Activists to UK’s development agency: you’re helping multinationals carve up Africa

A dozen corporate executives clad in suits descend on the headquarters of the UK’s development agency, DfID. They bear name tags from the world’s largest food and agriculture companies: Monsanto, Unilever, Diageo. They carry a cake in the shape of Africa and ask agency staff to help carve it up.

“With the help of the UK government, we are on course to expand our control of food production in Africa,” boasts one executive, as others raise champagne glasses. “And what better way to say thanks for giving us a slice of Africa than for the Department for International Development to have their piece of the cake as well.”

The celebration, captured in a video on YouTube earlier this month, was, of course, a spoof. The UK-based World Development Movement, an anti-poverty advocacy group, staged the stunt to draw attention to its new campaign against the G8 nations’ global food security initiative.

Launched in 2012, the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition promises to fight hunger and lift 50 million Africans out of poverty by 2022. But the initiative will actually benefit multinational companies at the expense of small-scale farmers, campaigners argue in a report published this month.

The New Alliance is a public-private partnership on a grand scale. It has drawn commitments of more than $3.8 billion from over 70 companies for initiatives in 10 African countries. DfID alone has committed £600 million (more than $1 billion) in aid to the effort. 

"It’s scandalous that UK aid money is being used to carve up Africa in the interests of big business. This is the exact opposite of what is needed, which is support to small-scale farmers and fairer distribution of land and resources to give African countries more control over their food systems,” said Nick Dearden, director of the World Development Movement.

The group says that the New Alliance will increase poverty and inequality by requiring countries to make it easier for corporations to secure land, which could displace farmers. They also argue that the initiative will hurt local populations by increasing the cost of seed and prioritizing crops for export instead of feeding local communities.

The 10 countries that the initiative targets — Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Nigeria, Benin, Malawi and Senegal — don’t have the highest levels of hunger or poverty, the World Development Movement notes. Rather, they have qualities that appeal to companies seeking to access new resources and markets: high levels of economic growth and access to export markets.

Still, other activists do not see the New Alliance as inherently hurting local family farmers. The ONE Campaign, another anti-poverty advocacy group that studied the G8 initiative last year, concluded that the New Alliance’s investments “are predominantly intended to include smallholder farmers in sourcing and production. The onus is on the initiative itself and other key stakeholders to transform intentions into results.”

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