Dans un article publié par le Washington Post, Craig Timberg attribue la famine qui endeuille le Niger à l'influence croissante d'une "mentalité de marché":
In a country adopting free market policies, the suffering caused by a poor harvest has been dramatically compounded by a surge in food prices and, many people here suspect, profiteering by a burgeoning community of traders, who in recent years have been freed from government price controls and other mechanisms that once balanced market forces.
Le journaliste manque à n'en pas douter d'une capacité de discernement élémentaire, comme le souligne le "Globalization Institute" qui rappelle que ce sont les contrôles des prix imposés par le gouvernement qui représentent la cause essentielle de la famine et que leur suppression a permis l'arrivée sur les marchés de produits qui en étaient totalement absents auparavant:
What is happening is that traders are importing and transporting food from elsewhere to help feed people. High prices food are not nice, but they are not increasing starvation: they're actually reducing it. They are directing people's efforts into importing food and bringing it to market. That effort would evaporate if the government reimposed price controls. Don't get me wrong: I think the situation in Niger is appalling. It's just that if prices had been fixed at the pre-famine price, that trading centre of Maradi have been empty of rice, peanuts or millet.
Avant d'accuser le "marché", M. Timberg aurait été bien inspiré d'observer la situation dans les pays où le "marché" n'existe pas (Cuba, Corée du Nord) et de s'informer à bonne source sur la façon dont le gouvernement nigérien traite le secteur privé. Il aurait ainsi constaté que le Niger applique l'une des législations les plus rigides au monde en matière de respect du droit de propriété, de création d'entreprises et de droit du travail, ce qui empêche la création d'emplois et de richesses suffisants pour éradiquer ou du moins réduire drastiquement le phénomène des crises alimentaires.
Enfin, certains n'hésitent pas à affirmer que l'UE et le FMI sont partiellement responsables de ce gâchis:
Some aid specialists blamed the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Their economic programmes have contributed to sharp rises in the prices of staples such as sorghum and millet. (...)
Johanne Sekkenes, the mission head of MSF which is mounting the biggest emergency exercise in its history in Niger, says the current emergency could have been avoided. 'This is not a famine, in the Somalian way,' she said. 'The harvest was bad in 2004 and the millet granaries are empty. Yet there is food on the markets. The trouble is that the price of the food is beyond anyone's reach. (...)
Ms Sekkenes said the International Monetary Fund and the European Union had pressed Niger too hard to implement a structural adjustment programme. 'No sooner had the government been re-elected [this year] than it was obliged to introduce 19 per cent VAT on basic foodstuffs. At the same time, as part of the policy, emergency grain reserves were abolished.'
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