Fighting Hunger: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Catherine Bertini | Episode 4

Introduction

AHMAD FAWZI__ Welcome to Kofi Time.

KOFI ANNAN__ The survival of 1 billion people, the weakest and most vulnerable on the planet, depends upon us finding answers to end hunger, now.

AHMAD FAWZI__ 20 years ago, Kofi Annan was awarded together with the United Nations, the Nobel Peace Prize and is regarded as one of the modern world’s icons of diplomacy. What is legacy today? How can we prepare for tomorrow? Based on his vision for a better world. 

Hello, I’m Ahmad Fawzi, and I had the pleasure and privilege of working with Kofi Annan, accompanying him on many missions around the world. As one of his spokespersons and communication advisor.

Today we will discuss global food security. Or should I say food insecurity? Kofi Annan once said that the world’s inability to end hunger was, and I quote “an unconscionable moral failing.” Food is our most basic human need, and yet access to food is not universal. The main driver of this worsening hunger crisis remains conflicts around the world. Climate change is also a major factor.

 That’s why I’m so pleased to welcome Catherine Bertini to Kofi Time today. Catherine Bertini was the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002, and she also served as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Food and Consumer Services at the United States Department of Agriculture and on the board of IFAT, the International Food and Agricultural Development Organization.

Currently, Catherine Bertini is a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The chair of the board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the chair of the Executive Board of the Crop Trust. Catherine. Hello and welcome.

CATHERINE BERTINI__ Oh, thank you so much, Ahmad. I’m so happy to be here and to be part of Kofi Time. I have such great respect for him, for his leadership, what he achieved, how he inspired all of us. And I’m thrilled that you’re moderating this podcast series about him.

Kofi Annan and Food Security  

AHMAD FAWZI__ Thank you so much. My first question is three-pronged. How and when did you meet Kofi Annan? What were your first impressions of the Man? And was he always preoccupied with reducing hunger and promoting food security?

CATHERINE BERTINI__

Kofi Annan and I met when I became executive director of the World Food Program, and he was, of course, with the United Nations. So he was running peacekeeping. I was running the World Food Program. We were colleagues in that sense, and we would meet at various U.N. entities. He was then the same as he was for those of us who knew him well as Secretary-General.

He was kind. He was very smart. He was extremely knowledgeable. He was patient, yet he knew exactly what ought to be done and what was within his parameters of being able to be achieved. So some things don’t change. I think. And interestingly for the UN, since he was the first Secretary-General to have worked his way up from the beginning of an entry-level job with the United Nations, he understood almost every aspect of the UN, and he certainly knew well the needs of hungry people and poor people around the world. Having worked in one of his earlier roles at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

AHMAD FAWZI__ Let’s listen to what he said ten years ago when he wanted to instil a sense of urgency in the matter.

KOFI ANNAN__ The survival of 1 billion people, the weakest and most vulnerable on the planet, depends upon us. Find an answer to end hunger. Now.

Fighting Hunger Today

AHMAD FAWZI__ Unfortunately, the situation has gotten worse in the past few years, especially in the past few months. The most recent reports show that around 193 million people faced hunger in 2021, an 80% increase since 2016, and the situation is already forecast to deteriorate this year. The impact of the war in Ukraine, which is a major global producer of wheat and cereals, the consequences of Covid 19 on supply chains and an upcoming economic slowdown could make it even more difficult for people to access food.

What can the international community do today? What would Kofi Annan have done today? Beyond trying to meet the needs of food emergencies to address the root causes of global hunger?

CATHERINE BERTINI__ I think Kofi Annan would have learned historical lessons and tried to put them in place now. first of all, on the pandemic, which, as you correctly point out, is one of the weaknesses. The weaknesses created by the pandemic are one of the weaknesses now for us in terms of dealing with food insecurity worldwide. So I think he would have had a very robust response to the pandemic and an understanding of the need to rebuild infrastructures that were either destroyed during the pandemic or don’t even have the ability to be built now because so many people have been living lives at even more risk than normally.

So he would have had a leadership role there with the pandemic. And now, the food crisis, a lot of issues cannot wait, as countries, for instance, decide that they don’t want to trade anymore, they want to close down their exports and keep the food for themselves. We all know that that’s exactly the wrong thing to do because that is going to impede the system even further.

I think he would have taken very strong actions to try to stop countries from doing such things. Mostly through his power of persuasion. And then I think he would have worked with the bank and others to quickly put together some facilities, as was done in the 2008 to 2011 food price crisis. I think he would have put in place very quickly support systems for loans and grants to help people, to improve their infrastructures and in fact, to be able to get food through systems earlier.

And when I say learning from history, okay, we learned or should have learned from the crisis around, the Middle East, especially when the bread became out of reach for most people. Either it was not available or the price was so high, and we saw a lot of violence due to lack of food. Some say that one of the contributors to the so-called Arab Spring was food unavailability and prices.

So all of that tells us, it would have told him, that we need to jump on these issues very quickly and move very quickly and not take very long to study them because new problems will arise. Like, for instance, trade restrictions. It is very quick.

Green Revolution in Africa

AHMAD FAWZI__ There are lessons to be learned. However, let me ask you this. Kofi Annan also advocated for improved and changed food systems, which would be centred especially in Africa, on small farmholders. He noted that many of the African farmers were women who worked on farms of two hectares or less, and they produced the majority of the continent’s food.

Let’s hear him talk about this. One of his favorite subjects. 

KOFI ANNAN__ If we all do, what we intend to do, focusing on the small-scale farmers, using the energy and the creativity of this large army of small-scale farmers, we can really help increase food production.

AHMAD FAWZI__ Catherine, can you tell us a bit more about how he tried to focus attention on small producers and whether we are making any progress in bringing a green revolution to Africa?

CATHERINE BERTINI__ Well, let’s think about what Kofi Annan did immediately after he stepped down from his two terms as secretary-general, and before I answer my own question, I want to tell you a story. He told me one time in his office when I was stepping down as under the secretary general for management. And he said, unsolicited advice, by the way, he said: “No, don’t take on too many assignments. A lot of people will want you to come and do things for them. And if you accept too many right away, then when some even more interesting assignments come up, you will not have time to do them”. 

So very good advice from him. And he took his own advice when he was leaving the UN Because if you recall, there were very few big projects that he took on, but the biggest one he took on was to be chair of a new organization that he helped create called Agra, Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa.

So first, when he started after his secretary general role, he knew he wanted to spend time in Africa with smallholder farmers to try to tip the balance, to try to help Africans improve their livelihoods through improving their agriculture. And he knew that every country in the world started as an agriculture producer. Almost every country, Singapore perhaps not, but, it built on their capacity to become much stronger economically.

And he wanted to help African countries do the same thing. Through Agra, many organizations and many smallholder farmers were either funded, or trained, or organized so that they could improve their own livelihoods.

Agriculture and Climate Change

AHMAD FAWZI__ Moving on to climate change, Kofi Annan warned many years ago that rising temperatures and more frequent severe weather would have a disastrous impact on the availability and productivity of agricultural land. Have his warnings been heeded? Have solutions now been developed to make our agriculture more resilient to climate change?

CATHERINE BERTINI__ Some solutions are being developed, but I think he probably felt like he was shouting into a forest for a long time. A depleted forest, because so many people were not paying attention or not agreeing with what he was saying. But you are absolutely correct that he was a leader. Maybe before it was popular. On the issue of the environment and the potential destruction of climate change, part of what he saw to improve in African agriculture was more resilient crops that could help, that could live through having less water.

For instance, with so many droughts in Africa. And, there are different opportunities now. For instance, wheat has been trained to grow without as much water as it had in the past. wheat, which is grown and is resilient to some of the diseases that it otherwise would take on. And also new kinds of products that could be grown in Africa that are not as reliant on the climate.

So he was able to be very much on the front line of that as the chairman of Agra.

AHMAD FAWZI__ super crops. I was about to ask you about that. And I’m no expert, but the experts tell me that orange fleshed sweet potato is very resilient to climate change. And and Kofi Annan was very interested in certain crops, like the orange fleshed sweet potato. And it offers quick nutritional returns, especially for children and young mothers. His foundation, the Kofi Annan Foundation, was just recently involved in a project to promote the production and consumption of these sweet potatoes in Ghana.

Do you believe that Kofi Annan’s interest in these super crops can help ensure that sustainable, nutrient rich foods are available, accessible and affordable for all?

CATHERINE BERTINI__ Absolutely. And developing new crops and even showing people how better to consume old crops is an important part of agriculture in Africa. Give you an example, Cassava is a crop that’s grown, throughout much of Africa. And, some people only know one way to cook cassava. But cassava can be can be ground in and baked, for instance.

And then the the nutrient properties of cassava can be consumed in other ways. It’s important not only to grow new crops, but also to know how to use, prepare, consume new and old crops. Interestingly, I think part of Kofi Annan’s legacy is that some of the folks that worked with him have just combined with several other people to create an African, catalyzing action for nutrition.

And they are going into villages with college students on breaks and others to work with people, to train them on how to prepare food, to make the food as nutritious as possible, and actually, what kind of options exist in the current marketplace. I think this is something that, Kofi Annan would very much have supported and approved. In fact, it’s people who used to work with him who have taken on this new initiative.

Food Security, Peace, Stability and Democracy

AHMAD FAWZI__

They are carrying the torch. Still carrying the torch? Catherine, I would like to ask you about the links between food security, peace, stability and democracy. Kofi Annan used to say that, and I quote, “A hungry man is not a free man”. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recently warned that the prices of farm produce have hit a 32 year high.

Do you see a risk of growing instability because of rising food prices in societies already rendered fragile by economic shocks, such as those in Haiti, Pakistan and Sri Lanka? In other words, we know that conflicts are drivers of food insecurity. However, Catherine is the reverse true? Is food insecurity the driver of conflict?

CATHERINE BERTINI__ Yes, it works both ways. Let’s start with poverty, though. First, people who are desperately poor are food insecure. They don’t have enough to eat. They can’t have enough to eat. And when a mother is, food insecure, which she doesn’t have enough to eat when she’s pregnant, her baby is going to be born unhealthy, will never be able to grow to her, his full potential.

And so the generations will just continue as long as those people are desperately poor. If we add on top of that war, and how sometimes people use war to cut off people from food, and that makes everything worse. We saw that happen in Syria. We just saw that happen in Mariupol. And, is a sad reflection of a human race that we actually allow this to happen or even its perpetrators do it.

But in fact, it works both ways. People are hungry because they’re living amidst war, and they’re also sometimes creating violence because they don’t have enough to eat.

AHMAD FAWZI__ It’s all interrelated, isn’t it?

CATHERINE BERTINI__ It is. It’s all interrelated. So we look at what we’re faced with right now. We’re faced with a base of people who are desperately poor, who have been desperately poor. On top of that, we’re seeing climate changes that are making production worse. On top of that, lately there’s been inflation started with fuel inflation, which of course is going to make food more expensive and fertilizer more expensive.

On top of that, we have the insecurities built into the system because of all of this two years of Covid 19. And now we have a war. A war in the world’s breadbasket that’s impacting people throughout the world. It’s even impacting people, for instance in Latin America, where food imports are now becoming much more scarce, where prices are very high and where people, in some cases, especially in Central America and in the Caribbean, are very poor already.

And what will they do? They will look for new places to move and one of the new places they’ll look to move is north to the United States of America, creating yet another different kind of crisis.

AHMAD FAWZI__ Right. 100 million people displaced. Is it all doom and gloom? Catherine, Kofi Annan was an optimistic man. And, I’d like to feel that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

CATHERINE BERTINI__ There’s always light at the end of the tunnel. I think that’s one of the reasons why so many people stay in the business of not only feeding people, but also of developing agriculture. And that’s because there is a horizon. There is light on the other side of the horizon. Take those numbers of the poorest people, for instance. Even though that number is still an uncountable number generally speaking, it has not increased dramatically except when we have a crisis like this one. And then it’ll go up. Population is increased dramatically over the years, right? We’re seeing a huge increase in population. And yet not an increase, except when we have like crisis in the numbers of very hungry people. So that means economic development is working. It means that agriculture production is working. It means a distribution is working. But what’s when it’s not working, it’s not reaching the poorest of the poor. It’s not reaching people who are living in conflict. Then people trying to grow food have a lot of additional challenges because of the climate. So can we do something about that?

Yes. The whole world is focused on that now, especially as a result of the war. So the G7 has this as a high priority for its discussions. The G20 has a high priority for its discussions. FSI  is very involved the, Rockefeller Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others looking for ways to be able to help countries in the South, be able to build their social safeness and improve their agriculture.

And of course, everyone is trying to find a way to help move out Ukrainian wheat and corn and vegetable oil and to be able to help, Ukraine rebuild once the war ends.

Driving Change

AHMAD FAWZI__ Thank you. And everyone has a role, really. Not just the humanitarian organizations, but the corporate world, the world of celebrities who can use their faith to drive change. And Kofi Annan knew how to mobilize that.

CATHERINE BERTINI__ Well, he did about. And one other example of that was in 2000. There was a terrible drought in Africa, and he knew the UN needed to do something about it. He asked me to be his special envoy for drought in the Horn of Africa, and we immediately went into action with representatives of many different UN organizations and, a lot of the pressure points that needed to be fixed, whether it was port improvement or, health care support or distribution or security, all sorts of issues. Then the region that we, the UN, brought to bear its clout in order to fix and, we believe that many millions of lives were saved because of quick action under his leadership in the in the Horn of Africa. That certainly could be done again sometimes country by country and region by region. But it’s the kind of leadership that he offered.

I accompanied him on one of his trips to that region during that time, and people were looking for it, looking to every word that he said about how we were going to work together to move out of this crisis. And in fact, we’re so proud of the fact that we were able to move out, in large part because of the direction that he provided.

One other little story that touched my heart at the time was, I took and then to a an NGO in Addis Ababa called the Gemini Trust. It was created by a doctor who practiced in the region, and it was for parents and children who were multiple birth children. It was one of the most joyful places to go because even though many of these children arrived emaciated because their mothers had a hard time taking care of one baby, let alone being blessed with twins or triplets. But by the time they were treated at Gemini Trust, they were running all around all these little doubles or triples people, having a great time playing. It was a joyful place, and I did not know until we were there. He told me that he was a twin and had a twin sister. And therefore this place was especially meaningful for him.

AHMAD FAWZI__ What a lovely story. I feel I should end on that. Catherine, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and these stories with us and helping us understand better why Kofi Annan focused so much of his efforts on ensuring access to food, and what his legacy means for those of us who try to do the same today.

You’ve been listening to Kofi Time. Wherever you are, please share the values that Kofi Annan represented that you think are relevant today, using #KofiTime. 

Kofi Time is brought to you by the Kofi Annan Foundation and the United Nations Information Service in Geneva. Produced by John Luca Alaria. Join me again for the next episode of Kofi Time.