Somalia- Famine

Somalia- Famine

1. Background

   • In summer 2011, one of the worst droughts in 60 years hit the Horn of Africa, affecting Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. In most years, Somalia experiences two distinct rainy seasons: one in the spring and a second, heavier one in the fall. While this pattern varies from year to year it is fairly predictable, but this year very low rainfall resulted in the worst annual crop production in 17 years, excess animal mortality, and very high food prices. While all of the countries of East Africa were affected by drought and associated declines in food production, Somalia’s drought lead to famine.

2. Causes

   • Production failure- A two-year drought has caused a record food inflation, particularly in the expectation of the next harvest being 50% of normal. Somalia already had levels of malnutrition and premature mortality so high as to be in a “normalized” state of permanent emergency, so it was hard to decide when aid is needed as permanent aid will be hard to maintain over long periods of time.
     • Access failure: The drought has killed off the pastoralists’ prime livestock assets (up to 90% animal mortality in some areas), slashing further their purchasing power. In addition Somalia severe internal conflict has made development almost impossible to achieve and data difficult to access both accurately and credibly. Also extemist group, Al-Shabab made it very hard for aid companies to get to the people that needed it.
       • Response failure: The overall international donor response to this humanitarian crisis has been slow and inadequate. According to UN figures, $1 billion is required to meet immediate needs. So far donors have committed less than $200m, leaving an $800 million black hole. The donors reacted too late and too cautiously.

3. Impacts

   • - The Horn of Africa crisis of 2011-2012 affected 13 million people -In late July 2011, the UN declared the situation in parts of southern Somalia to be a famine in which 3.7 million people – nearly half the country’s population – faced a humanitarian crisis, but most of the issues facing the country were not new.
     • >1.5 billion people internally displaced in Somalia
       • 250,000 people are at risk of starvation in Somalia
         • 13.3 people need humanitarian assistance.
           • Every day 2,000 Somali refugees cross the border into Ethiopia, and another 1,200 cross into Kenya, according to the World Food Program. Already, there are more than 700,000 refugees in Kenya and Ethiopia, with another.
             • Half of all deaths were children under the age of five

4. Responses

   • Problems
     • In some areas of Somalia,aid was very slow and lead to more deaths of famine. the 260,000 deaths were avoidable. The worst affected areas of Somalia were under the control of the Islamist group al-Shabaab, engaged in a war with the then Somali transitional federal government (TFG), itself supported by the west. Western donor governments were alarmed at the possibility of their aid being captured by an adversary in the war on terror, and introduced a plethora of initiatives to minimise the risk.
       • Also early warning signs were ignored by donor governments and humanitarian agencies. Fewsnet and FSNAU flagged the impending tragedy with increasing urgency, producing more than 70 early warning bulletins and undertaking a similar number of briefings with agencies and donor governments. Had the international community responded, early interventions could have been undertaken to shore up livelihoods and prevent the downward spiral into destitution and starvation.
   • November 2010 UN launches Somalia 2011 CAP, original requirement US$529.5 million, revised requirements US$1.0 billion.
     • July 2011 Peak in funding to CAP of US$242 million
       • February 2012 UN declares an end to the famine
         • December 2012 Three-year UN CAP agreed. First year funding requirements US$1.33 billion