14 million people are food insecure in the Horn Guardian

• Monday, 15 September 2014 15:29
• Written by Xinhua/NAN

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THE United Nations and East Africa's regional community on Monday, appealed to the international community to move swiftly and avert a looming humanitarian disaster in the Horn of Africa region.

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Kyung-Wha Kang, and Mahboub Maalim, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), made the appeal in a joint statement issued in Nairobi.

 The statement said that the appeal was for the purpose of raising fund to help 14 million people who were food insecure in the region.

``Displacement in Horn of Africa stand at an estimated 6.8 million people and 14 million people are food insecure, yet funding has remained at half of the appeal,” Kang said.

The move came after UN agencies called for more donor support to help scale up humanitarian assistance in Somalia.

According to a latest food security report, released earlier in September, over 1 million people in Somalia face acute food insecurity and 218,000 children under the age of 5, are acutely malnourished.

The joint assessment by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSNAU), a project managed by UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) and other partners, warned that the situation is likely to deteriorate further until October.

The statement also said out of the 933 million dollar appeal, less than one third had been raised.

Both IGAD and the UN are urging the donor community and governments of the region to urgently scale up response to avert a humanitarian disaster.

According to IGAD fact-finding mission reports, 7 million out of 12.9 million people in South Sudan, are food insecure.

``3.9 million are severely food insecure, with 1.2 million already at the risk of famine, if violence continues, and 50,000 children are at a risk of dying from starvation,” it stated.

It added that food shortage in Somalia and South Sudan, as a result of drought, violence and conflict, has had serious consequences on food and nutrition. (Xinhua/NAN)

Climate change impacts livelihoods in Ethiopia - Worldbulletin News

A UN report also asserted that Ethiopia's low level of economic development, coupled with a heavy dependence on rain-fed agriculture and high population growth, made the country particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change.

World Bulletin / News Desk

Climate change has impacted people's livelihoods in Ethiopia, a new United Nations report has found.

"Both the frequency and intensity of droughts have increased, impacting the livelihoods of people," reads the report by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), unveiled in Addis Ababa on Monday.

"At the same time, increases in flooding have also intensified the vulnerability of households in Ethiopia," it added.

The report, entitled "What does it mean for Ethiopia's development," predicted that temperatures would rise by between 0.9° and 1.1° (centigrade) by 2030, by between 1.7° and 2.1° by 2050, and by between 2.7° and 3.4° by 2080.

It went on to assert that Ethiopia's low level of economic development, coupled with a heavy dependence on rain-fed agriculture and high population growth, made the country particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change.

"The country has experienced both warm and cool years over the last 55 years. However, the recent years are the warmest compared to the early years," the report read.

It added: "There has been a warming trend in the annual minimum temperature over the past 55 years. It has been increasing by about 0.37° every ten years."

Several officials were present at the report's launch ceremony, including Ethiopian Water, Energy and Irrigation Minister Alemayehu Tegenu and Ethiopian National Meteorology Agency General Director Fetene Teshome.

Also present were scientists and representatives of regional and international organizations, who are expected to discuss the report for the next two days.

The report followed an outreach event organized by the National Meteorological Agency in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the IPCC and the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

"The report means a lot to Ethiopia since environmental issues get updated through research from time to time," senior environment adviser Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher said.

He added that the report's findings would help Ethiopia better tackle the environmental challenges it faces.

Berhan said Ethiopia's resilient "green economy" policy envisaged a carbon-free nation by 2025.

Minister Tegenu, for his part, said that Ethiopia's green economy strategy rested on three pillars: renewable energy, biofuels and afforestation.

Oceans to blame for Ethiopian famine, says Ghent researcher | Flanders Today

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by Senne Starckx,

Recent articles: Antwerp doctors test new ways to measure pain, Depression pinpointed as early indicator of dementia , Q&A: Rogier van Overbeke on solar-powered boats

SUMMARY

New analysis of oceanic patterns offers scientists a new understanding of the causes of the droughts that spurred Ethiopia’s deadly famine of the 1980s

A look back at famine

Everyone older than 35 remembers the tragic famine that ravaged Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea between 1983 and 1985 – if not because of the footage of starving children on television then because of the Live Aid concerts organised by Bob Geldof.

In northernEthiopiaalone – the hardest stricken region – more then 400,000 people died from the effects of the famine, mainly because of starvation and disease, but also due to  violence inflicted by the oppressive Ethiopian army. According the United Nations, more than one million people died during the three-year famine.

One of the major causes of the disaster was a lingering period of drought that struckEastern Africain the beginning of the 1980s. In Ethiopia, the economy relies heavily on agriculture and the export of agricultural products.

The first signals were already there in 1981, when a less-serious drought wiped out harvests. ButEthiopia’s food reserves were then still large enough to handle what was hoped to be an isolated incident. In the following years, however, the usual spring rains again stayed away, and diseases destroyed crops on a massive scale in the Sidamo region, Ethiopia’ breadbasket.

By the summer of 1984, tens of thousands were dying of starvation and related diseases. Aid agencies said six million people were at risk. Food aid from the West came much too late because Western countries were reluctant to support the Marxist government of Ethiopia, and the famine became the worst in the history of modern Africa.

Thirty years later, it is clear political factors were largely at fault: aside from the West dragging its feet, the Ethiopian government preferred spending the country’s already narrow budget on its army instead of on its starving population.

But what caused the droughts in the first place? Flemish scientists, together with Ethiopian colleagues, have now solved the puzzle. A complex interplay between three oceanic patterns from three different oceans is to blame, they have announced.

Science reveals underlying cause

That oceans have an important impact on global climate is well-known. Lesser known is that climate variability – or the occurrence of local extremes – can be caused by anomalies in oceanic patterns tens of thousands of kilometres away. For example, the effects of El Niño, a band of warm water temperatures that periodically develops off the South American coast around Christmas, are felt globally.

Ethiopian meteorologists have known for many years that their weather is influenced by El Niño. However, a Flemish researcher fromGhentUniversity(UGent) has recently discovered other contributing factors apart from this one powerful “oceanic driver”.

Sil Lanckriet, a UGent meteorologist and PhD student, has pinpointed two other major influences in Ethiopia’s weather system: the so-called Indian Ocean dipole and the monsoons in the south-western part of the Atlantic Ocean.

By doing so, he was able to increase the accuracy of the country’s rainfall model dramatically. The results from the model now fit precisely with the data of the recorded rainfall (or the absence of) during previous decades inEthiopia. In other words, Lanckriet has identified the true cause of the lingering drought that caused the famine inEthiopiaandEritrea.

Description, not prediction

Lanckriet made use of a 15-year-old modelling technique called EOT. “It’s a method used to find large-scale atmospheric patterns,” he says. “In Earth observation data, we use this technique to examine each pixel of millions that make up satellite images and to identify the ones that have the greatest influence on the global picture. Using EOT, we found relevant patterns not only in the Pacific [due to El Niño], but also in the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans.”

According to Lanckriet, all three oceanic patterns were needed to cause the severe droughts that resulted in the famine of the 1980s. “The interplay between them altered the monsoon circulation as well as the air flow in the lower atmosphere in the tropics.”

So is this phenomenon likely to recur? Lanckriet thinks so. “Yes, it is, though we really need all three oceanic patterns to be present at the same time to cause a drought as severe as the one we saw inEthiopia. But predicting future droughts with our currently model is still difficult. It is a diagnostic model and not a real prediction model. However, we hope to construct a drought prediction model for the Northern Horn of Africa soon.”

photo courtesy Wikimedia

Fighting hunger and poverty in Ethiopia - Eldis

Implementation of a disaster prevention, employment-generating scheme in food insecure Ethiopia

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Drought, poverty, famine and war are not new to Ethiopia. Much of Ethiopia's overseas aid has come in the form of humanitarian assistance rather than direct efforts to reduce poverty and elimate widespread hunger. This paper provides an overview of the implementation of Ethiopia's National Policy for Disaster Prevention and Management (NPDPM), with a particular focus on Employment Generation Schemes (EGS) and its potential contribution towards hunger eradication and poverty reduction.

Following an examination of the global hunger situation, the paper turns its attention to the specific case of Ethiopia, including issues of governance, regional dynamics, vulnerability and the nature and extent of poverty and hunger. The author reviews a wide range of literature on social protection and food security, leading on to some policy implications and recommendations.

In terms of implementation of the above named schemes, the author finds that:

• both the NPDPM and EGS schemes remain largely ineffective and inefficient
• the national policy provides an appropriate pro-poor framework for employment provision and asset creation while essential supportive measures have been neglected
• EGS has not led to transformation in production and broad based economic growth - nor has it addressed some of the key institutional bottlenecks related to program delivery
• important policy reform measures related to land and water management and ownership have also not been adequately addressed
• social protection is often considered to be a high cost, low returns component of democratic governance - experience highlights poor performance in planning and implementation
• the capacities for implementation are good, although only when sufficienct resources have been allocated and this seldom occurs under the governments own budget.

Hunger spreads in Somalia as militants block towns - The Washington Post

 Mohamed Aden, a malnourished two-year-old boy, sits on his mother’s lap at Banadir maternal hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. Residents and officials say that severe hunger is spreading in southern Somalia where Islamic militants have encircled several towns in the control of African Union forces, preventing food deliveries, and deaths from malnutrition and hunger have been reported. (Farah Abdi Warsameh, File/Associated Press)

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Severe hunger is spreading in southern Somalia where militants have encircled several towns in the control of African Union forces, preventing food deliveries there, residents and officials say. Deaths from malnutrition and hunger have been reported.

“I’m packed up to go,” Maryan Howshow shouted by phone from the town of Bulo Burte. She said her son died of hunger last week, and her voice broke as she whispered his name: Mohamed. “It’s a famine style situation. People are dying.”

African Union forces fighting al-Shabab militants have moved into several towns across southern Somalia, pushing the militants out. But the consequence of that has been that the militants are blocking shipments of food from entering the town, creating a scene of hungry desperation.

“Al-Shabab’s tactic of encirclement has prevented commercial activity and humanitarian assistance to newly recovered areas,” Valerie Amos, the top U.N. official on humanitarian issues, told the U.N. Security Council this week. “Access to basic commodities is limited and food prices have increased.”

The average prices of basic food items has more than doubled in many regions, and more than 70,000 people have been displaced as a result of the fighting, “significantly disrupting the planting season,” she said.

Overnight attacks marked by explosions have become the norm. Tales of starvation are being reported from blockaded towns. Food is being airlifted into some areas but that expensive effort has limited effect. Elders in encircled towns say people are dying, though there is no official overall toll.

“At least five children died of hunger over the past two weeks,” said Mohamed Abdi Tol, the commissioner of Bakool region. He spoke from the town of Hudur, which militants have encircled.

Humanitarian officials have been warning for months that large areas of Somalia risk mass hunger later this year. In 2011, famine hit Somalia, killing an estimated 260,000 people.

Amos told the Security Council that only 19 percent of the $933 million aid leaders are asking for has been funded. Emergency needs in Syria and South Sudan have put a squeeze on aid funds for Somalia.

Earlier this week, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned that a below average harvest is expected in July and August due in part to two weak rainy seasons.

Most of the families fleeing from southern Somalia are arriving in the capital, Mogadishu, and piling into crowded refugee camps. One new arrival is Fatima Isaaq, the matriarch of a cow-herding family that lived for months under a militant blockade.

“We left behind everything to survive,” she said. “There was no food medicine or supplies. We had no choice but to flee.”

___

Associated Press writer Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Expecting to Feed 6.5 Million Ethiopians -United Nations

GENEVA — The World Food Program will help to feed nearly 6.5 million Ethiopians this year, the U.N. agency said on Tuesday, with the country hit by locusts, neighboring war and sparse rainfall.

“We are concerned because there is the beginning of a locust invasion in the eastern part of the country, and if it’s not properly handled it could be of concern for the pastoralist population living there,” WFP spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

“And in the northern part of Ethiopia there has been less rain than average for the third or fourth consecutive year.”

Ethiopia is also dealing with growing refugee numbers due to the conflict in neighboring South Sudan, sapping WFP’s budget for feeding new arrivals in the country, which is at risk of a shortfall as soon as next month.

More than 120,000 South Sudanese have crossed over into Ethiopia in the past six months, mostly women and children who are arriving “famished, exhausted and malnourished”, WFP said in a statement.

The recent influx has brought total refugee numbers to 500,000 in Ethiopia. The U.N. also provides food for millions of needy or undernourished Ethiopians, including 670,000 school children and 375,000 in HIV/AIDS programs.

Ethiopia’s overall situation has vastly improved over recent years and the economy now ranks as one of the fastest growing in Africa. But deep problems remain.

Malnutrition has stunted the growth of two out of every five Ethiopian children and reduced the country’s workforce by 8 percent, WFP said, citing Ethiopian government data.

The International Monetary Fund expects Ethiopia’s economy to grow 7.5 percent in each of the next two fiscal years but says the government needs to encourage more private sector investment to prevent growth rates from falling thereafter.

- See more at: http://www.tadias.com/05/13/2014/united-nations-expecting-to-feed-6-5-million-ethiopians-this-year/#sthash.VjMPxGzo.dpuf

South Sudan 3.7million facing famine crisis » peoplesworld

by: BRIAN MCAFEE

tags: Famine, agriculture, refugees, civil war, oil, colonialism

Over 3.7 million people in this new African nation of 11 million are at severe risk of starvation. Conditions in South Sudan now parallel those of Ethiopia in the 1980s when hundreds of thousands died from famine. Toby Lanzer, the UN official coordinating humanitarian aid in South Sudan says "we're in a race against time."

Aside from the urgent immediate need, the civil war currently raging in South Sudan, which was the initial cause of the problems, the planting season is at risk and a lack of crops will further add to the already dire situation. With possibly over 4 million displaced people what is needed is food, water, shelter and protection.

Doctors Without Borders recently criticized the UN for not responding adequately to squalid conditions at the "Juba base, Tomping, where the displaced live in a low-lying area separated by a barbed-wire fence from empty dry space within the compound."

Some 21,000 people live at the camp alone.

President Obama has issued an executive order threatening sanctions against those responsible for the ongoing violence.

South Africa's former president Thabo Mbeki pointing to an inner party crisis in the country's leadership urges political parties close to the South Sudan ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to work toward resolving the conflict, claiming government's are unable to address the internal issues. A conflict between the country's president and vice-president sparked the current violence in December.

It is a very rough start for one of the world's youngest nations where a very large number of the displaced are children including thousands are orphans .Most of the refugees who have fled South Sudan are in Ethiopia.

Aid organizations that are helping South Sudan refugees:

• The UN High Commissioner for refugees
• Oxfam America
• Doctors without borders
• Médecins Sans Frontières