By Dr Zweli Mkhize, MP and South Africa&#8217;s Minister of Health.



We
are all shattered by the sad news of the tragic and sudden loss of our beloved
Dr Thandi Ndlovu.&nbsp;



Dr
Ndlovu was an inspiring entrepreneur, a community developer, a freedom fighter,
a friend, a good doctor and a lovely human being.&nbsp;She inspired both
business women and men and was always elected to be their leader because of her
vision and her courage.&nbsp;



She
was trusted by many of us who still expected her to contribute a lot to the
future of our country. She worked hard and achieved many incredible milestones
in her career; making us all proud of her as a professional and a
businesswoman.



Personally,
I had the privilege to work closely with her as a comrade and business person
during my tenure as the Treasurer General of the African National Congress; as
she occupied leadership positions in various business organizations.



It
was fun to watch her in action &#8211; she was spectacular!&nbsp;



&nbsp;She
fought hard for Black business to be given space and be supported; taking up
their issues of unfair treatment and unpaid invoices as their spokesperson;
confronting inefficient and arrogant beaurocrats; with success.



In
the construction sector, Dr Ndlovu was known as the undisputed champion for
inclusivity, high quality performance and a fearless opponent for collusion and
injustice perpetrated against black contractors.&nbsp;



She
challenged chief executives and chairpersons of boards of the
large&nbsp;construction companies and on behalf of Black Business Council got
them to concede to a corrective process to address the past injustices; known
as Voluntary Rectification Program (VRP). This was a major achievements for the
BBC and government to enforce empowerment in the construction sector.



Men
and women in the industry respected her as a leader. 



For
her, being a woman was a source of confidence, strength, authority and decisive
leadership – it all came naturally. She was a strategist whose business acumen
made her a wise leader who was equally formidable and diplomatic in the board
room. These qualities made her ideas prevail.



Sisi
Thandi was a powerful force for transformation and economic emancipation!



&nbsp; South Africa&nbsp; has lost a leader and we
as a nation are all the poorer on such great a loss.



She
was a talented golfer,&nbsp; a generous person who loved people. She was always
cheerful with her loud infectious laughter.



She
was&nbsp; a good, humble and a caring soul and always a doctor at heart.&nbsp;



We
shall forever miss her sisterly love and warmth.&nbsp;



We
convey our deepest condolences to her beloved family, and to her friends.&nbsp;
May&nbsp; they be consoled to know that we
share in their grief.



May
her soul Rest In eternal Peace!

Op-Ed: A tribute to Dr Thandi Ndlovu

LAGOS (Reuters) &#8211; Nigeria’s central bank has told lenders to stop processing milk imports on a credit basis, bankers said on Tuesday, after the bank last month said would ban access to foreign currency for the imports to spur local production.



Nigeria spends between $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion annually to import milk, the central bank says, which said in July it would add milk imports to its restricted list for dollar sales. The bank did not say when the ban comes into force.



In a circular to lenders, the central bank said milk imports will no longer be eligible under payment terms known as “bills for collection” which allowed the importer to buy on credit. Importers would need to fund their naira accounts and open letters of credit, bankers said.



Bankers said the central bank wanted to streamline payment modes for milk imports.



Industry groups had been lobbying the government against the bank’s planned dollar curb, arguing that domestic milk production was not enough to meet local demand.



Nigeria relies on imports for most of what its 180 million population consumes. In 2015, the central bank restricted access to forex for 41 items which it said can be produced in Nigeria.



The central bank has said the idea to add milk to the forex restriction list arose from the success of the currency restriction policy and the large amount spent on imports.



Last month the bank said it would extend low-interest loans to local milk producers to discourage imports.



Keen to reduce imports of products that can be produced locally and to conserve dollar reserves, the bank has also offered cheap credit to rice, tomato and starch importers for the same purpose.



Nigeria has been trying to shore up dollar liquidity on its currency markets and prop up the naira which has weakened in recent weeks after a fall in oil prices and foreign investors fled in the wake of lower yields on local debt.



President Muhammadu Buhari has made diversifying the economy away from oil a central policy, but a recent recession has slowed his plans, slashed government revenue and triggered a series of currency devaluations.



Buhari told the central bank this month to stop providing funding for food imports, his spokesman said.



Reporting by Chijioke Ohuocha; editing by David Evans

Nigeria’s central bank stops credit payments for milk imports, what you need to know…

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/ramit-sethi/">Ramit Sethi</a>



People have lots of reasons for not managing their money properly. A few of those reasons are valid, but most are just poorly veiled excuses for being lazy and not wanting to spend 10 minutes on research.



I’ve heard some blame the education system for not teaching them about money. It’s easy for people in their 20s to wish that their colleges had offered some personal finance training. But guess what? Most colleges&nbsp;do. You just didn’t take them!



The harsh truth is that you’re not victims. You’re in control of your own finances — and the sooner you internalize that, the sooner you can start to go on the offense.



The first step is to acknowledge some of the biggest money lies young people tell themselves:



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1. “I need to focus on making passive income.”</h2>



To many millennials, passive income sounds like a dream. They hear about some guy who took a three-week vacation — while still continuing to earn money — and then say, “I can’t do that!” What they don’t see, however, is the amount of time and work it took to get there.



Most people, especially the young ones who are just entering the workforce, don’t need to focus on passive income. Instead, they should be putting more effort into improving their&nbsp;active&nbsp;incomes&nbsp;— by focusing on their careers. They can do this by sharpening their work skills, solving more problems for their bosses and basically out-hustling their co-workers.



A lot of people hate hearing this because it means that instead of fantasizing about earning a passive income of $500 a day, they actually have do some real work at their jobs.



I’ve also seen people who&nbsp;are&nbsp;hard workers, but are too afraid to ask for a salary increase because their “company doesn’t have the funds” or because “economy is bad.”



Why? Because it’s easier: If we accept a force that we believe is out of our control (like a “bad economy”) in dictating whether or not we get a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/dont-make-these-5-mistakes-when-negotiating-salary-says-self-made-millionaire-ramit-sethi.html" class="">get a raise</a>, we feel less pressure to put in the effort.



Solution: Put in the hours and get better at your job so you can earn more money. If getting a raise isn’t an option, find another job and&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/CdbFwr1qcD4" class="">negotiate a higher salary</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2. “If I just try harder, I can save more money.”</h2>



We all know we need to save money, the same way we know we need to exercise more, eat healthier and call our families regularly. But there are serious barriers to doing all these things.



Simply “trying harder” won’t help you succeed (there are even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/When-Trying-Harder-Doesnt/136063" class="">studies</a>that will tell you the same thing).&nbsp;Trying&nbsp;to save money by buying the cheaper item isn’t enough.&nbsp;Trying&nbsp;to cut back on buying lattes won’t help, either.



In order to see results, you need to actually sit down and have a conversation with yourself about what needs to be done, step-by-step.



Take a look at your finances and ask yourself: What are you trying to do that takes a lot of effort, but for little gain? What’s not working no matter how hard you try? How can you make things easier for yourself?



Solution: <a class="" href="https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/automate-your-personal-finances/">Automate your finances</a> so you’re not dependent on your willpower.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3. “I’m going to start keeping a budget.”</h2>



Most of us, at some point in our lives, will get motivated and decide: “Yes! I’m going to start keeping a budget!”



Creating a budget to cut down on your expenses is the sort of worthless advice that personal finance experts feel good prescribing to millennials. But the few people who actually attempt to budget completely fail after a few days because they eventually realize that it’s really difficult (and overwhelming) to track every penny they spend.



Also, more often than not, it doesn’t work because a budget tracks what you’ve already spent, and so when you look back at the end of the month, you feel horrible and guilty after realizing that you overspent. Budgets offer no forward-looking information.



Instead of keeping a budget, I recommend creating what I call a “Conscious Spending Plan,” a strategy that forces you to look to the future while also allowing you to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/money-dials/" class="">spend extravagantly</a>&nbsp;on the things you love — as long as you cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t love.



Solution: Create a Conscious Spending Plan by splitting up your income into four categories:



<ol class="wp-block-list"><li>Fixed costs: Rent, groceries, student loans, utilities, etc. (50% to 60% of your income)</li><li>Long-term investments: 401(k), Roth IRA, etc. (10% of your income)</li><li>Savings goals: Holiday gifts, vacations, down payment on a home, etc. (5% to 10% of your income)</li><li>Guilt-free spending: Dining out, movies, shopping, etc. (20% to 35% of your income)</li></ol>



By allocating your money this way, you can make sure you have enough to pay off all your responsibilities first. Then, any money left over can go towards your savings goals and everyday spending.



The guilt-free spending category allows you to buy what you want while knowing that your most important expenses are taken care of. (More on how to create a Conscious Spending Plan&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/budget-help/" class="">here</a>.)



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">4. “My friends earns less than me, yet they’re still able to go on four vacations every year!”</h2>



You friends are either highly skilled practitioners of Conscious Spending — or have absolutely no clue how to manage their money.



Think back to when you were a kid: How many times did you hear one of your parents ask the other: “Why can’t we go on vacations the way our neighbor does?” — without actually understanding how their neighbor’s spending breaks down. Chances are they’re not conscious spenders, but rather over-spenders.



Put another way, would you ask your friend who failed his English 101 class for grammar lessons? Hopefully not. So why would you look at your ordinary friends — who make ordinary money decisions and end up with ordinary results (a.k.a. not having enough money) — as role models?



Solution: Refocus your financial aspirations and strive to become like people who make conscious money decisions. Don’t follow the examples of those who show off by spending more than they have. If you suspect they can’t afford it, they probably can’t.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5. “I’m going to start investing.”</h2>



Ask any of your friends how much they’ve&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/billionaire-warren-buffett-proves-successful-investors-always-ask-themselves-this-1-question-before-buying-or-selling.html" class="">invested in stocks</a>, and most of them will probably say they “don’t earn enough money” or “don’t have enough expertise” to do it.



According to a recent&nbsp;<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/233699/young-americans-wary-investing-stocks.aspx" class="">Gallup</a>&nbsp;poll, only 37% of young Americans ages 35 and under said they owned stocks between 2017 and 2018, compared to the 61% of people over the age of 35 did own stocks.



Opening an investment account gives you access to the biggest money-making vehicle in the history of the world — and you don’t have to be rich to do it. Many account providers will waive minimums (the amount required to open an account) if you set up an automatic monthly transfer.



So many people say they’re “going to start investing,” and then end up not doing it. Why? Because they don’t think they’re capable of understanding the basics and don’t want to risk losing their hard-earned money.



But for every day that you don’t invest, you’re&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/15/self-made-millionaire-this-is-the-no-1-way-to-get-rich-ramit-sethi.html" class="">losing money</a>&nbsp;due to inflation — and you’ll never realize this until you’re in your 70s, at which point it’ll be too late.



Solution: Any new topic is overwhelming (i.e., diets, workout regimens, parenting). The answer isn’t to avoid it — it’s to pick a source of information to learn from and then actually start investing.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">6. “Wanting to ‘get rich’ is bad.”</h2>



Obsessing over money and being consumed by greed is bad, but wanting a better future for you and your loved ones is anything but.



Having more money opens up an incredible amount of options for you and everyone around you. I’ve said this many times, and I’ll say it again: “Getting rich” isn’t just about money — it’s about living a rich life, and living a rich life might mean different things to different people.



For some, it means having the financial freedom to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/money-dials/" class="">spend extravagantly on their hobbies</a>. For others, it means having the luxury of paying for a house cleaner every week.



For me, part of what living a rich life means is the ability to step away from my business for six whole months to go on my honeymoon.



Solution: Think about what living a rich life means to you and let that inspire you to take action in growing your money.



<a class="" href="http://iwillteachyoutoberich.com/">Ramit Sethi</a>, author of the New York Times best-seller ”<a class="" href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-Rich-Second/dp/1523505745">I Will Teach You To Be Rich, ”</a> has become a financial guru to millions of readers in their 20s, 30s and 40s. He became a self-made millionaire at a young age, thanks to his <a class="" href="http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/">website</a> (which he started as a Stanford undergraduate in 2004), book and personal finance courses. 



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/self-made-millionaire-6-biggest-lies-we-tell-ourselves-about-money.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/self-made-millionaire-6-biggest-lies-we-tell-ourselves-about-money.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Self-made millionaire: 6 biggest money lies young people need to stop telling themselves

Dissecting the impact of Rwandair’s new flights to China, Israel, DRC

MasterCard’s Mark Elliott on the future of mobile money in Africa

LUSAKA (Reuters) &#8211; Zambia has introduced a cap on the price of maize to keep the staple food affordable, sparking protest from commercial farmers who accused the government of bringing back price controls.



Agriculture Minister Michael Katambo said on Sunday that millers, stockfeed manufacturers, chain stores and grain traders agreed in a meeting with the government to peg the price of maize at a maximum of 2,600 kwacha ($198.93) per tonne.



The price of maize meal, Zambia’s staple food, has in some cases doubled to 150 kwacha per 25 kg bag from 75 kwacha early this year.



Zambia’s 2019 maize production is expected to fall 16% to about 2 million tonnes from 2.39 million tonnes last year largely due to prolonged dry weather, Katambo said in May.



Katambo said on Sunday that the private sector panicked and rushed into the market thinking that there was not enough maize and this pushed up prices.



“Maize prices were rising every week because of this panic and the implication was that the mealie meal price was getting higher,” Katambo said, referring to maize meal.



Katambo said Zambia still had sufficient maize stocks and indications were that less than 1 million tonnes of maize had been bought from the 2 million tonnes the country produced.



“This price is not coming from the government but the private sector players who attended the meeting,” Katambo said.



In a statement on Sunday, the Zambia National Farmers’ Union (ZNFU), which represents commercial farmers condemned the cap, saying prices should be left to market forces.



ZNFU said its members were not invited to the gathering where the price was agreed and had called for an urgent meeting this week to discuss the decision.



($1 = 13.0700 Zambian kwachas)



Reporting by Chris Mfula; editing by Jason Neely

Here’s why Zambia has introduced a cap on the price of maize

KHARTOUM (Reuters) &#8211; Sudan needs $8 billion in foreign aid over the next two years to cover its import bill and help rebuild its ravaged economy after months of political turmoil, its new prime minister said on Saturday.



Abdalla Hamdok, sworn in three days earlier to head a transitional government after the ousting of veteran leader Omar al-Bashir, said up to another $2 billion of foreign reserves deposits were needed in the next three months to halt a fall in the currency.



The 61-year-old economist, who has worked for the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, said he had started talks with the IMF and the World Bank to discuss restructuring Sudan’s crippling debt, and had approached friendly nations and funding bodies about the aid.



Mounting public anger over shortages of food, fuel and hard currency triggered mass demonstrations that eventually forced Bashir from power in April.



“We are in communication to achieve this,” Hamdok said in his first interview with a foreign media outlet. “The foreign reserves in the central bank are weak and very low.”



“However,” he said, “there won’t be a forced prescription from the IMF or the World Bank on Sudan.”



On the politically tricky topic of government subsidies for bread, fuel, electricity and medicine, Hamdok said any changes would only be made after “deep discussions” with the people.



“The people are the ones who will make the decision on this issue,” he said.



He also said he had been talking with the United States to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism &#8211; a designation which has left Khartoum isolated from most of the international financial system since 1993.



There was no immediate comment from the U.S. government, the IMF or the World Bank.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">DEVALUED CURRENCY</h3>



Sudan has been in economic turmoil since it lost the bulk of its oil production in 2011 when South Sudan seceded after decades of civil war.



It has devalued the pound several times but not been able to halt the fall. One dollar currently fetches 65 pounds on the black market versus the official rate of 45.



“We will work to unify the exchange rate, and to manage the exchange rate using a flexible managed exchange rate,” Hamdok said, without going into details.



He said Sudan needed to restore trust in the banking system.



Hamdok, who studied agricultural economics, has also worked at the African Development Bank and most recently as a special advisor at the Trade and Development Bank in Ethiopia. He said Sudan needed to tap its agricultural potential.



Sudan is rich in agricultural resources but high taxes, corruption and mismanagement have held back investment in the sector for decades.



“We want to take the Sudanese economy from an economy based on consumption and imports to a productive economy, and stop exporting products such as livestock and agriculture as raw materials,” Hamdok said. “Instead, we will aim to process them so as to create added value.”



He also said he wants to focus on peace-building in a nation that has seen conflicts flare in multiple parts of the country, and endured a civil war that ended in the succession of the South.



“Stopping war, which represents 70% of the expenditure in the budget, will create a surplus that can be invested in production and particularly agriculture, livestock, and related industries,” he said.



Shortly after Bashir was ousted, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion in aid to Sudan, in the form of a $500 million deposit in the central bank, which Sudan has already received, as well as fuel, wheat, and medicine.



The generals who forced Bashir from power took over and then, after months of wrangling and further violent protests, agreed to set up a transitional body including civilians to pave the way to elections in three years time.



Many hope Hamdok can shepherd Sudan through the transitional period, but some opposition members and analysts worry that the power-sharing deal may fall short of expectations in a country where the military, backed by Islamists, has dominated for decades.



Writing by Nafisa Eltahir and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Daniel Wallis

Why Sudan needs up to $10 billion in aid to rebuild economy

#TheHashtag: Trevor Noah is the 4th highest paid comedian in the world, how did he make his fortune?

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/sam-jones-195757">Sam Jones</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/united-nations-university-694">United Nations University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/inge-tvedten-805051">Inge Tvedten</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/chr-michelsen-institute-3056">Chr. Michelsen Institute</a>

What does it mean to be poor? On the face of it, this may not sound like a very difficult question. In developed countries, almost all official and everyday definitions refer to poverty in income terms. In this sense, low consumption power (income) and poverty are essentially synonymous.

Outside of developed countries, a similar view of poverty frequently gets headlines. In its global comparisons, the World Bank has adopted the (in)famous poverty line of <a href="https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/746163-what-is-the-1-90-poverty-line-and-based-on-this">US$1.90 a day</a>. So, people with daily real incomes below this amount form part of the global poor – thankfully, now a diminishing group. 

One might dispute exactly how and where such a poverty line should be set. But the idea that being poor means not having an adequate income often seems uncontroversial.

Of course, among academics things are rarely so settled. Between economists, there is <a href="https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-5432">disagreement</a> about whether poverty should be measured only in monetary terms. In other areas of social science, there is a tradition of scepticism that suggests standard quantitative definitions of poverty can be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380600884068">misleading</a>. 

Representing poverty as a kind of well-defined objective condition, like an infectious disease, focuses attention on the symptoms and immediate consequences of poverty. It risks diverting attention away from the underlying structural causes and diverse experiences of the poor.

<h2>Challenging official narratives</h2>

In a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X19300117">recent paper</a> we explore contrasting views of well-being in Mozambique. Our interest reflects the country’s controversial track record. From the early 1990s until recently, Mozambique achieved one of the strongest sustained periods of aggregate economic growth of any country. Yet <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2012.707791">some</a> argue this growth has largely not trickled down, leaving many behind. 

Official poverty estimates undertaken by the government are of the classic quantitative or economic kind. Here a set of basic needs is identified and costed. Households consuming goods worth less than the cost of a minimal basket are deemed to be “poor”. Applying this definition, data from national surveys shows consumption poverty has declined over the past two decades at a steady, but not especially rapid, pace. 

Today, almost half of all Mozambicans continue to live in absolute poverty. There are also large spatial gaps in well-being. For example, there is much lower poverty in the south of the country, around the capital city, reflecting widening levels of consumption inequality.

To provide perspective on this official narrative, a range of <a href="https://www.cmi.no/publications/6161-reality-checks-mozambique-final-report-2011-2015">bottom-up studies of poverty</a>, including our own, have been conducted by anthropologists in different parts of the country. These diverge in both form and content from the economic approach. 

Indeed, the very starting point of this research has been distinctive. The intention was not to apply a pre-given or conceptually static definition of poverty, from which a count of the poor could proceed. Instead it was to probe local perspectives on well-being, the diverse forms of disadvantage, and the kinds of social relations in which disadvantage arises.

A main finding that emerges from the anthropological work is that we cannot see the poor without seeing the better-off. Local grammars of poverty – namely, the terms used to describe who are better- or worse-off – consistently distinguish between socially marginalised individuals and those with strong local social connections. 

Perceptions of deprivation do highlight material deficiencies, such as a lack of food or clothes. But social relationships are vital to cope with vulnerability (shocks) and to facilitate social mobility. Being poor is intimately connected to one’s perceived “position” in a wider society and, through this, one’s scope for upward movement.

<h2>Self-reinforcing disadvantage</h2>

The anthropological view highlights the complex and often fairly localised ways in which the powerful, sometimes politically-connected, hoard opportunities for development. This reinforces existing divides and limits the social and economic mobility of the most disadvantaged. 

For instance, the National District Development Fund in Niassa, Mozambique’s northern province, was seen as a main source of money for investment in (rural) economic activities. Formally, in allocating the funds, priority was to be given to agriculture rather than businesses, women rather than men, and associations rather than individuals. 

But we found that the funds had been systematically co-opted by local influentes. These included traditional authorities, male entrepreneurs and the governing party elite through an intricate system of social relations of exclusion and bribes.

Other vignettes from the lives of the poor point to the diverse mechanisms through which disadvantage is reproduced. This is often linked to specific cultural practices that empower certain groups above others. They also point to the self-reinforcing nature of social and economic disadvantage. 

For example, we met a single mother who had lost large parts of her harvest to drought two years in a row. She had struggled hard to put all her three children to school, but with no crops to sell and no well-placed family to support her, she could no longer pay the bribes necessary for her children to move up classes. We also encountered instances where people cut themselves off from vital relationships to avoid exposing themselves to the embarrassment of having failed and so as to preserve their dignity.

<h2>Making sense of disciplinary divides</h2>

How can we make sense of different disciplinary perspectives on poverty? On the one hand, it is tempting to seek some reconciliation. Surely, metrics of social capital or even subjective well-being can be added to existing measures of consumption power to provide a more complete characterisation of the poor? Or perhaps qualitative follow-ups among the consumption poor could be used to add local context? 

Certainly, combined qualitative-quantitative approaches to poverty research have become popular and often yield richer insights than any one method on its own. Yet, as we elaborate in our paper, this somewhat misses the point. 

There are fundamental philosophical differences between standard quantitative (economic) and qualitative (anthropological) traditions, which do not admit any easy fusion. These include differences in understandings about the form of social reality, what can be known about poverty, and how poverty is produced and reproduced.

For this reason, it is vital to allow separate and diverse perspectives on poverty to flourish. Each methodological approach has distinct strengths, limitations and policy uses. 

The economic approach is essential to track economic progress over time on a consistent basis and identify households at greatest risk of consumption poverty (for example, to target social policy). But to uncover – and even resist – the inherently relational and often political ways in which poverty emerges and is reproduced requires a deeper, local, ethnographic touch. 

Bringing these different perspectives into a meaningful dialogue with each other remains the next challenge.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121639/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/sam-jones-195757">Sam Jones</a>, Research Fellow, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/united-nations-university-694">United Nations University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/inge-tvedten-805051">Inge Tvedten</a>, Anthropologist and senior researcher, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/chr-michelsen-institute-3056">Chr. Michelsen Institute</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mozambique-case-study-shows-that-poverty-is-about-much-more-than-income-121639">original article</a>.

This Mozambique case study shows that poverty is about much more than income, here’s why

By Ifeoluwa Adenike Alade, PhD candidate,&nbsp;University of Ibadan, Nigeria



Food
and nutrition insecurity
is a chronic problem for Africa. Despite decades of humanitarian and
development efforts, <a href="https://globalnutritionreport.org/nutrition-profiles/africa/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one
in five</a>
Africans remain undernourished and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jun/05/nearly-half-of-all-child-deaths-in-africa-stem-from-hunger-study-shows" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a
third</a> of
Africa’s children are stunted. 



One little-known
crop that is essential to food security on the continent is amaranth. This
leafy green vegetable is one of the most consumed in Africa and <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/11763/chapter/3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">accounts for</a> up to 25 per cent of daily protein
intake in some countries, making it essential to their health and wellbeing.



What’s more,
it is a plant that is quick to grow, thanks to
its highly <a href="https://www.appropedia.org/Original:Amaranth_Modern_Prospects_for_an_Ancient_Crop_5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">efficient
photosynthesis process</a>,
and which &nbsp;thrives on degraded land even in hot
and dry weather, making it an increasingly important crop to mitigate the
impact of climate change on food production. 



But one threat
that holds back amaranth from making an even greater contribution to Africa’s
food security is the amaranthus leaf webber, a species of moth that is commonly
found in the tropics. The webber larvae are voracious pests, and a single leaf webber
infestation can destroy an entire field of amaranth.



To prevent
an infestation and protect their amaranth harvest, farmers rely on pesticides.
However, long-term pesticide use comes with challenges, including the
development of resistance among leaf webbers. 



So, what if
farmers had another tool to stop this pest? 



This
question motivated me to search for new crop protection techniques that could
be affordable, effective, and sustainable, and it turns out that nature may
have already come up with a solution. 



Many plants
have evolved ways to deter pests through releasing biochemicals that repel
harmful insects. By identifying the biochemical that targets leaf webber and
reproducing this as a crop protection product, we can effectively safeguard
crop harvests using the plant’s own biochemistry.



For amaranth
farmers, plant-produced repellents could be valuable new tool in the toolbox,
supported by other strategies such as pest monitoring and surveillance, using
complementary crops to repel pests and using existing pesticides when
necessary.



Taken
together, such <a href="https://croplife.org/crop-protection/stewardship/integrated-pest-management/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">integrated
pest management</a>
(IPM) can dramatically improve yields while also reducing labour and costs, by
ensuring that farmers use the most effective and sustainable combination of
crop protection techniques. 



To progress
this research, I am studying leaf samples of a group of amaranth species to
compare the levels of biochemicals with the abundance of leaf webbers. If leaf
webbers are less abundant on plants with certain biochemicals present, then I
will have detected a possible repellent.



The next
stage involves examining the genetic make-up of the amaranths that produce
these repellents to discover the blueprint for the most pest-resistant variety.




Crop
scientists can then develop a species that is no longer vulnerable to this
pest. This would be a huge boon for Africa’s food security, especially in the
rural areas that rely on amaranth, protecting both nutritious food supplies and
agricultural livelihoods.



Such a
solution is an example of how crop protection can be proactive rather than
reactive when it comes to defending vital crops against pests. 



And as one
of the next generation of crop scientists, my work is just a small part of an
increasingly innovative sector. 



Preventing
crop pests from striking is essential for Africa’s food security. And with new
research, techniques and technologies, we are better equipped than ever before
to do so sustainably.

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