UN: 'Famine has Ended'

About a week ago the United Nations declared the famine in the Horn of Africa was ‘over’. They were implying that the short rains from November-December had returned to non-emergency levels producing new harvest for many.

My field visits so far interacting with recipients of various development and disaster response projects have told a very different story. Communities unanimously insisted that they are still struggling with water and are still need food and other types of assistance. Indeed, I believe much of is a plea to continue getting food aid which can distort the reality of the situation. Yet I believe it also attests to the fact that food insecurity is not 'over'. The reality is that, while rains have returned, they will again fail.

In the past dozen years the UN has declared famine twice and droughts have been even more frequent. I do not believe this is ‘crying wolf’ on behalf of communities or international institutions. Many Kenyans face challenges with food security from year to year, and these are very real. It was explained to me once that "going to bed hungry isn't that big of a deal here" (certainly not something I can relate well to). In fact that has, in some cases, become the new normal.

So what happens when drought becomes the new normal? Will a drought continue to be an 'emergency'? Or just business-as-usual? And how should different organizations and governments respond to this; what should interventions look like?

Studies have been done that show in areas where drough occurred every seven to eight years, are now occurring every one to two years. There is an emerging shift in climate patterns that exasperate communities' and households' abilities to be more secure.

To me this indicates the earths already changing climate. Climate scientists have long agreed that the climate is changing, in many ways they are predicting disasters in the furutre: rising sea levels, resource conflicts, failed harvest and increase in the spread of certain diseases, and a whole host of other consequences. But in my view, the effects of climate change are already clearly being seen and experienced by many. Those in already insecure positions of poverty and of the highest vulnerability in adapting to these changes. And these effects are already taking their toll on human health, finances, and general security especially in the area of water.

With that being said, droughts are directly attributed the lack of rains; overall famines and the severity of them often have to do with political, economics, and other factors (see this post). The nobel peace prize economist, Amartya Sen, noted this in his essay "Poverty and Famines" and it certainly resounds today: the issue here is one of justice, of accessibility and equality, not simply availability or the existence of food. 


While I certainly don't have solutions for thus it has been in my thoughts and mind during my work here. It certainly has a lot to say of the role of relief, importance of development and policy work and for new types of innovation and thinking. I find it a privilege to work with an organization that is looking at innovation in their interventions, but I am often challenged by the needs for donors, governments and NGOs alike to begin re-thinking food security.

 *All photos were taken by Bethany Duffield during a goat re-distribution in a Masai community (recipients of relief from previous years had bred and shared the offspring of their goats with new beneficiaries).