Famine in Africa
More than half of
Africa is now in
need of urgent
food assistance.
The UN's Food
and Agriculture
Organisation
(FAO) is warning
that 27 subSaharan countries
now need help.
BBC News 31st January 2006
Causes of Famine
• Many farmers say that rains have become less reliable in
recent years, which could be the result of global warming.
• The Sahara Desert is certainly expanding to the south,
making life increasingly difficult for farmers and pastoralists
in places like Niger.
• Also, rising populations have led people to farm on
increasingly marginal land, even more at risk from even a
slight decline in rainfall.
• Southern Africa has the world's highest rates of HIV/Aids
and this is a major factor in that region's food crisis.
• Some of those who should be the most productive farmers
- young men and women - are either sick or have died, so
their fields are being left untended, while their children go
hungry.
Causes of Famine
• It is particularly striking that the FAO highlights
political problems such as civil strife, refugee
movements and returnees in 15 of the 27
countries it declares in need of urgent
assistance.
• By comparison drought is only cited in 12 out of
27 countries.
• The implication is clear - Africa's years of wars,
coups and civil strife are responsible for more
hunger than the natural problems that befall it.
In essence Africa's hunger is the product of a series of
interrelated factors. Africa is a vast continent, and no one factor
can be applied to any particular country.
But four issues are critical:
• Decades of underinvestment in rural areas, which have little political
clout
• Wars and political conflict, leading to refugees and instability.
• HIV/Aids depriving families of their most productive labour.
• Unchecked population growth
Famine in Africa
• Famine occurs when a region does not have
enough food for a long period of time.
• People who are starving can die from
malnutrition.
• Famines are both human-made and natural.
• Drought, or lack of rain, makes food scarce
because crops die.
Famine in Africa
• Human forces, like wars, can also cause food
shortages.
• People in a region can be without food
because its cost is too high.
• All of these factors have led to famines in
Africa.
Famine in Africa
• Famines in Africa today are the result of poor
food distribution and poverty.
• There is enough food on Earth for everyone to
eat well.
• However, many people live where they cannot
grow food.
• People also live where food cannot be easily
transported.
Causes:
Poverty
Poverty and Famine
Poverty is at the heart of Africa's problems. This is an overview
of some of the economic challenges facing the continent.
• Most of Sub-Saharan Africa is in the World Bank's lowest
income category of less than $765 Gross National Income
(GNI) per person per year.
• Ethiopia and Burundi are the worst off with just $90 GNI per
person.
• Even middle income countries like Gabon and Botswana have
sizeable sections of the population living in poverty.
• North Africa generally fares better than Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Here, the economies are more stable, trade and tourism are
relatively high and AIDS is less prevalent.
• Development campaigners have argued that the rules on
debt, aid and trade need reforming to help lift more African
nations out of poverty.
Poverty and Famine
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The basic problem is poverty.
Most Africans live in rural areas, where many are subsistence farmers,
dependent on a good harvest to get enough food to eat.
There are hardly any irrigation systems, so people rely on the rains.
If one rainy season fails, people have very few savings - in either food or
cash - to see them through.
Even in good years, there is a "hungry season", when last year's harvests
have run out and the next crops are not yet ripe.
While people were starving in parts of Niger last year, shops in the capital,
Niamey, were full of food but many could not afford to buy it.
In both the Horn of Africa and Niger, some of the most vulnerable were
pastoralists, whose animals quickly succumbed when there was nothing
left to graze.
When the animals die, their owners have no other way of getting enough
food to eat.
Some say that the pastoralist lifestyle is no longer sustainable.
Causes:
Debt
Debt and Famine
• The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative (HIPC) was set up in
1996 to reduce the debt of the poorest countries.
• Poor countries are eligible for the scheme if they face unsustainable
debt that cannot be reduced by traditional methods.
• They also have to agree to follow certain policies of good governance
as defined by the World Bank and the IMF.
• Once these are established the country is at "decision point" and the
amount of debt relief is established.
• Critics of the scheme say the parameters are too strict and more
countries should be eligible for HIPC debt relief.
• This map shows how much "decision point" HIPC countries spend on
repaying debts and interest.
• Fourteen African HIPC countries will have their debts totally written
off under a new plan drawn up by the G8 finance ministers (2005).
Causes:
Reliance on
aid
Reliance on Aid and Famine
• Africa receives about a third of the total aid given by governments
around the world, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
• Much of this has conditions attached, meaning governments must
implement certain policies to receive the aid or must spend the
money on goods and services from the donor country.
• The World Bank, which is reviewing its conditionality policies, argues
that aid is far more effective, and less vulnerable to corruption, when
coupled with improved governance.
• There was a sharp drop in rich countries' relative spending on aid in
the late 1990s.
• The Make Poverty History campaign urged the G8 to raise an extra
$50bn more in aid per year and to enforce earlier pledges for
developed countries to give 0.7% of their annual GDP in aid.
Famine in Africa
• Tens of millions of people across more than half the
states in sub-Saharan Africa need urgent food aid,
but the causes are often complex and varied.
• Food crises were once primarily triggered by natural
disasters like droughts.
• But according to research by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization, man-made causes are
increasingly to blame.
• These include conflict and poor governance, as well
as HIV/Aids.
• Rural poverty, international trade barriers,
overpopulation, deforestation, poor use of land and
environmental problems can also be factors.
Famine in Africa
• Many famines have taken place in the Horn of Africa.
• The Horn of Africa is a large peninsula in the
northeast region of the continent.
• Famines in this region include the Ethiopian Famine
of the mid-1980s, which is estimated to have killed
over a million people.
• This famine was made worse by high food prices and
overpopulation,
Famine in Africa
• On the continent, the risk of famine is highest
in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Today, Niger, southern Sudan, Somalia, and
Zimbabwe are areas with emergency famine
status.
• Africa’s greatest humanitarian crisis is in
Darfur, in western Sudan.
• A humanitarian crisis is one in which many
human lives are at risk in a region.
Africa's Permanent Food Crisis
• More than 30 million people are going
hungry across Africa from the west, to the
horn and the south, says the UN's World
Food Programme.
• Poor rains have contributed to the problem
but the root causes are many and complex.
Which countries are worst affected?
• At the moment, the Horn of Africa is worst hit, especially Somalia,
north-eastern Kenyan and Ethiopia.
• Some 11 million people need food aid in the region after poor rains,
the WFP says.
• About half of these are on the brink of starvation and need urgent
help.
• In West Africa, the WFP plans to help about 10 million people. Last
year's rains and harvests were not too bad but aid workers say that
endemic poverty and conflict mean lots of people still need help.
• Aid workers do not want to repeat the mistakes made in Niger last
year (2005), when little was done to help the hungry until television
pictures of starving children shocked the world.
• Further south, about 12 million need food aid in countries such as
Malawi and Zimbabwe, says the WFP.
4. Drought
Horn of Africa disaster
• Caused by two consecutive poor
rainy seasons begun in 2010
• Complicated by war, restricted
access of NGOs
Horn of Africa disaster
• Ethiopia: 3.2 million
• Kenya: 3.5 million
• Somalia: 2.8 million
• Djibouti: 100,000+
Horn of Africa disaster
• Worst impact in Somalia
• 15,000 fleeing daily, every
month in 2011
• Arriving in Kenya, Ethiopia
Horn of Africa disaster
• Six camps in Ethiopia house
130,000 Somalis
• Dadaab camp in Kenya now
largest refugee camp worldwide
Horn of Africa disaster
• Food prices rising
• Grain in Kenya 30%-80% higher
than normal
• Moving out of reach of
households
Horn of Africa disaster
• Refugee camps overwhelmed
• Conflict and clashes in camps
• Could destabilize border nations
Horn of Africa disaster
• Malnutrition issue worse: 1 in 3
children malnourished
• Impact on local economy
severe: long-term effects
Horn of Africa disaster
• Size and scope and issues lead
many countries to give up
helping
• World Food Program short by
33%.
Horn of Africa disaster
• Somalia has dropped ban on
non-Muslim NGOs
• Al Shabab “welcomes nonMuslim foreign aid groups”
ETHIOPIA
• Estimated population:
77.43m
• Projected number needing
food aid: 1.7m
Key underlying reasons:
• Drought
• Refugees
• High food prices
• Overpopulation
NIGER
• Estimated population:
13.95m
• Projected number needing
food aid: 3m
Key underlying reasons:
• After-effects of 2004
drought and locusts
DEMOCRATIC REP. OF
CONGO
• Estimated population: 57.54m
• Projected number needing food
aid: 3m
Key underlying reasons:
• Conflict
• Refugees
• War, malnutrition and disease
have killed at least 3.8m people in
the Democratic Republic of Congo
in the last seven years.
SUDAN
• Estimated population: 36.23m
• Projected number needing food
aid: 6.1m
Key underlying reasons:
• Conflict in western Darfur region
has displaced 2m people
• South recovering from longrunning civil war
• Drought in parts
• Where farming is taking place, it
is on a very small scale with most
people cultivating with a simple
hand tool called a 'maloda'.
Ethiopia
• Difficult Environment:
– Deep Canyons  Isolated Villages
– Crops Depend on Erratic Rainfall
– Prolonged Drought  Famine
Nutritional problems of children in Ethiopia
• Ethiopia is one of the most food insecure
countries in the world having both chronic and
transitory food insecurity and frequent attacks
of famine in the recent past
– Food insecurity incorporates- low food intake ,
variable access to food, and vulnerability
• Food insecurity is mostly associated with
drought, poor land management practices,
diseases, attack by pests, destruction of crops
by flood, etc..
Current estimated food security conditions: January
to March 2009
Source: FEWS NET and WFP Ethiopia
Nutritional problems ….
• Nutritional problems continue to
be the leading cause of morbidity
and mortality in children
• Manifest by
– Protein Energy Malnutrition ( PEM)
– Micronutrient malnutrition
• Vitamin A deficiency ( VAD )
• Iodine Deficiency disorders (IDDS)
• Iron Deficiency Anaemia (IDA)
Nutritional problems ….
• The plight usually starts during
intrauterine life with maternal
malnutrition
(during and prior to pregnancy)
• Continues to childhood with the
same condition
(Feeding, Health Care,
Environment)
«Hidden» death due to malnutrition in
Ethiopia
80% of the death due to malnutrition is contributed
for by Mild and Moderate Malnutrition
Mild &
Moderate
Severe
Only 1 in 5 malnutrition-related deaths
is due to severe malnutrition
Malnutrition and intellectual development
Reduced:
•
Learning ability
•
School performance
•
Retention rates
Effects: Question of African
Unity
More Problems in African Nations
•Living Standards
–most in poverty, lack capital for development
–Foreign investors deterred by political instability
•African Unity
–Haile Selassie believed that the differences
(linguistic, racial, economic, and political) too vast
and recommended a loose organization of nations
–OAU (Organization of African Unity)
Goals of OAU: African Unity
•Loose Confederation
–Heads of state meet once a year
–Council meets every 6 months
–Commission of Mediation and Conciliation to settle
inter-African disputes
•African Cooperation
–Foreign policy, defense, economics, education
•Liberation of all African territories still under foreign rule
–Worked to end white rule in S. Africa