By Keith Somerville BBC News Online

Eastern and southern Africa are suffering from a catastrophic drought and famine, with more than 30 million people facing hunger.

Ethiopia is one of the worst affected countries.

As it struggles to cope, it is hosting an annual conference to discuss how Africa is affected by economic globalisation.

Grandmother cannot afford to buy sugar, yet the crop that produces it stretches as far as the eye can see

Kenyan journalist Florence Machio

For many agencies seeking to alleviate famine and cope with Africa's crippling level of poverty, globalisation is a key and controversial issue.

Those who favour the process, like the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus, argue that it will lead to the modernisation of economies, the removal of trade barriers and to the elimination of want.

He says the prospects are good for "achieving more rapid poverty reduction and faster growth".

But critics, like the British charity ActionAid, argue that trade liberalisation has harmed Africa.

It says that the freer trade, especially in agricultural produce, has worked to "threaten or destroy the livelihoods of millions of farmers" and to keep people poor.

The arguments are fierce and complex, but how does globalisation affect people's lives?

Sugar's bitter taste

Selpha Maende Okweno is an 87-year-old grandmother living in Kenya's Busia district.

For decades her family has grown sugar cane and made a good living from it.

But now it is threatened by trade policies which enable foreign sugar exporters to sell sugar more cheaply in Kenya than local producers.

Her granddaughter, journalist Florence Machio, says that her "grandmother cannot afford to buy sugar, yet the crop that produces it stretches as far as the eye can see" near her home.

Cheap imports of processed sugar undercut the prices Kenyan farmers need to survive and so sugar farmers are becoming poorer or are having to grow other crops.

The poor cannot afford to buy food and have to beg

Kenya's Director of Internal Trade, Seth Otieno, says that liberalisation of trade has been a disaster for many in Kenya.

"Globalisation is a curse to many sectors, especially agriculture, in this country," he says.

In Swaziland, the import of sugar products from the European Union countries has undermined the local industry.

The sugar industry has lost 16,000 jobs and a further 20,000 have gone in transport and packaging, according to Action Aid.

Reform

Those in favour of globalisation say Africa needs better economic management and more trade liberalisation.

These changes, argues Michel Camdessus, will enable it to be part of the new economic partnership offered by globalisation and so increase economic growth.

African economies are undeveloped

Many African leaders accept globalisation as a long-term goal, but say it must be accompanied by reform by the developed countries to make the terms of trade fairer to Africa.

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, an originator of the pro-globalisation New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), says that Africa must embrace the process but warns that it is leading to rising inequalities between and within countries.

He says governments must "re-shape and re-direct its impact".

'Negative effects'

Some critics are harsher.

The African director of the International Labour Organisation, Regina Amadi-Njoku, says globalisation is responsible for the decline in Africa's status in the global economy.

Pressures for economic liberalisation in Africa from the IMF, World Bank and Western governments "have brought negative effects on the globalisation process," she says.

ActionAid and Oxfam say that European Union and US financial support for their farmers gives them big advantages in trade and ruins African farmers by subjecting them to unfair competition.

These countries protect their own farmers but demand that African countries cut subsidies to theirs, they argue.

In a submission to the UK Government, Oxfam calls for globalisation to "be underpinned by global rules and institutions that place human development above the pursuit of corporate self-interest and national advantage".

For ordinary African farmers the question of globalisation comes down to issues of economic survival.

Kenyan grandmother Selpha Maende Okweno's view is simple:

"Why should I plant sugar cane if there is no market for it?"