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Millions of people continue to suffer from a lack of access to
water, the inability to grow food on barren land and the daily struggle to
prevent the death of their children from curable diseases. Almost 10,000
die every day in sub-Saharan Africa although this fact rarely hits our TV
screens.
Last month, I attended the 7th ACP(African, Caribbean, Pacific)-EU
Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The JPA
offers a platform to analyse and formulate policies that can help solve
the problems of economic development, mutual trade and good governance in
developing countries.
While millions of unsubsidised peasant cotton farmers in Benin,
Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali depend on the export revenue of their cotton,
massive government subsidies allow US and Chinese cotton farmers to dump
their produce on world markets. Similarly, subsidised sugar from Brazil
depresses world prices and deprives peasant farmers in Sudan, Malawi and
Tanzania. For their rural populations, declining commodity prices
precipitate a sharp fall in income leading to civic unrest and political
conflict, yet the ACP governments continue to export commodities without
realising the higher value added which could be derived from processing
these products.
During the meeting, Commissioner Nielson highlighted that
substantial funds in the European Development Fund (EDF) remain
undistributed due to the continued internal conflict, lack of good
governance and inadequate provision for human rights in some ACP
beneficiary countries. Future EDF funding would depend on efficient and
timely use of existing funds.
At present, the poor spend all their working lives in search of
water and energy. There is no time for work and creating wealth. Poverty
can be substantially reduced if we help developing countries with the
infrastructure to provide the basic needs of life - access to water and
renewable energy based on solar, wind and water resources. Such access
will free them to exploit their natural resources. With our help, they can
process their commodities to produce higher value goods that can be sold
both on domestic and world markets.
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