FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
And now we're going to move on to our broader Africa update. We'll look at upcoming elections on the Comoros Islands why South Africa says Chinese residents can now call themselves black. For more we've got Cassandra Waldon. She's chief of external communications at the United Nations Development Program. Hey Cassandra.
Ms. CASSANDRA WALDON (Chief of External Communications, United Nations Development Program): Hi Farai, great to be with you.
CHIDEYA: Always great to have you on. And let's actually start with another issue, which is the global food crisis. Africa's second most populous country, Ethiopia, is asking for emergency food aid. The government says more than four and a half million people are in desperate need of help because of a drought which struck most of the country earlier this year. So Cassandra, what makes this food crisis different from past ones?
Ms. WALDON: Well I think this one is being exacerbated by the crisis of higher food prices that we've seen across the globe. We see in Ethiopia that you have children, as many as 75,000 kids, who are already acutely malnourished, now finding themselves deteriorating even further because of the drought and the lack of food that is available to them. We see that seasonal rains in Ethiopia have failed completely or are very poor in many parts of Ethiopia, and this is really hurting crop production, it means that farmers can't take care of their livestock. It is just a very devastating situation.
CHIDEYA: So, when you look at Ethiopia, it is not the only nation which is dealing with the food crisis issue. Put it in context for us what Ethiopia is dealing with compared to some of the other African nations.
Ms. WALDON: Absolutely. Well, if your listening audience can think about the things that we face on a daily basis, maybe we choose not to go out to a restaurant because prices are going too high, we change what we buy at the grocery store. But here we are talking about people's survival. The fact that people are having to make hard decisions about what they can feed their families and make choices about how they can use their meager resources. Some of them don't even have the power to do that. They are already so weak or so malnourished or so ill that their systems are really deteriorating quite severely. So we see across the continent a number over the past couple of months, riots due to the food crisis. People really finding themselves slipping deeper into poverty instead of being able to pull themselves out. And as you know this is one of things that I feel, and my organization feels, very strongly about. We cannot allow these countries to slip further into poverty.
CHIDEYA: So give me a couple of more nations that are really dealing with this issue and then also what's the response from the international community?
Ms. WALDON: Absolutely. Well, one of the countries that I know you follow very closely, Zimbabwe, which is on the radar screen of a lot of the media these days because of the electoral situation there. We know that about a third of Zimbabwe's population is currently being assisted in terms of food aid, because they just don't have anything to eat and they need ongoing assistance. Countries like Mozambique, several West African countries have seen major issues with food price increases. And people just in the streets, upset about it, unable to make their way in terms of being able to feed their families and being able to live a decent life.
So we know that agriculture in Africa is something that the international community, African governments need to invest in quite a bit more. We know that despite the fact that Africa does have a number of challenges that it's facing in the agricultural sector, if we invest in agriculture and begin to encourage and help farmers produce more, we can really build up food security in the continent.
CHIDEYA: I want to move to another part of the continent, one that I personally know very little about, the Comoros Islands. Tell us where it is, and then, you know, a little bit about some upcoming elections there.
Ms. WALDON: Absolutely. Well, the Comoros story is one that I love. It's one of the most interesting stories I think coming out of the continent this month, because it's an off the beaten path country made up of three islands. And here we're talking about the island of Anjouan, which is where these elections will take place on the 29th of June. This is an Indian Ocean country which has over the past 25 years or so, since 1975, excuse me, been the subject of about 20 coup attempts or successful coups. That's extraordinary. So there's been a lot of instability. The first round of the elections for the president of Anjouan, were held on the 15th of June quite successfully and in a transparent fashion. The two lead candidates are now going for a runoff election on the 29th of June. And if this island can pull this election off, we believe that the country stands in good stead to begin to move towards stability.
This particular island had in the 1990s been heavily involved in a separatist movement. There's been a lot of unrest there over the last few months. So the hope is that this election will go off smoothly, that there will be a clear winner, that people will go to the polls and that then the country can look towards its future. What's really interesting about the way Comoros is set up is that each island, each of the three islands, has its own president, and then there is a president of the union. And that brings within itself some real challenges. And this is a setup that was established in 2001 to try to bring the three islands together, together as a united country.
So I'm very excited about it, and hoping that it will go off peacefully and constructively with the support of the international community. And then that this country might begin to look at the issues of poverty and some of the challenges that if faces in terms of the way that its people are forced to live, because they have not been able to attract investment, haven't been able to attract the attention of the international community because of the lack of stability over so many, many years.
CHIDEYA: So the United Nations is sending people to observe the election. When you and observers go to the site of an election, what do they actually do?
Ms. WALDON: What they're looking at is how people are enabled to get to the polls, whether their documentation is handled appropriately, ensuring that people are allowed access to the polls in an unfettered fashion.
CHIDEYA: There's always something fascinating going on in the world. And this one is definitely fascinating. So the high court in South African ruled that Chinese South Africans will now be reclassified as black people so they can get employment and other economic benefits from the government. Now there's about 200,000 ethnic Chinese living in South Africa. Give me a little more detail, because obviously South Africa has had so many issues with racial classification. What's really going on here?
Ms. WALDON: I think the way you can characterize it is really to say that during the apartheid era, there were many groups that were discriminated against as we all watched from afar. And the Chinese who were in South Africa prior to 1994 fell into that category. And the recent court decision simply is allowing them to take advantage of affirmative action opportunities such as the broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act, which is really meant to give opportunities to open employment and other windows to those who were disadvantaged during the apartheid era. In this case, we're talking about the Chinese, and certainly it's a very volatile issue. But we know that it's important to find ways to include minorities in society, and we know that South Africa's facing some other challenges as we've all seen from the news over the past several weeks. Earlier this year, there was xenophobic attacks with some 60 people killed and tens of thousands of foreigners left homeless.
So these are issues that people feel very closely to their hearts, and we know that there needs to be an effort to really bring everybody in and be inclusive. And, you know, in South Africa, the United Nations working very closely with the government and with a number of other partners to try to assist those foreigners who have been left homeless by the violence to try to ensure that society can be welcoming to all which are within its borders, and to look out for ways to protect those who might be at risk.
CHIDEYA: Well, Cassandra, great to talk to you.
Ms. WALDON: Thank you, Farai. Always good to be with you.
CHIDEYA: Cassandra Waldon is chief of external communications at the United Nations Development Program, and she was at our New York studios.
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