Felix y Katrina hermanos de destruccion

This morning Rick and I went to Casa Ben Linder to hear a presentation by the director of Accion Medica Cristiana or Christian Medical Action. He discussed the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, focusing mainly on the effects of Hurricane Felix, which some of you may know struck Central America on September 4th of this year.

After painting a general socio-economic picture of the region before the Hurricane, he addressed the relief work by international aid efforts, the Nicaraguan government, and various NGO's. Primarily, he demonstrated that the portion of the country hit by the hurricane was under-funded and over-burdened with health issues (malnourished population, lack of access to health care, etc) previous to the hurricane, and that the current conditions only exacerbate that situation. After the hurricane struck, the government was unable to provide the necessary aid, and developed no effective venue to coordinate private and public efforts. As a result, food and water shipments arrived in some localities two and three times, and in others not at all. Many smaller and more recent developments got no aid because no one even knew they existed. For ten days after the hurricane thousands of people were stranded without shelter, potable water and food.

Besides the sheer tragedy of the information, one particularly interesting point he addressed was food security. The portion of the country hit by Hurricane Felix is largely agricultural. Much of the land and infrastructure has been destroyed, which has rendered it useless for the second harvest of the year. Besides leaving the people of the region without current sources of food, he explained that missing the second harvest will threaten the availability of food for the entire country in approximately 9 months. This will mean a greater dependency on foreign food sources for the entire country, and a corresponding hike in prices.

Although the two situations are certainly different, I found many similarities and even some connections between the current Nicaraguan problem and the US's own struggle with Hurricane Katrina. The government's infrastructure of relief failed the people of New Orleans, many of whom were already in extremely vulnerable socio-economic positions. Immediately after the hurricane, the price of fuel for the entire country rose dramatically because of threatened oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. Also similar, the relief efforts following the storm were total chaos--regardless of the US's relatively prevalent transportation resources and a strong, wealthy government.

One conclusion that these similar scenarios has led me to draw--and I would love to hear observations from anyone reading this--is that although it plays an important role, the wealth of a nation does not necessarily allow that nation to effectively address crises. In fact, it seems that greater overall wealth, coupled with great disparities between wealthy and poor individuals, as in the United States, serves mostly to isolate privileged persons from such crises without necessarily preventing or addressing them.

Nine months from now in Nicaragua most of the country will be feeling the effects of Hurricane Felix, even though it struck a relatively unpopulated, poor region of the country. On the other hand, while many people in the US felt sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the privileged class was not subject to any substantive aftermath. Wealthy individuals could absorb the rise in fuel cost, thus making it more of a tax on those families and persons already struggling to get by--the same group of people that suffered most from the direct impact of the hurricane. Although Hurricane Katrina did not necessarily threaten the economic vitality of the US, such monetary resilience does not translate into a nation that is better suited to handle crises and natural disaster, merely one that is better able to shove the effects of such events onto the backs of struggling populations.

Furthermore, American economic policy abroad limits the capacity for poorer countries, like Nicaragua, to respond to their own crises. By backing IMF plans and pushing trade agreements like CAFTA, the US hog-ties social spending in poor countries in order to institute free trade and short term (ineffective) "debt management" plans. These plans outlaw export subsidies and import tariffs, devalue currency, freeze domestic health and education funding, and destroy agricultural infrastructure in developing nations. How is Nicaragua supposed to administer even basic medical aid in a crisis if their national budget is dictated by a trade agreement that insists on extremely limited social spending?

These policies render developing nations utterly dependent on foreign trade and private investment. Already, Nicaraguan farmers cannot compete with the tariff-free prices of foreign products. Agriculture in developed nations is larger, faster, and more productive than Nicaraguan methods. No farmer harvesting with a machete can compete with mass agribusiness. Thus, farmers are having to minimize their capacity, and in some cases stop farming entirely. Will the agricultural infrastructure of Nicaragua be able to recover from Hurricane Felix? Not with cheap international food sources infiltrating the food market, especially over the next nine months. Trade agreements and debt stipulations outlaw domestic farming subsidies. How will agriculture recover without income from a harvest? How will they buy seed? And what happens in the future when the international price of fuel skyrockets as we pass peak oil production? The price of shipping food across the globe will appear in the grocery stores, and there will be nearly no domestic agricultural infrastructure left to pick up the slack.

Thoughts? Comments?