Highlights of the 1987 Africa Prize

Acceptance address by H.E. Abdou Diouf, President of the Republic of Senegal

1987 laureate of the Africa Prize

First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell you how much your presence here today in such large numbers touches me beyond anything I can express. It demonstrates to me renewed evidence of your commitment to win the battle in our common cause. Even more, it is evidence of your sincere, profound friendship for Africa.

Members of the international jury, I would like to tell you how deeply grateful I am for the distinguished honor that you have conferred upon me in choosing me as a winner of The Hunger Project’s Africa Prize for Leadership - and also, how moved I am by this honor.

I am well aware that what you wanted to honor is less our merits than our intentions, and less our successes than our efforts and determination.

I am also aware that your choice goes beyond my own self.

It goes to the Senegalese people.

It goes to Mother Africa.

No matter what determination, magnanimity and daring a head of state may have, without the full support and mobilization of his people, he would have a great deal of difficulty in successfully initiating and leading the battle against hunger.

Be that as it may, today’s ceremony may appear strange, at least to certain people.

Here you are giving a prize to two well-known Africans for what they have done to eliminate hunger, at a time when caustic, dangerous trends of opinion are implying that the poor are making no effort whatsoever to escape poverty, and tend to prefer resignation to thwarted hope.

However, even more than that, what appears strange to us is our contemporary world, where over-production and the destruction of food surpluses coexist with malnutrition, hunger and absolute poverty. In this context, abundance looks like a real provocation.

Given this double contrast between a certain defeatist ideology and an acknowledged willingness to take up the challenge of hunger, between a world of food overabundance and a world of famine, today’s ceremony has even more significance. Significance in the fact that by choosing a statesman and a skilled researcher as winners, you illustrate the necessary connection between research and action. Who does not remember what the green revolution’s success in India, the Philippines and Mexico owes to the joint implementation of informed political will, a high level of technical competence, popular support and the diffusion of appropriate technologies?

The double distinction you are bestowing tonight on an African statesman and an African scientist means that this continent has also undertaken responsibility for its own revolution.

I want to stress that the persistence of famine at this end of our second millennium, given the prodigious progress of science and technology which has made humanity the effective master of the earth, is morally intolerable and politically unacceptable. This is in fact the most unbearable defiance of the conscience of humanity.

The language of truth

It seems indecent to me, as a pretext for explaining the causes of hunger, to get lost in an "inglorious morass of alibis" in searching for people to blame in the North, South, East or West.

This ceremony is also significant because, according to the Declaration of Rome of November 16,1974, famine " undermines the most basic principles and values that are embodied in the right to life and human dignity as it is dedicated in the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man." Its elimination therefore becomes a collective responsibility for all humanity.

I would like to take the opportunity that you are offering me and once more speak the language of hope and truth, the same language that I spoke in the name of Africa on the occasion of the 40th Session of the General Assembly and during the 13th Special Session of this same Assembly, which was dedicated to examining the critical economic situation in Africa. This affirmation has been resolutely continued by my successors at the head of the OAU, my brothers and friends, Presidents Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Kenneth Kaunda.

Even today, according to many agreed-upon estimates, more than 50 million people die of hunger every year - of which 20 million are children - while more than half a billion people suffer from malnutrition. And that is not the whole picture. Millions of children who manage to survive remain handicapped for the rest of their lives, because they received neither the amount of protein needed for normal development, nor preventive health measures which would immunize them against illness at other ages.

Let me be perfectly clear about one thing. As dismal a picture as this may seem, it by no means suggests that nothing has been done. It simply sheds a bright light on the extent of the job that needs to be done and the range of challenges that need to be undertaken.

There is no way we can forget the efforts that have been made by a large number of countries in the developed world, by intergovernmental institutions and, especially, by the agencies in the United Nations system and the periodic successes in donations.

We also know that the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have always been very active on the battlefront against hunger. Thanks to their efforts, international public opinion today is better informed, more aware of this tragedy and more available for decisive mobilization.

By the same token, the countries victimized by famine have attacked this problem wholeheartedly. This is particularly true for Africa.

It was actually a sign of the times when, in 1985, the OAU, drawing on six years of experience in implementing the Lagos Plan of Action, dedicated almost all of its 21st Summit Conference to examining the economic situation in Africa.

This summit proved to any who were still in doubt that Africa’s politics are not of the stick-its-head-in-the-sand variety, nor does Africa deny its responsibility in the continent’s critical economic situation. It plans to attack with vigor and courage these plagues that go by the name of famine, drought, desertification and, more generally, deepening underdevelopment.

We must start from the future

In 1986, at the conclusion of the Special Session, the UN adopted a plan for Africa’s economic recovery following a request made by the African heads of state. I will not recount here this long, painful evolution except to remind you that, for the African heads of state, the concept of food self-sufficiency has been the illuminating force and the cornerstone in their design framework.

This brief reminder on how African countries have responded to the food crisis provides proof, if it were even necessary, that the development efforts of Africa rest firmly on its own shoulders - even if these efforts have to be supported by friendly nations and international organizations, as well as nongovernmental organizations.

This is the present reality, as overwhelming as it is in every respect, despite everything that has been done so courageously by everyone involved. This is what I have tried to summarize in my remarks so far.

But what about the future? For, according to one thinker of our time (Denis de Rougemont), we must start off from the future, for "the future no longer comes out of projections based on current trends, but on strategies and plans."

As far as the predictable future goes, by the year 2000 - that is, in less than 13 years - four out of five people on the planet will go hungry. This is a truly apocalyptic scenario. But far better than any speech, it communicates the severity of the times ahead. It alerts us to the precariousness of the future that lies in wait for us, the fragility of our very survival, if we do not succeed in reversing these trends or alleviating them substantially.

Since we are certain that famine can be fought and conquered, and that humanity has available the natural and financial resources to win this war, we must show in concrete ways the active solidarity and unequivocal political will necessary to replace the stopgap measures that have been in place thus far with structural solutions.

To achieve this, those involved will have to strengthen their will, increase their endurance and fire up their imaginations.

Now, as in the past, no foreign aid, however massive, generous or well-intentioned, can suffice if it does not go hand in hand with persevering efforts and creative imagination on the part of the people directly affected.

It is up to every farmer to assure his own food self-sufficiency and to simultaneously participate actively in the search for food security for the whole nation, and to do this within a context of a cohesive economic policy.

To accomplish this, it is the duty of every African government to eliminate any obstacles that might hinder food production and to supply farmers with sufficient incentives for production and agricultural productivity, especially in the area of food. Therefore, more than in the past, what should direct our actions and the actions of our partners cooperating with us, are the basic needs of our rural people: their supplies, their scheduling, their fair remuneration, their health, their appropriate training and also, marketing, transportation and the processing of their products. It is within this framework that we are taking action to fight drought and desertification, to master water supplies. These are actions which constitute a prerequisite for any improvement in the food situation.

As for intergovernmental institutions, even given the limits and shortfalls of their actions in the light of the definitive elimination of hunger, we do not believe that they deserve all the criticisms that have been leveled against them. In the future we should look for the most appropriate ways to make use of their role and to reinforce their resources and their effectiveness in the field. A resolution on this subject comes to mind from the European Parliament of Strasbourg, which appeared in the July 7, 1981 documents of that institution. It invites with urgency the governments of the EEC to submit the problem of world hunger to the Security Council, considering it to be a serious threat to peace and international security.

It might seem surprising that so many issues today can be submitted to the Security Council, whereas hunger, which results in 50 million victims every year, does not get the same treatment.

Another important factor for the future is how international public opinion is mobilized by the courageous, always persevering action of the nongovernmental organizations. That is an important element in awakening people’s minds and in obtaining mastery of the world’s food situation.

These organizations could have a positive impact on countries’ political decisions through their influence on citizens at the regional or local levels, as well as on the executive or legislative bodies at the senior level in every country. This applies in the developed world as much as in the developing world, and it extends to empowering the information sources and the education of our farm communities.

As the actions of NGOs in conjunction with the local populations and with their own governments become more powerful and better coordinated, they will gain in the scope of their impact and the scale of their results.

These two forces - the intergovernmental institutions and the NGOs, whose role I have just outlined - arise from the actions of the international community. Before concluding, I will say a few words about this.

It is impossible to analyze this issue of the food crisis in Africa without taking the international economic environment into account. How could the debt burden and the extent of its servicing not be mentioned, when alone, it currently absorbs almost all of our current revenues?

How could we not refer to the brutal price drop of raw materials and the injustice that characterizes the current organization of those markets?

Given the momentum and the spirit that drives The Hunger Project, this is the right place to launch an appeal to the international community to commit itself more fully than ever to a partnership in a worldwide front for "economic peace" in Africa. The time is ripe for a quantitative leap to be made in the struggle against hunger. To build this worldwide front, the NGOs are called upon to play the lead ing roles, side by side with African countries. Operating as they do in the most remote African villages to relieve people’s suffering and abject poverty, they are the messengers of peace and hope. They are the permanent inspiration to us all.

This global front for economic peace in Africa will have as its goal the pursuit and the intensification of the actions being taken at present to combat the existing critical situations and meet nutritional needs - but above all, to develop durable and definitive solutions. I invite the nations of the world, the international organ izations, and the NGOs to inquire into and discover the most appropriate actions to take.

To be workable, this front should rest on a certain number of fundamental principles:

1. A healthy economic base must be reestablished in order to permit the durable reversal of the tendency towards the deterioration of the food situation and the increase in dependency.

To achieve that goal, it is important to find a new approach to development, based on conservation. The erosion of the soil and the deterioration of our water supply is a harmful phenomenon. Agricultural lands are being overexploited, the water sources are overstrained and the forests are losing their trees. Many irrigated areas are experiencing water mismanagement. These factors, taken separately or together, intensify desertification, erosion and vulnerability to drought, thus lowering agricultural productivity.

2. A new ecological balance and a new management of rural space must be created so that people will be better integrated with their environment. This is necessary because, quite simply, Africa consumes a part of its natural capital every year for its own survival. To support its exploding population, it should be enriching its basic capital as other regions on the globe have done and continue to do.

All in all, the ecological dimension should be taken into account from now on by all policies and project management.

3. We have to move on to create a real research policy adapted for African conditions. The major theme of a research policy should therefore be to discover new, more effective systems than the current ones. They must be better adapted to the socioeconomic conditions of the continent. That is why the very exciting example of Professor Thomas Odhiambo’s work elicits our respect, admiration and hope.

Mr. Chairman, Madam Executive Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, that is what I wanted to say to you.

Once again, I repeat my people’s and my own determination, as well as the determination of the people of the whole of Africa and their leaders, to persevere and to increase our efforts in taking on the challenge of the grave food crisis which is affecting our continent.

Let me reiterate that the actions of an organization such as The Hunger Project represent a real source of inspiration and encouragement for hardworking African leaders and their people.

I could not conclude without expressing, once again, my deep gratitude to The Hunger Project whose initiatives and daily action have contributed to drawing the World's—affention to the famine. At a time when humanity is pushing back the frontiers of the unknown more and more each day, when rockets meet in space, this famine continues to represent, year after year, the terse epitaph on some 50 million tombstones. This glaring paradox engages our collective responsibility. Its solution therefore calls for collective thinking to create joint, resolute action.

Let us therefore pay heed and act with determination.

Then we will surely win our battle, and, surely, we will make it unnecessary for Leo Tolstoy’s "barefoot man" to have to choose between a pair of boots and the works of Shakespeare.

Thank you for your attention.