Throughout much of Africa, the 20th and 21st centuries have been a progression of resource wars leading to the gradual attrition of populations and the destabilization of governments, both good and bad.
This is nowhere more true than in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Sudan, where the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, reports that more than 40 percent of civil wars are the result of natural resources, or lack thereof.
In these countries, political regimes fell when they failed to respond to the famines they had helped create. Unfortunately, neither the resource wars nor the regime changes substantively improved conditions, but rather intensified regional suffering and food shortages.
These conflicts, in fact, are likely to persist unless agencies like the UN focus on environment, and natural resources, as part of the peacekeeping process. They are also likely to re-emerge within five years, according to data collected by Uppsala University and the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.
In spite of those facts, fewer than one-quarter of peacekeeping agreements have addressed the issue from a resource perspective. And, while no recent conflicts have been fought solely over water, the dearth of agricultural land and competition for other resources like wood (for fuel), coltan, diamonds, natural gas and oil, to name a few - resource wars unfortunately spurred by U.S. involvement.
These resource wars, likely to be severely exacerbated by climate change, are currently most evident in places like Darfur. But the situation in Darfur is not the inevitable situation facing all of Africa. Indeed, in Rwanda, where the 1994 genocide was the result of government's manipulation of arable land and water under Habyarimana's Hutu regime, conditions have improved to an astonishing degree.
For example, between 2001 and 2006, export revenues for world-famous Rwandan coffee varieties rose from zero to $8 million, an improvement largely attributable to the technical and financial assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), according to David Kampf writing in the 2008 issue of the agency's publication, Frontlines.
According to a recent study, this kind of agricultural advancement contributes twice as much to reducing poverty as does growth in any other industrial sector, reducing poverty by three percent for every one-percent increase in agricultural production. This effect is further supported by news out of Rwanda, via National Bank Governor Francois Kanimba, that agricultural growth rose to 15 percent in 2007, after 2006's dismal report of 0.7 percent.
That growth, largely attributed to Rwanda's implementing a "green" revolution, is based on government backing of aggressive programs aimed at limiting the effects of climate change through preserving wetlands and forests, and planting trees, as well as educating farmers on the best techniques to protect the environment.
In 2008, food production rose by a further one percent over 2007's record, according to the UN news service IRIN, a record attributable to good weather, better seed and better agricultural practices, according to Rwanda's Agricultural Development Authority, which has found enormous success by encouraging farmers to merge their small holdings for greater yields. This has paid off most notably in maize farming, where average yields per acre now top 7 tonnes. Maize, together with cassava, beans and bananas, represents Rwanda's agricultural base.
Much of the success in recent years can be attributed to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which funds the Rwanda chapter of the Alliance for a Green Revolution. In January, in response to successes like those in Rwanda, the IFC announced that it would double African agricultural investment in 2010, from $189 million (2009) to $468 million.
Thanks to the IFC and the Green Revolution, the average Rwandan now gets 2,176 calories a day. This, compared with the global recommendation of 2,100, and Rwanda's former subsistence diet of less than 1,000 calories per day, is the kind of shift that translates to greater physical activity, more production, better health, and improved disease resistance.
To quote former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, "The war against hunger is truly mankind's war of liberation."
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