Hundreds of public sector workers across Guinea-Bissau, including nurses, doctors and civil servants, are striking over salary arrears, leaving basic services running at minimum capacity.

The National Union of Guinea-Bissauan Workers (UNTG) declared the three-day strike 7 October.

“The strike has been followed by 95 percent of public sector workers across the country,” said Laureano Pereira da Costa, UNTG spokesperson.

Taxi and truck drivers joined the three-day strike, he said, demanding that transport police cease routinely stopping vehicles to extract bribes on major roads.

Civil servants across the government have not been paid in three months, according to Zubaida Rasul, senior political affairs officer at the UN Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS). The government paid one month of back-pay at the end of September but three months’ salary is owed, while security forces were not paid at all in September, she said.

In addition to salary, workers are demanding transport stipends to keep up with the increased cost of living. Medical staff are demanding a government-promised stipend for their efforts to tackle a cholera epidemic that has swept across the country, and which the government claims it is unable to control.

Staff at the centre of epidemiology, which is tasked with tracing the roots of the epidemic, no longer expect to be paid regularly, Augostino Betunda, joint director of services told IRIN.

Civil servants in several ministries, including fisheries, agriculture and health, regularly face salary arrears in Guinea Bissau, said Rui Alfonso Sami, director of rural growth at the Ministry of Agriculture.

In response to the strike Prime Minister Carlos Correia stated in a press release, "Workers have the obligation to ensure minimum services required under the law," adding strikers’ salaries will be docked for the duration of the strike.

Prime Minister Correia’s government was sworn in in August 2008, stressing an intention to organise national elections in November, restore public order and pay regular wages.

No capacity

Ministries across the Guinea-Bissau government spend the bulk of their revenue on meeting salary payments, and have little to none left over to build capacity, develop policies or run programmes, the Agriculture Ministry’s Sami told IRIN.

With hefty debt repayments to the World Bank and African Development Bank, “the government is working hard to dig itself out of an external debt hole, which leaves it insufficient funds to regularly meet salaries”, said Rasul of UNOGBIS.

Representatives from international donors and financial institutions are meeting with the government to discuss solutions to the current salary crisis.

IRIN 

International experts say the UN’s consideration of creating a sanctions panel so close to next month’s scheduled legislative elections could destabilise the country, which has been wracked by repeated coup attempts and increased drug trafficking in recent years.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s report stated Guinea Bissau “has graduated from a drugs transit hub to become a major market-place in the drugs trade,” and suffers from “deepening political malaise and the specters of military tension and pressure.”

The UN report wrote organised crime could roll back governance and peace-building progress, and “wreak havoc throughout the country and along its borders.” It also wrote the UN Security Council should discuss setting up a panel to discuss the possibility of “targeted sanctions that would help reverse the current disturbing growth in the drug trafficking crisis in the country".
Bad timing

But an international expert familiar with the situation in Guinea-Bissau, who asked not to be named, told IRIN: “This is not the moment for a sanctions panel. The main objective of the international community in Guinea-Bissau is to promote political stability and ensure elections are held in November. Setting up a panel right now could derail that process.”

Elections are scheduled to take place 16 November, said Zubaida Rasul, senior political affairs officer and Officer-in-Charge at the UN Peacebuilding Office in Guinea Bissau.

According to her, election plans are on track: the Supreme Court has approved a list of 21 political parties expected to take part in the legislative elections; ballots are expected by 27 October, after which 2,700 voter stations will be set up nationwide. The European Union has confirmed it will send election observers.

Progress

According to Antonio Mazzitelli, West Africa’s representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the government is making progress against drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau.

“At the highest level, the political leadership has proved to be on the right track by retaining key ministers who are running the anti-narcotics and security fight,” Mazzitelli said. He continued, “The past three prime ministers have put a crackdown on drugs, [making] rule of law and security their priorities…the few advances that have been made in this country have been in these areas.”

He cited the fact that international monitors were allowed to search a plane alleged to have been transporting drugs that was seized at the airport in July, “Nothing as such would have been possible 15 months ago,” he said.

Numerous reports including a July International Crisis Group briefing have implicated members of the Guinea-Bissau military in the drug trafficking trade.

Instability is still rife in the country. Since the beginning of the year, in addition to the ongoing drugs trade, there has been an alleged coup attempt in August, and an increase in petty crime in Bissau, according to Zubaida Rasul.

Public sector workers are currently on strike in the capital, demanding back-pay.

But Rasul said some of these incidents can be interpreted positively. “The terrorists were arrested; the plane was investigated. This shows a willingness and determination on the part of the government to pursue a course of correction.”

According to Mazzitelli, increased international scrutiny on the drugs trade in Guinea-Bissau is having an impact. “The high attention the international community and the press is giving to the drug issue in Guinea Bissau is forcing some international traffickers to gradually relocate their trade to other countries in the region.”

And it is still individuals, he said, rather than whole institutions that are involved in the drugs trade.

“I do not believe there are many criminals in Guinea-Bissau – rather, there are many people who have taken advantage of the situation there.”

Different approach

Rather than brandishing sticks, Mazzitelli thinks the international community should continue to support Guinea Bissau’s government  efforts to reform its security sector and tackle drugs crime.

He cited as an example of such support, assistance by the South African government to the Ministry of Justice’s police force, which has been on the front lines in Guinea Bissau’s drug war.

Mazzitelli pointed to the work that the UN Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea Bissau (UNOGBIS) is doing to support elections as well as its forthcoming “quick impact projects” such as rehabilitating detention centres and military barracks, to promote stability in the country.

Rasul said major donors, the UN and international financial institutions need to increase these efforts. “I think the first action should be to support government structures to deal with the menace in a positive manner and this can be followed up by punitive measures. The lack of government capacity to protect the country and its borders from the proliferation of crime is the problem and it is the UN and donors job to help it overcome them.”

But Mazzitelli stressed it will take time for the government to overcome these problems. “We must not fall into the trap of expecting an immediate change – we are winning individual battles but the war will be long,” he concluded.

IRIN 

With 6,461 cholera cases and 122 deaths, experts say the cholera epidemic in Guinea-Bissau is out of control.

The number of reported cases has doubled in the past three weeks. All of the country’s 11 health regions have been affected, including the remote Bijagos islands, 60 km off the Bissau coast, which have reported 158 cases.

“At the moment, though measures are in place to deal with the epidemic, the situation is not under control,” said Daniel Remartinez, emergency coordinator of the Spanish branch of non-governmental organisation (NGO) Médecins sans Frontières (MSF-S).

Hardest hit is Bissau with more than 4,500 cases, followed by Biombo region with 836 reported cases, Quinara with 216 and Oio with 215.

“Bissau [the capital] is a fantastic crossroads from which to spread the epidemic throughout the country – all traffic goes through it,” said Sylvana Nzirorera, deputy-representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Bissau.

According to Franck Bouvet, UNICEF’s regional water, hygiene and sanitation specialist, international agencies over-estimated the government’s ability to coordinate the battle against the epidemic, costing valuable time.

Emergency response teams from the UN and government, MSF-Spain, French NGO Médecins du Monde and the Guinea Bissau Red Cross, are trying to make up for lost time.

Zero capacity

Cholera is endemic in Guinea-Bissau, which has hardly any water pipes in most of the country, and an ailing pipeline in Bissau, which only reaches a quarter of the city’s residents, according to UNICEF.

With no government budget to build up such networks, most people construct their own poorly-maintained wells, according to UNICEF’s Nzirorera.

Few organised community groups have stepped in to manage water wells, pumps and other sources, said Nzirorera. “In Bissau when there is an emergency, it is hard to know who in the community to talk to,” she pointed out.

International response

MSF-Spain is helping the government control the infection and treat cases in 17 health centres and hospitals in Bissau as well as Biombo and Oio regions bordering the capital.

According to MSF-S's Remartinez, cholera victims had not been safely quarantined from other patients in health centres, so MSF-S set up tents to treat them separately.

UNICEF is disinfecting city wells and other water sources with bleach or chlorine in the capital with local organisation Aqua Guinea-Bissau (AGB) and volunteer sanitation brigades.

They have only been able to find less than half of the 3,000 wells thought to exist according to Nzirorera, because they are so well-hidden.

Duarte Falcon, data-manager of the government's national epidemiology unit told IRIN the government is working with the Guinea Bissau Red Cross and UNICEF to go from door-to-door to give hygiene tips to avoid cholera.

For Nzirorera, children are “the best vectors of [public hygiene] messages for families”, and religious leadershave the “charisma and power to persuade their followers.”

Next Steps

UNICEF’s water expert Bouvet says the government has little information about how the infection is spread, or its source. To date, experts say the government has not carried out a nation-wide comprehensive study, which would require multi-region data gathering and analysis.

The US-based Centre for Disease Control is expected to lend the technical know-how and is currently carrying out this study.

“There are behavioural, climactic, and socio-economic determinants to the cause and spread of cholera and it can be hard to identify exactly why it appears when and how. However, we know that key factors increase the risk of an outbreak:  inappropriate hygiene behaviour, lack of drinking water, and inadequate sanitation,” Bouvet said.

For UNICEF’s Nzirorera, the battle-lines now need to shift beyond the capital so the disease does not escalate in more remote regions.

Most experts agree the government lacks a national plan to fight cholera long-term.

Meanwhile, emergency organisations are trying to address short-term needs.

“We’ll stay until the epidemic is under control. We have no idea how long that will be – it depends if the epidemic has reached its peak, or if that is still to come,” said Remartinez.

IRIN 

When Aisha (not her real name) went into labour in Gabu, 160km east of the capital Bissau, she did not know she was pregnant with twins. The first delivery went smoothly, but she needed a Caesarean section for the second. But the doctor had bad news: the hospital’s generator was broken, so she needed to drive four hours to Bissau for her operation.

With no ambulance available, she would need to pay up to US$30 for a taxi, plus up to US$109 for the operation, in a country where more than 60 percent of the population lives on about two dollars a day, according to the World Bank.

According to Dr. Carrington, an obstetrician who works at Simao Mendes hospital in Bissau, Aisha’s story is not unusual in a country with a handful of ambulances, next to no medical equipment and only one fully-functioning maternity ward.

Pregnancy spells a death sentence for 1,100 out of every 100,000 women in Guinea-Bissau, according to the UN Development Programme, making it one of the world’s deadliest places to be pregnant.

“In two minutes a women here can die for a simple reason that elsewhere could so easily be solved,” Catarina Furtado, Portuguese actress and the goodwill ambassador for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) told IRIN.

Only one hospital

In Guinea Bissau, if a woman has a birthing complication, only the capital’s Simao Mendes hospital has a doctor, equipment, medicine and a working generator, able to treat her.
Dr. Carrington, who works at Simao Mendes, says there is a a lot of room to improve. When asked to list the biggest problems facing his ward, he laughed. “Where do I start? Look around you, we don’t have enough facilities, I work in a tiny office in a terrible building and I have to see up to 50 women a day...And I am not well-paid.”

But, he added, he would never leave the country to practice overseas.

Barriers to care

Ministry of Health adviser Antonieta Martin, says the problem is not only the lack of doctors and clinics, but also a shortage of trained midwives and adequate medical equipment.

The country’s one fully functioning hospital has few surgical tools. Most health facilities, as is the case for most of the country, have no electricity. The few that have generators often cannot afford the fuel to run them. Fuel costs, at US$1.43 a litre, have reached record highs.

Cultural practices can block lifesaving care, says Martins. Most men must approve a woman’s giving birth in a clinic, permission which can be hard-to-earn because of the taboo of being treated by male doctors, who form the majority of health staffing in Bissau.

When things go wrong in the birthing process at home, Martins estimates 65 percent of women cannot access the help they need.

‘Roadmap’ to bring down mortality rates

UN Population Fund (UNFPA) programme officer Mamadù Bamba Gning told IRIN, “We need to change everyone’s minds when it comes to maternal mortality. Most women don’t even consider going to a clinic to give birth because they don’t think they’ll get what they need there.”

The government has pledged to the UN Millennium Development Goal target to cut maternal mortality by 75 percent, which means 825 fewer women dying per 100,000 births by 2015.

The Portuguese government has been funding to train doctors in obstetric care, to staff health centres with trained midwives, to better equip health clinics and to raise community awareness about the importance of medically-assisted births.

The Ministry of Health plans to buy bicycles for small towns to help get women in labour to local health centres, which can be up to 20km from women’s homes.

The government wants to entice doctors to work in rural areas. “We need to give rural doctors telephones to make quick referrals, cars, and to pay them enough, to entice them to stay,” said Martins. “Taking our efforts to all regions across the country is the only way we can make progress.”

The UNFPA has pledged is currently building regional hospitals Oio and Gabu in eastern Guinea-Bissau, which will be equipped to perform emergency procedures .
The two-year old initiative has led to lower maternal mortality rates in some clinics, but access to care remains inconsistent. The majority of women in Bissau can access a doctor versus as little as 10 percent of women in some rural areas, says Martins.

This leaves pregnant women like Elisete Cabral de Almada grateful to live in Bissau. “At least there is a good doctor here – we have to wait all day to see him, but I’m lucky that I can come here at all. I’d never give birth without help. Luckily, I’m not forced to because I live near this hospital.”

IRIN 

Recent political instability including the early August dissolution of government could delay long-awaited plans to reform Guinea-Bissau’s swollen security sector which could impact the country’s long-term security says the president of the national defence institute Baciro Dja.

Nine police units, the army, air force, navy and judiciary, are to be reformed over the next few years as part of an ambitious government exercise underpinned by the European Union and headed by a Spanish army general, Juan Esteban Verastegui.

"Installing a new government could demotivate the [security sector reform] process. If we say we'll reform and then nothing happens that will be very dangerous,” said Dja.

Unaffordable army

Central to the reform process is modernising and slimming down the country’s oversized army, the country's” Achilles heel” according to Dja, which currently has 4,800 registered members, a significant proportion of them generals who were promoted under former President Kouma Yala's regime. Just six members of the army are under 20 years-old according to a recent Reuters report.

"Guinea-Bissau has more generals than [Africa’s most populous nation] Nigeria," confirmed Shola Omoregie head of the UN peacebuilding office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS).

The hope is to create a smaller, more efficient “modernised” army, reducing the overall tally to 2,500, according to Dja, whose members can live in dignified conditions, be well-trained, and have adequate equipment.

Reform is sorely needed because despite dedicating up to 30 percent of its annual budget to the security sector according to an International Crisis Group estimate, the government cannot afford to support the current structure said an international security expert in Bissau.

"Many members of the military and the police haven't been paid in two months," he told IRIN. "You don't want military officers having to sell coffee in the streets to survive... that's a recipe for disaster."

Challenges

It is also hoped that reforms would limit the alleged involvement of some members of the military in drug trafficking in the country, according to an international drug expert who also asked to remain anonymous.

Shola Omoregie, special representative to the UN Secretary General and head of the UN Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS), added, "Drug trafficking is a big threat here and it will undermine everything we do to build peace here if it is not tackled."

But some fear the early August dissolving of government could delay security sector reforms, further complicating a process that already faces a number of challenges including how to raise the US$180 million required to fund it.

However Colonel Salamao Kiermes at UNOGBIS is confident the reforms will go ahead, citing the fact that efforts have progressed despite the recent government shake-up. He added, “Key people such as the ministers of defence and of justice have not changed… [and] the new government has given assurance that it will not change ongoing plans.”

Meanwhile those backing reforms are not about to let up the pressure. Giuseppina Mazza, resident coordinator of the UN in Bissau stressed, "Security sector reform, alongside good governance and building up the government's administrative capacity is a pre-condition for everything the UN does here.”

IRIN 

Up to 3,160 people have now contracted cholera and 73 people have died across the country and health minister Camilo Simoes Lopes told IRIN the authorities are struggling to win the fight again the epidemic.

The majority of the victims are in the capital, Bissau, which has recorded 2,301 cases. "The situation is bad across the country,” Lopes said, “Only the Bijagos islands have been spared.”

The government and international organisations are focusing their efforts on Bissau though health teams are also travelling to more remote parts of the country to try to contain the disease’s spread.

The government has called on the international community to provide more drugs to treat the disease, according to Lopes. So far the United Nations has leveraged US$600,000 in emergency funds to fight the epidemic.

Agostinho Semedo, the director of the Simao Mendes hospital told IRIN, “We need money and logistical help to fight the disease – we don’t have enough beds or medicines at the moment to do it.”

The hospital is struggling to cope with the number of victims it receives each day. “The situation is beyond our control. People must respect the laws that have been laid down, and the government must do more… to control the situation."

The authorities have prohibited the sale of street food such as doughnuts, some sweets and sachets of water in a bid to stop the disease from spreading further. Semedo has also called on people to stop sacrificing animals at funerals, which he says may be a root cause.

Patients at the hospital have to lie on the ground because there are not enough beds to put them in. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) plans to set up tents to shelter the sick but these have not yet been erected.

Lionardo Domingos Nancassa is one of 23 volunteers helping the government disinfect wells across the capital with chlorine.

According to Lopes others like him need to get more actively involved to prevent the disease from spreading further. "We have found people are not cooperating enough to abide by the hygiene measures imposed by health authorities," he said.

For Nancassa his mission is clear, “We have to come together to contribute to the fight against the epidemic that is wreaking havoc in our capital.”

IRIN 

UNICEF is supporting the Ministry of Health of Guinea Bissau in fighting a cholera epidemic that has quickly spread across the country, and is particularly affecting the capital Bissau and the regions of Quinara, in the south, and Biombo, in the west.
In addition to mobilising US$ 750,000 since the epidemic began in mid-May, UNICEF has assisted with a team of national and international experts specialised in emergency coordination, water and sanitation, social communication, public health and supply.

“The situation is grave and calls for urgent and critical engagement of all parties,” said Silvia Luciani, UNICEF Representative for Guinea Bissau. “We must step up our efforts to ensure that all emergency funds and supplies made available are utilised immediately and effectively to save human lives and put a stop to the epidemic.”
According to data from the Epidemiological Services of the health ministry, as of 14 August 2,018 persons had contracted cholera, of whom 41 have died.

UNICEF’s efforts to combat the deadly disease are part of Guinea Bissau’s national response plan to the cholera epidemic. One of many partners working under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, UNICEF is responsible for supporting the disinfection of Bissau’s water system and traditional wells in the capital and the most affected regions; management of potentially contaminating human waste; distribution of hygiene and sanitation products (soap, bleach, sodium hypochlorite, buckets, etc.); and the production, distribution, and training required to communicate prevention messages to the broader population.

Communication materials are, indeed, a vital tool in combating the disease, and UNICEF has conducted a rapid assessment to  better understand the population’s awareness of cholera and how it is spread. Based on the results of this assessment, UNICEF has supported the production and distribution of messages that emphasize disease prevention and proper hygiene. These messages are being spread with the support of religious and traditional leaders, and UNICEF is appealing to the population of Guinea Bissau to respect the recommendations on hygiene practices necessary to prevent cholera.

In addition to its current response to the epidemic, UNICEF emphasizes the importance of developing a longer term national strategy to prevent this type of crisis from happening again.
UNICEF works in over 150 countries and territories all over the world to help children survival and development. First provider of vaccines to developing countries, UNICEF supports health and nutrition of children, access to potable water and sanitation, quality basic education for boys and girls, and protection of children against violence, all types of exploitation and HIV/AIDS. UNICEF is financed entirely by voluntary contributions of individuals, foundations, enterprises and governments.

About UNICEF
UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence.  The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS.  UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

UNICEF 

Bissau-based private radio station Pindjiqidy Radio broadcast early Wednesday a phone call from the head of Guinea Bissau’s navy, Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchute, in which he denied involvement in the 6 August unsuccessful coup attempt against President Joao Bernardo Vieira.

The navy chief denied news reports Guinean officials had arrested him last week, and said he was 50 km from Bissau when the military attempted the coup. Tchute did not reveal his whereabouts.

This early dawn call followed reports in French media on Wednesday that Tchute had escaped police interrogations in Bissau and fled to neighbouring Gambia where officials detained him, according to a Gambian government statement released on 12 August.

Once his whereabouts are confirmed, Sandra Valle, a legal senior advisor with the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), says Guinea Bissau’s Ministry of Justice can issue a warrant for his arrest and request his extradition for further questioning in Bissau.

Valle, previous director of the UNODC office in Bissau, said the Lyons-based international crime fighting organisation Interpol can arrest and hold Tchute for extradition.

Valle said it is important to follow international and national laws in carrying out investigations into the coup attempt.

Guinea Bissau’s government has requested donor assistance for its justice system, which has faced a heavier work load in recent years related to drug cartels cutting through the island.

Drug traffickers, coming mostly from Latin America, but increasingly from other countries, are transporting their drugs through Guinea Bissau’s southern mangroves on hard-to-reach islands, on dusty airstrips throughout the country, and even the national airport, according to UN reports.

Guinean military leaders have denied its armed forces accept bribes to look the other way.

The military holds a prominent role in the archipelago West African state, which has been rocked by multiple coups and coup attempts since winning independence in 1974.

President Vieira came to power the first time in 1980 and was ousted 19 years later, both times through military coups. He was elected to office again three years ago.

IRIN 

Rising food and fuel costs could trigger social conflict in Guinea-Bissau according to the latest report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), published last week.

The warnings come just as Guinea-Bissau has been plunged into a political crisis with President Joao Vieira dissolving parliament and appointing a new prime minister on 5 August. A new government is expected to be formed in a matter of days.

Rising food and fuel prices will hit the urban poor hardest, which could “reignite social tensions”, according to the report.

A Bissau-based agricultural expert confirmed these findings: “Rising food and fuel prices could spark social instability here - they could even start strikes. There is a real risk and the government has to understand that.”

The national workers union has scheduled a protest against the cost of living on 12 August, according to Bissau local Antonio Samy.

Guinea-Bissau has suffered decades of political volatility with numerous uprisings and coups, and a brief civil war, since it attained independence in 1974.

The parliamentary committee of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) is taking seriously the threat rising prices could have on the country’s already tenuous hold on stability and is currently holding emergency talks to discuss solutions.
Food insecurity “chronic”

Rice in Guinea-Bissau now costs US$50 for a 50kg bag, while fuel prices have risen to US$1.43 a litre. “These prices are out of reach for many Bissauns,” said Rui Alfonso Sami, director of rural growth at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Food insecurity is “chronic” in Guinea-Bissau according to Thierry Ange Ella Ondo, a representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and 80 percent of the population currently do not have enough stocks to last them through the lean season.

According to the FAO, farmers produce 62 percent of the people’s rice needs every year, leaving 90,000 metric tonnes to be imported.

Government response

So far the government has been slow to face up to high food prices, according to Sami. “It is the rice importers who had to put pressure on the government to do something about rice prices, because they were shooting up so high that no one would buy their rice.”

Eventually the government removed taxes on imported rice and reduced customs fees on diesel imports, but this represents a “significant” loss in potential revenue, representing 10 percent of tax revenues for the year according to the IMF. The surge in food and fuel prices will also up the budget deficit and increase already high inflation rates, it predicts.

While WFP is finalising a food security assessment across the country, no specific evaluation has been launched to analyse the impact of rising prices on vulnerable households in cities such as Bissau, according to the WFP’s Kalisa.

Sami confirmed this: “We don’t know if people here in Bissau are particularly in need - we have no figures.”

Surveys undertaken in countries around the region have shown that inhabitants in some cities, including Conakry and Ouagadougou, are vulnerable to the current high price crisis because they are heavily reliant on imported food.
No agricultural strategy

There is also, as yet, no national agricultural strategy to tackle high prices though the Ministry of Agriculture is currently developing an emergency plan which it hopes donors such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank will support in the absence of internal funds.

The Ministry of Agriculture receives between just 0.1 and 0.4 percent of the country’s annual budget, according to Sami, leaving little or nothing left over to invest in agricultural growth once salaries have been paid. This leaves the ministry, like so many others in Guinea-Bissau, heavily dependent on external donors and investors. “Every year I propose to the Ministry of Finance to increase the agricultural budget, but in vain,” Sami said.

According to a July report by the International Crisis Group the security sector receives up to 30 percent of the government’s annual finances.

As a result of the lack of an agricultural support system, many farmers in Guinea-Bissau are heavily indebted according to FAO, and there is little indication that the government will extend its support to help alleviate this problem.

Not all bleak

But it is not all bleak. The World Food Programme is still awaiting the results of its rural vulnerability assessment, but Patrice Kalisa, its head of programmes, is confident that “we are in a less dramatic situation in comparison to last year, and at the moment there is no risk of famine in the country.”

The rains have been strong so far in 2008 and the October harvest is expected to be likewise, unlike in 2007 when late rains caused a poor crop.

Furthermore, the price of cashews, which farmers grow for half the year and sell in exchange for imported rice, is 70 US cents per kilogram this year as opposed to 15 US cents last year, significantly improving farmers’ terms of trade.

Aware of the need to diminish the risk of added tensions on top of the current political crisis, international organisations investing in agriculture in Guinea-Bissau say diversification is the order of the day to ease people’s reliance on expensive imports, both for farmers and city-dwellers.

“Farmers have to diversify away from rice,” said according to FAO, “They need to plant manioc, peanuts, potatoes, vegetables - there is a lot of potential here for agriculture, and it has to start at a grassroots level.”

FAO and WFP are encouraging diversification by distributing seeds to villages around the country, and giving families food while they plant their harvest to assist them through the “hungry” season.

In the meantime, to reduce its vulnerability to further price hikes, the IMF is calling on the government to complete its agricultural strategy, and international donors to give timely support to offset the government’s financial losses.

UEMOA is expected to issue its recommendations in a week.

IRIN

President Joao Bernardo Vieira announced he had dissolved parliament on 5 August replacing Prime Minister Martinho Ndafa Cabi of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) with Prime Minister, Carlos Correia.

Correia, an agricultural engineer who was trained in Germany, has already served as prime minister under President Vieira from 1991 to 1994, and again from 1997 to 1998. He will be the country’s 12th prime minister since 1980 - Martinho Ndafa Cabi’s government lasted just 15 months.

A new government will be nominated in the coming days to lead the country up to 16 November legislative elections. Under the presidential decree, only the standing committee of the national assembly will continue to function.

Aims

Vieira said his aim was to bring to an end a political crisis which has struck Guinea-Bissau since 26 July when the PAIGC withdrew from the coalition government following the sacking by Prime Minister Marthinho Ndafa Cabi of four high-ranking officials without first consulting the coalition.

However Joao Seco Mané, leader of the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) said people are “scared” of the possible consequences of the current situation “because they know Guinea-Bissau has gone through many bloody events in its recent history”. For Mané, it is vital that the president’s actions do not favour one political party over another, for this could cause more instability in the future.

Guinea-Bissau has suffered a series of coups and uprisings since it attained independence in 1974.

Malam Sanha, a journalist, agreed. "The situation could get worse at any moment, particularly on the part of the Social Renovation Party (PRS) which has an armed wing and a militia [if they take action]. People are really worried about what might happen next,” he said.

Expectations

Shola Omoregie, head of the UN’s peacebuilding office in Guinea Bissau (UNOGBIS) told IRIN, “We will make it clear what we expect from the new government and leaders of Guinea-Bissau – namely, that stability in the country must be upheld, and that elections be held in November.”

The parliamentary peace council of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) announced in a statement on 5 August it is holding crisis meetings with political actors to try to bring about a resolution to the crisis.

Not everyone is worried however. University student Constantino Batista told IRIN, “I agree with the dissolving of parliament and the fall of Cabi’s government. Cabi’s government has been noted for its incompetence over the past 15 months - with this new government we have a hope that things will improve.”

IRIN