Humanitarian response inadequate in Horn of Africa crisis

This report describes the crisis from Kenya’s refugee camps and Wajir in the north, as millions of people in the Horn of Africa are affected by the devastating drought and famine. The famine in Somalia that has sent a tide of refugees into the Dadaab refugee camps 100 km across the border in Kenya has recently drawn international attention, but in fact the problem has been building for years, and reached a crucial point months ago.

Some key points about the crisis include:

• a total of 3·7 million people are considered to be food insecure, and most of these are in need of immediate, lifesaving assistance. More than 390 000 children are estimated to be acutely malnourished, nearly half of them severely.
• The severity of the crisis is underlined by the fact that large numbers of children older than 5 years are malnourished. The UN is going to start therapeutic feeding programmes for these children as well as the younger children, which is highly unusual.
• Contrary to popular perception, much of the problem in Somalia is not always due to a lack of food, but rather its high price and the inability of the population to afford it.
• Attention has been focused on the plight of people fleeing the conflict in Somalia in the Horn of Africa crisis. But the total number of people affected by the drought in the region is about 12 million, and only about a third of those are fleeing war-torn Somalia.
• There are signs of progress in some places, but so far they have been on too small a scale to make a big difference.
• Unfortunately, the amounts put toward long-term development and infrastructure have not been sufficient to prevent the current crisis, which was anticipated by international agencies and the Kenyan Government in autumn, 2010.
  
• Those most affected are pastoral communities, overwhelmingly poor people who have no buffer for the two seasons of drought, inflation of 12%, and skyrocketing food prices of more than 200%.
• Aid groups say that in addition to more food aid, the government and donors could have made a big difference if they had dug emergency borehole wells for use during the drought, as well as increased support for child and animal health.

The author concludes that in the long term, the biggest help would come from better basic infrastructure, particularly a good road that would connect the northern provinces to Nairobi. This would serve to give pastoralists a market for their animals and would lower the price of importing goods. An overall economic boost would do more for giving the communities here resistance to drought than one-off feeding and health programmes.