Horn of Africa: UNICEF urges airlines to cut costs of delivering aid

Source: Global Food Security Crises

2 August 2011 – As aid agencies continue to scale up their response to the dire humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is appealing to the air transport sector to provide free and discounted cargo space to bring emergency food supplies into the region.

“Commercial air transport costs as much as the value of the food,” Marixie Mercado, UNICEF’s spokesperson in Geneva, told a news conference there.

British Airways, Lufthansa, UPS Virgin and Cargolux have already offered free or discounted cargo space, and UNICEF is appealing to other carriers to help transport food aid from Europe to the region to help children who will die without it.

Drought in the Horn of Africa has ravaged large areas of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, leaving an estimated 12.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid. UN agencies and their partners are seeking $1.4 billion so they can scale up their response to the hunger crisis, which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Yesterday UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos warned that the famine in two areas of southern Somalia could spread to five or six more regions unless there is a massive increase in funding.

Ms. Mercado stated that more than half of the 2.3 million acutely malnourished children in the Horn of Africa could die unless they are fed within weeks.

Every month, UNICEF had about 5,000 tons of therapeutic and supplementary food to move from warehouses in Belgium, France and Italy – enough to feed 300,000 malnourished children.

This food has to be brought into Nairobi as quickly as possible, and bringing it by air is extremely costly, she noted. The other alternative is to transport the food via sea, for which UNICEF is setting up a pipeline, but that would take several more weeks.

“The caseload is quite extraordinary,” said Louis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF’s Director of Emergency Programmes, who just returned to New York from a trip to the Horn of Africa. “Having the airlines to support us would be most welcome, and I think there’s a lot of goodwill out there to do just that.”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today that its ability to deliver much-needed aid is being hampered by the ongoing fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

There were already more than 370,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mogadishu before the recent drought- and famine-related displacement, which has driven some 100,000 others into the war-ravaged city, according to the agency.

“The ongoing offensive is negatively affecting the ability of UNHCR and other partners to deliver assistance to populations in distress at a time when their needs are most urgent,” said UNHCR spokesperson Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba. “We need to maintain access to these people.”

Meanwhile, the flow of refugees from Somalia into Kenya continues unabated, with more than 40,000 Somalis arriving in the Dadaab refugee complex – already the largest and most congested in the world – in July. This is the highest monthly arrival rate in the camp’s 20-year history, UNHCR said.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said it is continuing to work in areas affected by the hunger crisis, especially in Somalia where other agencies had severe access problems. The agency is trying to provide cash-for-work programmes, helping famine-hit farmers and herders in Somalia to feed their families.

FAO is following this up with the distribution of seeds and tools, water trucking, vaccination and treatment of animals, meaning that households could quickly resume their farming and livelihoods production in time for the coming rains in September and October, spokesperson Sandra Aviles told reporters.

She also warned that the existence of large displaced populations was placing an enormous strain on the host communities in Kenya and Ethiopia, along with the natural resources of the surrounding areas, and could lead to tension over access to vital resources.

Famine in Somalia: The story you are not likely to hear any time soon

by RASNA WARAH

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Source: Daily Nation

I knew the real story about the famine in northern Kenya and Somalia would probably never be told when I watched a young foreign aid worker “reporting” the famine for CNN in Dadaab camp.

The young white woman, clearly coached to use the opportunity of her CNN appearance to publicise her organisation, wore a T-shirt that had the word OXFAM emblazoned on it.

The look of self-righteous, politically-correct compassion was evident on her face as she talked of starving children and emaciated mothers walking for miles in search of food.

Predictably, CNN viewers saw images of skeletal children and exhausted women with shrivelled breasts, images that have launched a multi-million dollar fund-raising campaign by the UN and donor agencies.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has asked donors to raise $1.6 billion to assist Somalia alone.

Meanwhile, dozens of humanitarian agencies are clamouring to make an appearance in Dadaab in order to raise funds for their own organisations. Dutch journalist Linda Polman calls it “The Crisis Caravan”.

In her book by the same name, Polman says that an entire industry has grown around humanitarian aid, “with cavalcades of organisations following the flow of money and competing with each other in one humanitarian territory after another for the biggest achievable share of billions.”

According to Polman, disasters like the one in Somalia attract an average 1,000 national and international aid organisations. This doesn’t include “briefcase” charities that collect funds through churches, clubs and bake-sales.

Much of the money raised goes to administrative and logistical costs of aid agencies, including the salaries of bright-eyed aid workers, such as the one described above, who drive big cars and live in nice houses, but tell people back home they live in hardship areas where they help starving Africans.

Are people starving? Yes. Should they be helped? Of course. But how much of the food that is supposed to be distributed will most likely be stolen by militia or find its way to shops where it will be sold?

Also obscured in the media hype is the real cause of famine in places such as Somalia. In a recent article, Michel Chossudovsky, professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and founder of the Centre for Research on Globalisation, argues that in the 1980s, agriculture in Somalia was severely affected by economic reforms imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. Somalia remained self-sufficient in food until the late 1970s despite recurrent droughts, he writes.

The economic reforms, which included austerity measures and privatisation of essential services, destabilised the economy and destroyed agriculture.

Wages in the public sector were drastically reduced, urban purchasing power declined dramatically and the cost of fuel, fertiliser and farm inputs shot up. This set the stage for the civil war in 1991, from which Somalia has yet to recover.

Famine and food aid became the norm, as hundreds of aid agencies set up shop to handle a crisis that was of their own making.

In short, Somalia became a “business opportunity” that provided jobs to hundreds, if not thousands of (mostly Western) aid agency employees.

Nicholas Stockton, a former Oxfam executive director, once called this phenomenon “the moral economy”.

Michael Maren, whose book, The Road to Hell, should be required reading for those who want to understand the politics and economy of food aid, shows how this aid suppressed local food production in Somalia, fuelled civil war and created a permanent food crisis.

This crisis and the lack of a strong, well-functioning central government have also resulted in a situation where aid agencies are zipping in and out of Somalia without any vetting by the government.

In effect, Somalia is being managed and controlled by aid agencies — the government is there in name only.

Unfortunately, this story is unlikely to be told on CNN, BBC, Sky TV or other global news networks that dominate the international news agenda.

And it will certainly not be told by the aid workers whose livelihoods depend on donor money that will soon flow into Somalia via Kenya.

Nor will the Somali people be given an opportunity to explain to viewers what impact food aid and foreign intervention have had on their lives.

E-mail: rasna.warah@gmail.com

Letter to Somali Diaspora from Mahiga

Nairobi, 3 August 2011                                                      Download letter to Somali Diaspora

As-Salaamu Alaikum,

Dear friends,

My warmest greetings to you all, wherever you are, at this most important time of the start of the Holy Month of Ramadan. Ramadan is a time for renewal so it is appropriate that I write to you now to update you on the situation and to take stock, together, of where we are.

As I write this all our thoughts are with those suffering from the terrible effects of the famine. It is truly heart wrenching to see the images of the starving children and their desperate parents unable to provide any food. The appalling stories of suffering from those who remained inside Somalia and those who walked for days and weeks to the refugee camps have moved us all deeply. The UN family is doing everything it can to bring supplies into the country and the region. Last week I attended the emergency meeting on the food and humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa, convened by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, where more than $120 million was pledged. I also saw for myself an airlift of food aid from Brindisi, Italy destined for the refugee camps.

I applaud the efforts of those Somalis who are raising funds and sending urgently needed aid to their brothers and sisters. While in Rome I met a group of Somalis from the Diaspora and was touched by their selfless desire to organize and ship humanitarian assistance to the famine-hit region and to increase the remittances they send back. I appeal to all those who are able - Somalis and the international community alike - to give as much as they can during this Holy Month to feed the hungry, heal the sick and prevent the famine spreading further.

And yet, in the midst of these crises, this is a hopeful moment. On the political side there have been some significant developments over the past few months. The Kampala Accord of June this year broke the political deadlock that had paralyzed the peace process. His Excellency, President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Honourable Speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden put their differences aside and, standing side by side, agreed to work together towards ending the Transition. I am extremely grateful to Uganda’s President, His Excellency Yoweri Museveni, for being the guarantor of the Accord which received rapid and overwhelming approval in the Somali Parliament. This new spirit of cooperation has continued with the timely selection and endorsement of a new Cabinet, well ahead of the deadline laid out in the Kampala Accord. I congratulate all concerned.

This is a time of opportunity. The new Government has one year to demonstrate it is serious about making progress. There is a huge amount to be achieved before August next year. The most pressing concern is the adoption of the Roadmap with priority given to the finalization of the draft constitution following wide consultations. There must also be significant progress on other priority tasks including improving security, legislative and governmental reform and national reconciliation and this must include the TFIs reaching out to the regions.

The UN will, of course, do its part. We are helping to draft the Roadmap which will chart the course forward in addressing the challenging political tasks ahead. This is a collaborative effort, headed by the Somali leadership but with input from the international community, in particular the AU, the East African Community, IGAD, the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Conference. These will also be involved in monitoring the progress of the Roadmap which will be discussed and endorsed at a High Level Consultative Meeting to be held in Somalia in the coming weeks.

Despite this progress, one of the contributing factors to the famine has been the ongoing fighting in the country. Some of the extremists are continuing their efforts to intimidate and cower the population by preventing the movement of people from the worst hit areas. We call for the humanitarian agencies to be given unhindered access to all areas to provide desperately needed help. Meanwhile the Transitional Federal Government, backed by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), is taking action right now to open up areas in Mogadishu to allow humanitarian aid to flow in. Sadly, even in the midst of this humanitarian crisis, the violence continues. The insecurity in many areas means that aid workers take huge risks to make their life-saving deliveries. And the opponents of peace continue to use their terrorist tactics to destabilize the country. Just this week a Somali parliamentarian, Khalif Jire Warfa, was shot dead as he left a mosque in Mogadishu in a cowardly attack which I strongly condemn.

We will continue to stand by you in the difficult days ahead. Almost thirty staff members from my office are now based in Somalia. I myself, my deputy, Christian Manahl, and my staff have made several trips to Mogadishu to discuss various issues with the leadership and a wide range of Somali interlocutors. We have also been to Garowe and Hargeisa and will continue to expand our offices throughout. I believe it is most important that we spend as much time in Somalia as possible to see the situation for ourselves and hear the views of those living there. Travelling to Mogadishu also provides a good opportunity to meet the AMISOM peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi who are doing a remarkable job in very difficult and dangerous circumstances. I salute their courage and their sacrifice.

I appeal to all Somalis, whether inside or outside Somalia, to work together to support the peace process and resolve what differences remain through dialogue and negotiation. This is a time of great crisis, but also of rare opportunity. It is a time for everyone to pull together to help those suffering and to work towards a better future for all.

During this Holiest Month in the Muslim calendar, let me take this opportunity to wish all of you Ramadan Kareem and to offer this one simple hope: let there be peace.

Yours Sincerely,

Augustine Mahiga