Secretary Clinton Pledges Additional Aid For Horn Of Africa

As the drought in East Africa continues to claim lives, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued Thursday that it is time for Washington to do more. 

While addressing a small group at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Thursday, Clinton announced that Washington would send an additional $17 million in aid to the hunger-wrenched region of East Africa. Of that sum, $12 million will be donated directly to those starving in Somalia. 

This aid brings the total US humanitarian assistance in East Africa this year to more than $580 million. 

“We must remember that time is not on our side. Every minute, more people die, more people become sick and more people flee their homes,” Clinton warned in her speech to IFPRI, an organization that develops sustainable solutions for ending poverty and hunger across the world,

The UN announced Wednesday that 3.7 million people in Somalia are at risk of famine and more than 12 million are affected by the drought across the horn of Africa. Additionally, ten percent of Somali children under five are dying every 11 weeks due to the famine. 

Clinton emphasized that in addition to providing aid for the current crisis, Washington must also invest efforts into preventing such tragic occurrences in the future.

“We must maintain our focus on the future by continuing to invest in long-term food security in countries that are susceptible to drought and food shortages,” Clinton remarked.

Dr. Jill Biden and Senator Bill Frist echoed these same sentiments in an op-ed entitled “Let’s Save Starving Somalis” that will be published in the USA Today on Friday.

“We must also confront the broader challenge of food insecurity that leaves so many people vulnerable to droughts like this one. That’s why America has been helping nations like Ethiopia and Kenya develop innovative and improved crops and irrigation methods and new ways for farmers to market and transport their products.The goal of our aid is simple: to help create the conditions where such aid is no longer needed.” Biden and Frist wrote.

“We have a crisis and we must respond,” Clinton continued in her speech. “We must try to support those refugee camps and do everything we can to provide the immediate help that is needed. Let’s use this opportunity to make very clear what more we need to do together to try to avoid this happening again.”

UN Declares State of Famine in Somalia, Says Tens of Thousands Dead from Starvation, Millions More At Risk

Tens of thousands of Somalis, mostly children, have died from acute malnutrition in the last three months and thousands will follow unless the international community takes urgent action say senior UN humanitarian officials.  

The world body today declared the food crisis had reached famine levels in Southern Somalia’s Lower Shabelle and Southern Bankool region, with acute malnutrition rates exceeding 30% in children and a daily crude death rate over two per 10 000 people. These levels have not been reached since the famine of the early 1990’s which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

UN Humanitarian coordinator Mark Bowden says child malnutrition rates in certain regions of the country are as high as 50% and warned other regions could soon reach such levels. 

“We still do not have all the resources for food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need,” Bowden told reporters in a video conference from Nairobi. “If we don’t act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks.”

UN agencies estimate that over 60 percent of those in the Southern Region of Somalia (2.8 million people) are in urgent need of lifesaving assistance. Bowden says a rapid large scale humanitarian response could still save lives but so far, the international community’s response and financial commitment has been insufficient. 

“We estimate that $300 million is needed to address the famine in the next two months. This is a rough estimate and the number will probably increase as the number of people in need rises,” said Bowden.

Both EU and African states have been criticized for failing to recognize the severity of the situation and providing a substantial amount of assistance. Bowden says a drop in US assistance over the last two years, from Somalia’s largest international donor to the 7th or 8th largest, made the situation in the country worse.

US officials have blamed the decrease on Al Shabaab, a radical islamic militant group listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department, who in the past has been accused of from commandeering aid and preventing humanitarian organizations from accessing those in need.

Last week Al- Shabaab announced it would allow humanitarian deliveries to parts of the country it controls, but US Ambassador Susan Rice expressed some doubt over their intentions.

“They [Al-Shabaab] say they’ve lifted [the restrictions] after two years of starving their own people. We’ll see if those restrictions are lifted on the ground. Neither the United States nor others in the international community are prepared to pay bribes or taxes to Al-Shabaab while it starves its own people. The question is whether Al-Shabaab will finally, in the face of a massive famine, allow its people to access the critical humanitarian resources that they need.”

WFP Faces $190 Million Budget Shortfall Amidst Growing Food Crisis

The World Food Program (WFP) faces the challenge of helping over 10 million people in need of emergency food aid in the Horn of Africa over the next few months, despite being handicapped by a $190 million budget shortfall.

Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, and other countries in Eastern Africa have been hit by severe and prolonged drought, dramatically increased food prices, skyrocketing fuel prices, and in some countries, political instability.

“WFP has really been gearing up its operations. We think we will have to feed six million people in the area.” Chief WFP Spokesperson Bettina Luescher told Talk Radio News. “It’s very challenging to do that, especially because we are so under funded,” 

The WFP isn’t the only organization facing severe budget deficits. Oxfam International, an NGO operating in 98 countries worldwide, needs $80 million for its campaign in Africa to reach 3 million people across Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya. 

“This is the worst food crisis of the 21st Century and we are seriously concerned that large numbers of lives could soon be lost,” Jane Cocking, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Director said in a statement posted on the organizations website. “Two successive poor rains, entrenched poverty and lack of investment in affected areas have pushed 12 million people into a fight for survival. People have already lost virtually everything and the crisis is only going to get worse over the coming months – we need funds to help us reach people with life-saving food and water.”  

 The crisis has also forced tens of thousands of people from their home, in search of food and greater humanitarian aid.

 “What we are seeing is that population movements and drought are factors that makes it so hard for the people, but at the same time food prices have risen dramatically, sometimes in some areas 30%, in other areas prices have doubled.” Luescher told Talk Radio News. 

 Malnourished children represent a large portion of the migrating population. According to a UNHCR report, more than 50% of Somali children arriving in refugee camps are “seriously malnourished”

“The children are always the biggest concern because they are the most vulnerable. But especially for the children and nursing moms, we give them special extra food so that they can recover.” says Luescher.“We have seen, for example in Ethiopia, where the refugees from Somalia are coming in, you have a acute malnutrition rate of 45% of these little kids that are coming in to the camps, triple what is usually already considered an emergency threshold. It is a dramatic situation and we have mobilized all of our forces and are working with our UN partners “

 The current security situation in Somalia has also caused tremendous complications for the WFP. 

 WFP officials say Al-Shabaab, the Islamic militant organization, has proven to be a tremendous “headache” in the distribution of food aid. Just last year, the WFP had to pull out of Southern Somalia because of unreasonable demands made by Al-Shabaab officials who apparently threatened WFP staff members and demanded payment. Luescher described the decision to pull out as “one of the hardest decisions you ever have to make as an aid organization,”

 A few days ago, Al-Shabaab reportedly decided to lift a ban on humanitarian organizations supplying food aid to Somalis, but it is unclear how quickly organizations will be able to resume operations in affected areas.

UN: Somalia Group Shuns Aid For The Starving

The people in southern Somalia desperately need food aid but the Al-Shabaab militant Islamist organization will not allow aid agencies to ship food into the area, a senior UN Official said Wednesday. 

 Al Shabaab controls much of Somalia outside the capital Mogadishu and the population in the countryside is bearing the brunt of one of the worst food crises to hit the Horn of Africa in decades.

“The Shabaab don’t want to accept food aid into the area, and this is a time when we actually need food to go into the area to have an impact on prices.” United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Mark Bowden told a press conference in New York today. “The Shabaab are accepting certain types of aid but they have a strong position against food aid…I would hope that [Al-Shabaab] would see the severity of the situation would require food assistance.”

UN agencies say the crisis is affecting more than 10 million people through out Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda, while other parts of the region experiencing “pre-famine conditions.”

Bowden says the root cause of the current situation is rising food prices, which have been exacerbated by the devastating effects of a drought on local farmers. 

“The drought of last year severely effected local food productions,” said Bowden. “That coupled with international food price rises has created a situation in Somalia where large proportions of the population both urban and rural are not in a position to meet their food needs and the levels of distress are increasing throughout the country.” 

Food costs in Somalia have shot up 270% in the past year alone, and although it remains available in markets, the dramatic increases have pushed prices well beyond the means of the most of the population.

 Bowden says the international community has to take immediate action before the situation deteriorates any further. 

“If we are not able to respond rapidly and effectively there will be many more lives lost as a result of malnutrition.”

Most recent reports indicate 30 % of Somali children suffer from global acute malnutrition, a number expected to grow significantly in the coming months.

Global food prices up 43 percent

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on “Responding to the Global Food Crisis,” focusing in particular on U.S. agricultural investment in foreign nations and how the development of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels have contributed to the rise in food prices.

Edward Lazear, chairman for the Council of Economic Advisors, said that global food inflation was 43 percent during the 12 months ending in March 2008. He emphasized that Americans spend less than 14 percent of total expenditures on food, while Africans spend about 43 percent and for the poorest populations in Sub-Saharan Africa subsisting on less than one dollar per day, this figure may be as high as 70 percent.

Lazear testified that wheat prices have increased 123 percent, soybeans 66 percent, corn 37 percent, and rice 36 percent. Emerging market consumption, he said, has increased by 45 percent from 2001 to 2007 compared to 1991 to 2000, and that this increase in demand accounts for about 18 percent of the rise in food prices. Other factors, he said, are adverse weather conditions that destroy crops and to a smaller degree, ethanol production. He said that the world’s ethanol production accounts for approximately 13 percent of this year’s 37 percent increase in corn prices, and since corn makes up a small fraction of the International Monetary Fund’s Global Food Index, it is responsible for only about 1.2 percent of the year’s 43 percent total global food price increase.

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Henrietta Fore testified that the world’s one billion poorest people are living on one U.S. dollar per day, and that while Africa and Asia suffer most from this kind of poverty, Haiti is also facing a crisis. She also said that three-quarters of the world’s poorest people living on less than 50 cents per day are located in Africa. She advocated changing trade policies that present barriers to food supply and said that U.S. agricultural investment would be “enormously positive.” She mentioned that “even short term hunger” can “unalterably” affect a child through increased risk for disease, cognitive and developmental malfunction, and early death.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) said that people in nearly 40 countries face food shortages and potential civil unrest as a result. In 1980, he said, agricultural projects accounted for 30 percent of World Bank spending, whereas in 2007 that number was less than 13 percent. Along with Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE), he called for a “second Green Revolution” to increase agricultural research, development, and investment in order to augment yield per acre of crops by improving techniques. He said such an initiative would “benefit developed and developing countries alike,” as would removing trade barriers and tariffs. He also said that ethanol research cannot be curtailed because of its contribution to food price increases because it would put additional pressure on oil prices, which he emphasized is already at $120 per barrel.