of enforcing social norms and maintaining social relationships. Environmental Capital refers to the quality & quantity of the stock of available natural resources, common property re-sources and the knowledge/skills required for resource management & conservation (Shafer, 1998)

ii The 'sustainability' aspect adds a temporal dimension by examining whether a livelihood maintains or degrades the local resource base (environmental sustainability) and whether it is vulnerable to shocks and stresses (social sustainability). The approach directs attention to the interrelations between poverty reduction, environmental stress and external shocks (famine, war, etc.). The particular importance placed on the objectives of establishing security and promoting self-determination establishes the link with the social deprivation model (Shafer, 1998).

iii Perhaps most importantly, efforts must be stepped up to secure local land rights. This may help local people from being arbitrarily dispossessed of their land, and obtain better deals from incoming investors. The principle of free, prior, informed consent, and robust compensation regimes should provide a cornerstone of government policy. They must be integrated in national legislation