Trouble in paradise

Potentially a holiday paradise, years of political instability and a weakening economy have left the Comoros mired in poverty. Far from the idyllic white beaches of the main island of Grande Comore and its ports bristling with dhows, 35-year-old Halima Said and her two children struggle each day to make ends meet. "Most of the time we have just two meals a day. I am worried that my children don't have enough to eat, but what can I do but just carry on and try to provide for them?" Some 15 km outside the country's capital, Moroni, Halima and six other women from Mvouni village have laid claim to a patch of land. The vegetables she cultivates provide her family with a meagre income. "I mainly grow tomatoes, onions, leeks and other vegetables, which people can use when they make salads. Half of the produce I keep for my family and the other half I take to the market to sell. With the little money I make, I buy meat, milk and oil for my children. This is how I have managed for years," she told IRIN. Like most of the women in the group, Halima wished the authorities would do more to assist them. "It would be good if the government could help us with tools and seeds. We don't want expensive tools because the soil in the area is not suitable for [commercial] farming, but we do need some basic tools," she said. Lava flows from the Kartala volcano in the centre of the small island, which is just over 60 km long, have left little arable soil, making it impossible to develop large-scale agriculture. Faced with few alternatives, many Comorans are reliant on subsistence farming, but soil degradation and erosion are growing threats to even this precarious livelihood. "Poverty seems less visible in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros than in other of the world's least-developed economies. However, economic growth and development have been tightly constrained by the country's geographical isolation, the small size of the domestic market, an absence of minerals and most other high-value raw materials, and a shortage of fertile land. Moreover, sectors such as fishing and marine trade, that have made major contributions to other small coastal economies, have been neglected," the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) noted in a country profile. "The over-reliance on agriculture is mainly due to the lack of other opportunities. Over the last decade poverty has worsened, with almost 60 percent of people in the country now considered poor. The numbers get worse in the rural parts of the country," financial consultant Ali Nobataine told IRIN. Nobataine is part of a team of experts developing the country's poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP), a condition for concessional lending by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The PRSP emphasises overall economic growth, promotion of job creation activities and improved social services to the poor, especially primary education and health care. It also requires that resources be distributed more fairly between Anjouan, Moheli and Grande Comore, the three islands covering an area of 2,170 square km that make up the Comoros archipelago, northwest of Madagascar in the Indian ocean. Agriculture, including fishing, hunting and forestry, contributes 40 percent to GDP, employs 80 percent of the labour force, and provides most of the exports. But Comoros is not food self-sufficient, with the main staple, rice, accounting for the bulk of food imports. Remittances from the estimated 150,000 Comorans abroad also help to supplement GDP. According to Nobataine, one of the chief drawbacks to economic development in Grande Comore has been the lack of roads linking villages to towns, and its rudimentary ports. Only small vessels can approach the quays in Moroni. Most freight is sent to the neighbouring French territory of Reunion, off the east coast of Madagascar, and then transhipped from there. "The country cannot hope to become part of the Indian Ocean regional economy if investors feel as if they are being inconvenienced," Nobataine commented. Vanilla, ylang-ylang, and cloves are the island group's major exports. "There needs to be further economic diversification of the export industry. The government, together with producers and traders, must consider other ways of moving away from these traditional crops. The current dependency on vanilla and ylang-ylang leaves us vulnerable to price fluctuations, which are not good for long-term economic growth," Said Hassan, director of OPACO, the Comoran employers' association, told IRIN. Hassan notes that the sluggish economic performance is partly due to the country's history of political troubles. Since gaining independence from France in 1975 the archipelago has endured some 20 actual or attempted coups. In 1997 Anjouan tried to secede from the federation, complaining of economic neglect by the Moroni government, which further undermined stability. Protracted negotiations brokered by the then Organisation of African Unity succeeded in securing an agreement. In December 2001, voters approved a new decentralised constitution and in 2002 each island in the archipelago elected its own president. A new union president, former military leader Azali Assoumani, was later sworn in, but an ongoing dispute between him and Grande Comore President Abdou Soule Elbak over the respective powers of their offices has shaken confidence in the settlement. As elsewhere in the Comoros, political instability and poverty have taken a toll on the education system. Poor quality education has resulted in high dropout and repetition rates, with the average student needing 14 years to complete the six-year primary school cycle. Abdorahim Bacar, headmaster of Said Mohammed Cheik, one of the largest public high schools in Moroni, says the quality has improved slightly, but concern remains over funding for the public education system. "Public schools on the island face one common problem: the lack of textbooks - children often have to share with numerous other students. Also, teacher training needs to be upgraded. This is a matter of urgency," Bacar told IRIN. From 1999 to 2002 the net school enrolment rate increased from 60 percent to 69 percent, according to UNICEF. To boost confidence in local education, the country's first university was inaugurated last month. Comoran students had previously had to travel to Madagascar and Reunion for tertiary education. Government communications director Kaaribi Roubani said one of the reasons for the establishment of the university was to stem the "brain drain", as most students sought employment in their host country after completing their studies. After years of political strife had left the country not only impoverished but also fragmented, one of the main challenges facing the authorities was nation building. "The university will provide a space where all Comorans, irrespective of their ideas, can come together and talk about their plans for the future," said Roubani. "This will encourage debate and eradicate this feeling that Comoros is just for those who live on Grande Comore. We would have been successful if we manage to consolidate a national identity. This is key to our development."