Thursday December 1, 2022
Analysis by Mike Cohen
A combination of armed conflict and the most severe drought in at least four decades is tipping the Horn of Africa region into a disaster. With crops failing and livestock dying, the number of people urgently in need of help had grown to 21 million by November from 13 million at the start of the year, and many were selling their possessions to eat. Aid agencies were mobilizing, but the help was still well short of what was required, leaving the region at risk of the kind of calamitous famine that ravaged Ethiopia in the 1980s and claimed an estimated 1 million lives.
1. Why is this happening?
Climate change has been blamed for four consecutive failed rainy seasons since 2020 across the region that comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda. Crops wilted and much of what remained was lost to the worst locust invasion in at least 25 years. That left countries more reliant on food imports, but supply chain bottlenecks created by the coronavirus pandemic inflated prices of basic goods on world markets, leaving them unaffordable in many poorer nations. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent prices shooting even higher as it disrupted Ukrainian exports of grain and cooking oils, important sources of nutrition for several African countries.
2. What’s the political backdrop?
As is usually the case when famine rears its head, the situation has been made worse by political strife. East Africa is one of the most poorly governed and war-torn regions of the world, with nine out of 22 states or territories involved in armed conflict in 2021. The turmoil has forced communities to flee the land and the jobs that had sustained them. As of September, an estimated 13.5 million people had been displaced from their homes across East Africa, up from 8 million in 2019, according to data compiled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
3. When does this become a famine?
UN agencies declare a famine when extreme food shortages affect a fifth of households, 30% of the population faces acute malnourishment and there are at least two hunger-related deaths per 10,000 people per day. By the time a famine is announced, thousands may already be dead and it can be too late to reverse the effects of malnutrition for others. Even when sufficient food becomes available again, many people, especially babies and young children, will die from diseases that their weakened bodies cannot fight off. Those who do make it may be stunted for life and have a higher risk of giving birth to underweight or premature children in later life. While food insecurity -- the lack of reliable access to enough nutritious food -- is widespread in Africa, famines have become rarer in the 21st century, as international agencies have gotten better at identifying the early signs of extreme hunger and intervening effectively.
4. How is the crisis affecting societies?
Widespread malnourishment, especially among children, has torn rural communities apart as families migrate in search of food and grazing land. As of August, about 9 million head of livestock had died due to drought, representing a loss of milk equivalent to some 1.6 million children under 5 not getting the bare minimum cup a day they require, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. In Kenya’s northern Turkana county, around 1 in 3 children was acutely malnourished as of late October, according to the UN Children’s Fund. Many parents across the region could no longer afford to keep their children in school. There were reports of girls as young as 9 being married off for dowry payments or to ease economic pressure on households.
5. Where is the crisis most acute?
In Somalia. A prolonged civil war, more frequent droughts and poor land management have decimated cereal production. Until recently, the country was importing 90% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, with much of that paid for by foreign donors. Humanitarian workers are unwilling to venture into the countryside for fear of being killed by Islamist militants, so the hungry must migrate to squalid camps on the outskirts of cities to receive food aid. Somalia was the scene of the world’s last famine, in 2011, when 260,000 people died, more than half of them children under 6. Visiting the country in September, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said the situation was worse this time around.
6. Who is helping?
The US government has been the single biggest donor in the crisis; as of September, it had announced almost $1.9 billion in aid for the region. Other leading contributors include the European Union, Canada, Sweden, Germany and the UK. The UN’s World Food Program was delivering more food aid to Somalia than ever before, but the organization’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in November that donors had advanced only 57% of the $2.3 billion needed to deal with the crisis there. Many donor nations are facing budget pressures linked to the pandemic and the surge in global energy prices. And the inflated cost of staple foods on world markets means the same aid money feeds fewer people.
--With assistance from Samuel Dodge, Samuel Gebre and Fasika Tadesse.