In the midst of widespread hunger after crop failure, an activist group in the southern African country of Malawi is campaigning to have the government accept the principle that it has an obligation to see its people adequately fed.
If successful, it would become the first country in the world to acknowledge that access to adequate food is a right of citizenship.
“There hasn’t been that kind of legislation anywhere in the world,” Mildred Sharra, interim chair of Malawi’s Task Force on the Right to Food, said in an Oct. 6 interview from Montreal. “I believe it would be a tremendous example for others. I know that others are watching.”
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Sharra said the Malawian government is resisting the idea but it does have some support in the country.
“I think the government is in a vulnerable situation because the need is so great.”
She said a widespread crop failure because of drought in parts of the country and flooding in other areas means the harvest this year is just 37 percent of national food needs. It means 4.6 million people will be short of required food.
Sharra said as much as 500,000 tonnes of cereals will have to be found if a crisis is to be averted.
She brought that message to the Canadian International Development Agency in Gatineau, Que., last week. A CIDA official said later the agency has pledged $4.6 million to the World Food Program for aid to southern Africa, including Malawi, and more help is being planned.
Sharra said the call on the Malawian government to accept that its citizens have a right to food is a call on government to improve policies and programs to help increase food production inside the country and to make it possible to get food into the country and into hungry people’s hands when they need it.
Sharra said the chronic food crisis in the nation that borders Zambia and Mozambique has been caused by drought and other weather problems, crop destruction by pests, the overwhelming poverty of the people and bad government policies and actions.
Several years ago, the government sold grain that had been stockpiled from donors, contributing to the shortages and hunger this year, she said.
The campaign is calling for increased support for farmers and a reform of government.
Sharra was brought to Canada by the Montreal group Rights & Democracy.
