Selling an empty box

It comes as no surprise that the UN Human Development Report 2001 peddles transnational-backed genetic modification as the solution to world hunger, writes Faiza Rady
According to the United Nation's Human Development Report (HDR) for 2001, the world in general -- and the South in particular -- have achieved impressive levels of progress over the last 30 years.
Because development cannot only be measured by the yardstick of national incomes, the HDR defines development in terms of building human capabilities: the range of things that people can do or be in life. The most essential capabilities for human development are to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to sufficient resources, to have a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in community life. In this context, the HDR measures development according to an aggregate index -- the human development index (HDI), which assesses people's access to health services, education, real income and meaningful democratic participation.
According to HDI readings, a number of gains made by the developing world indicate that eradicating poverty may no longer be a distant dream, but a reality looming ahead. Thus, a child born today can expect to live eight years longer than one born 30 years ago. Adult literacy rates have increased from an estimated 47 per cent in 1970 to 73 per cent in 1999. The share of rural families with access to potable water has grown more than five- fold. In the South, standards of living have risen at an impressive level -- average incomes have almost doubled in real terms, from $1,300 in 1975 to $2,500 in 1998.
Although the Arab countries still score remarkably low on many HDI indicators, they have distinguished themselves by making the most rapid average progress of any region worldwide. Since the early 1970s life expectancy at birth has improved by 14 years, and adult literacy has risen by 15 per cent since 1985.
Deep down, however, we know that all is not really for the best in this best of all possible worlds. This rosy picture of progress masks "a more complex picture of diverse experiences across countries, regions, groups of people and dimensions of human development," notes the report. Despite its relative fine-tuning -- in health, education and adjusted income per capita in purchasing power parity -- the HDI only measures aggregate levels of development. It, therefore, lumps the good with the bad, the high with the low, averaging out unsightly bumps. In this sense, even the HDI's "good news", by definition, veils a more sordid reality.
Creeping poverty continues to coexist with extreme wealth, and income disparity continues to rise. Given the world's vast resources and the obscene accumulation of wealth in the hands of a select few under the market economy, unacceptable levels of deprivation still persist across the globe. Of the 4.6 billion people in the South, more than 850 million are illiterate, an estimated one billion have no access to potable water and 2.4 billion do not have access to basic sanitation.
Some 325 million children are out of school. As a result of dire poverty -- and despite the availability of potent life- saving medications -- 11 million children under the age of five die from curable diseases every year. An estimated 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day; 2.8 billion on less than $2 a day. In 2001, a third of the world's population -- two billion people -- are too poor to buy "low cost" essential medicines, like penicillin, which were developed decades ago.
South Asia and sub- Saharan Africa lag far behind other regions, experiencing massive income poverty and deprivation. People living on less than $1 a day in these regions account for a staggering 46 per cent in sub- Saharan Africa and 40 per cent in South Asia, compared with 15 per cent in East Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the adult literacy rate in South Asia and sub- Saharan Africa is still 55 per cent and 60 per cent respectively, trailing far below the developing country average of 73 per cent.
As noted in previous HDRs, rampant poverty not only afflicts the South. In the rich OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, more than 130 million people are defined as income poor, 34 million are unemployed and adult illiteracy hovers around 15 per cent. Vast enclaves of the North harbour their own ghettoes afflicted with the all- too-familiar and symptomatic ills of deprivation. In this age of globalisation, the frontiers demarcating the North from the South have become fluid.
This said, this year's HDR offers somewhat mind- baffling means to combat global poverty. Beyond documenting jarring income disparities and inequalities and denouncing national governments for lacking the political will to invest in the eradication of poverty, the HDR seeks highly controversial solutions to the problems of food security and hunger in the South. Promoting genetic engineering as the way of the future, the report concludes that "many developing countries might reap great benefits from genetically-modified food crops, and other organisms (GMOs)."
While admitting that health and environmental risks with regard to genetic engineering need to be addressed, the HDR stresses the "unique potential of genetic modification (GM) for creating virus resistant, drought-tolerant and nutrient-enhanced crops." Couched in such superlatives, the rhetoric sounds convincing -- but to whom? Have we not all heard in bygone days that GM was the culprit that could have caused the outbreak of so-called mad cow disease?
And what about Starlink, the US-grown corn containing genes from a bacterium going by the pretty name of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)? Insertion of Bt genes causes the corn plant to produce an insecticidal property, the Bt toxin. Doctored with a version of the Bt toxin that turned out to produce hazardous allergens, Starlink was ultimately restricted by the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to animal and industrial uses. But as fate would have it, EPA rules cannot contain the natural laws of pollen drift. Starlink pollens contaminated other corn varieties, destroying much of the US corn supply in its wake. So far, the estimated losses run in the billions of dollars -- a bill that will ultimately be footed by the American tax payers, as the US government has committed itself to buying up the contaminated crops and seeds.
Incidentally, the producer of Starlink, the US-based transnational, Aventis, is also a "corporate partner" of the UN. Since the UN "privatised" last year by seeking private funding, corporations partially finance the international organisation's operations. Applying the "beggars can't be choosers" logic, the UN has "gone into partnership" with a number of ill-reputed transnationals. Prominent among these is the oil giant Shell, notorious for its devastation of Ogoni lands in Nigeria and its collusion with the Nigerian government in gross human rights violations. Other UN partners include the world's largest mining company, Rio Tante, which is famous for its brutal union-busting strategy in Australia and for exposing workers to radiation in a uranium plant in Namibia.
Cash-strapped and heavily dependent on corporate funding, the UN now appears to toe the transnational line. GMOs may then be the solution poor African farmers can expect from the international community.
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