Aid to Horn of Africa must be linked to boosting long-term food security by UNICEF / World Food Programme & agencies 3:03pm 26th Jul, 2011   13 August 2011    The United Nations relief chief visited the capital of Somalia today, stressing that aid workers must have safe passage to those in need so they can save the lives of millions of people at risk from malnutrition or infectious diseases as famine grips the Horn of Africa.    On a visit to Mogadishu, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos toured Banadir Hospital – one of just four locations in the war-wracked city where children suffering from acute malnutrition are being treated.    Ms. Amos described the scenes she witnessed in the hospital as heartbreaking. “The children are so weak they can"t lift their heads, while their mothers are in despair,” she said.    As many as 3.2 million people are estimated to be on the brink of starvation in Somalia, where persistent drought and ongoing conflict have led to famine being recently declared by the UN in five regions in the south of the country, including the area in and around Mogadishu.    The situation is compounded by a deadly outbreak of cholera, while the number of cases of acute watery diarrhoea has also spiked in the past two months.    The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which Ms. Amos heads, has warned that the famine is likely to get worse in the coming weeks. The number of acutely malnourished children in Somalia, currently at 390,000, could double within a short space of time.    While Somalia is the worst affected country, neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are also suffering. More than 12 million people across the Horn of Africa now face severe food shortages and require international assistance.    Ms. Amos said “we can save the lives of these children if we can treat them early enough, but we also need to get aid to areas outside Mogadishu where most of the people in desperate need are,” she said. "That is why I am here. I want to make sure everyone understands the depth of this crisis.”    25 July 2011    Aid to Horn of Africa must be linked to boosting long-term food security.    Emergency delivery of aid to people facing drought-related hunger in the Horn of Africa must be accompanied by longer-term efforts to boost food security in the region, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, calling for an agricultural transformation that improves the livelihoods of rural communities in the region.    “Short-term relief must be linked to building long-term sustainability. This means an agricultural transformation that improves the resilience of rural livelihoods and minimizes the scale of any future crisis,” Mr. Ban said.    “It means climate-smart crop production, livestock rearing, farming and forest maintenance practices that enable all people to have year-round access to the nutrition they need,” said Mr. Ban.    An estimated 12 million people in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia are facing severe food shortages with rates of malnutrition and related deaths having reached alarming levels in many parts of the region.    The UN last week declared a state on famine in two areas of southern Somalia, the worst affected country. Mr. Ban called on donors to provide funding to assist those facing hunger.    “The combined forces of drought, food inflation and conflict have created a catastrophic situation that urgently requires massive international support,” Jacques Diouf, the FAO Director-General said.    “If we want to avoid future famine and food insecurity crises in the region, countries and the international community urgently need to bolster the agricultural sector and accelerate investments in rural development,” said Mr. Diouf.    “Many of the women I met in Somalia and Kenya over the past few days had lost their children and had no one to depend on but the humanitarian agencies on the ground,” Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said.    “We are particularly worried about Somalia right now and it is vital that we reach those at the epicentre of the famine with food assistance – especially the highly fortified nutritious products that are so important for vulnerable children,” she said.    WFP is feeding 1.5 million people in Somalia and making efforts to reach another 2.2 million in areas of the south that had remained inaccessible.    The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 780,000 children are acutely malnourished in southern Somalia, a 35 per cent increase since January.    The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is distributing aid packages to some 189,000 people in southern Somalia and working with local authorities and other partners to register Somali refugees arriving in large numbers in Kenya and Ethiopia. Efforts are also under way to urgently improve shelter, water and other aid services for the refugees.    The Security Council, meanwhile, expressed grave concern over famine conditions in Somalia as well as acute malnutrition in parts of the wider Horn of Africa.    Members of the Council voiced concern over the shortfall in humanitarian funding and urged all parties in Somalia to ensure “full, safe and unhindered access for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid to persons in need of assistance.” All armed groups must take appropriate steps to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel and supplies, the Council added.    An estimated 12 million people need humanitarian assistance in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.    Save the Children has warned that the number of malnourished children in 14 of its feeding centres in camps in Puntland, northern Somalia, has doubled from 3,500 to 6,000 in just two weeks.    The number of acutely malnourished children – and those who will die without emergency assistance – has also doubled, rising from 300 children to 600 in the last two weeks at the charity"s clinics in Puntland.    Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said its feeding centres were operating beyond their original capacity and, compared to last year, they were receiving up to seven times more patients in certain locations each week.    Save the Children said if world leaders at the emergency meeting fail to plug a $1bn (£613m) funding gap for the east Africa aid effort, more than a million children could die in Somalia alone.    Save the Children called on developed countries to urgant boost their funding assistance to aviod a humanitarian disaster.    Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to the UN on the millennium development goals, called on the Gulf states to provide urgent funding assistance.    Kanayo Nwanze, the head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, chastised the lack of political leadership in Africa in supporting agriculture.    "If Africa does not get its house in order and expects the world to help us out, we are dreaming," said Nwanze. "Thank goodness Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana are moving ahead with agriculture."    He criticised African governments for not keeping their 2003 promise to earmark 10% of their budgets for agriculture. "Less than 10 countries have fulfilled that pledge," he said.    FAO"s director general, Jacques Diouf, said there was a need for greater co-ordination in response to the drought and famine in east Africa to "save our brothers and sisters of dying of thirst and hunger".    He said the world was faced with a similar crisis in the region in 2000, which prompted the then secretary general of the UN, Kofi Annan, to appoint a taskforce to investigate what could be done to make the region more food secure.    The resulting report, The elimination of food insecurity in the Horn of Africa recommended each of the seven countries in the area draft food security programmes, the implementation of regional food security programmes, expanding markets and trade opportunities, and improving in-country health and nutrition.    The report said large-scale infrastructure was needed alongside investment in small-scale projects, particularly in rural roads, livestock markets and basic services, "ensuring that these developments are community-driven".    Diouf drew parallels with the recommendations made in the report by the taskforce, which he led, and the situation now. He pointed out that irrigation was an important component in addressing the crisis. Just 1% of land in the effected region was irrigated in 2000, he said.    Little appears to have been done to increase this figure. An estimated 2% of land in eastern and southern Africa is believed to now have an irrigation system in place; only about 7% of land in the whole of Africa is irrigated, compared with more than 30% of land in Asia.    Diouf said the 2000 crisis was averted and international attention drifted to other issues. "Must history always repeat itself?" he asked. "And in the first few years of the 21st century, must the international community go through the agonising spectacle of seeing children and livestock dying?    "My hope is that the international community and the G20 in the next few years will marshal significant resources so in the future such tragic events are nothing more than a bad memory ... that fields will be irrigated and roads will be built so the region will no longer weigh on our collective conscience."    The executive director of the World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran, said the current crisis stemmed from a "triple storm" of drought, soaring food prices and conflict.    Somalia"s children"s famine has been ignored, by Paddy Ashdown.    They can"t put their hunger on pause until the glare of the media decides to turn its spotlight on them and help spread the word that children are dying. Instead, they will slowly starve to death.    This is exactly what is happening to nearly 2 million children in Somalia right now. Nearly half of these children are already on the critical list, inching further away from life as every hour slips by.    The situation has reached crisis point. This morning the UN officially declared that famine exists in Somalia and that the lives of nearly half of the Somali population – 3.7 million people – are now in crisis.    At Unicef, which is the UN children"s agency, they don"t use the word famine lightly. They are guided by strict criteria that means it can only be declared when at least three of eight prerequisites are reached. These are acute malnutrition rates among children must exceed 30% and food access falls far below 2,100 kilocalories of food every day.    In those most severely affected regions of Somalia acute malnutrition due to poor diets or inadequate food is now exceeding 50% and Unicef is recording at least six per 10,000 children dying daily. Three other regions in the south will have a famine in next one to two months they warn.    I"ve been to Ethiopia with Unicef last year into some of the same regions that are today the focus of the wider Horn of Africa appeal. The famine, the first in 20 years, is due to a number of factors such as poverty, inadequate rainfall and conflict.    This famine didn"t happen suddenly. It has been slowly evolving but under reported. Unicef, along with the UN, has been warning since January of a pending crisis and statements have been issued.    Since drought is a slow-onset disaster, it is often very difficult to get the type of attention and response that is needed to raise the funds to prevent that disaster. In addition, issues of access and conflict have made the situation even more complicated.    The media also have a major role in the response to disasters. As former BBC producer Suzanne Franks pointedly wrote in the British Journalism Review: "Disasters – natural or man-made – exist only when they are covered by the media. Plenty of terrible things happen that remain unreported. Most disasters are known about only by those directly affected. And the crises that do get media attention are not necessarily those that kill or harm the most victims."    Being a child in Somalia is already tough and dangerous. If you survive to one, you may not survive beyond five; if you live beyond five, you most probably won"t go to school and you most probably won"t have many choices other than being recruited into an armed faction.    Now with the famine, life is even worse. That is why Unicef – which has been working in Somalia since 1972 – rightly calls this a "children"s famine". Visit the related web page
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