Famine No More?

One outcome of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia is the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — the U.S. government’s foreign aid arm.

FEWS NET monitors changes in climate to predict adverse events like drought and uses satellites to analyze agricultural production in famine-prone regions. At the same time, on-the-ground monitoring looks closely at food prices in local markets. “Alarm bells ring as soon as food prices begin to rise,” says David Scheiman, director of World Vision’s Africa programs.

The collection of such data is greatly facilitated by the surprisingly good cellphone coverage that now exists in much of Africa — technology that was unknown in the ’80s.

David is fond of recounting the story of Joseph in the Bible, who correctly interpreted Pharaoh’s dream indicating seven years of famine in Egypt. Armed with this information, Joseph proposed a plan to successfully withstand the calamity. “Similarly, with better information,” David says, “humanitarian organizations like World Vision can take more effective preventative measures against famine than ever before.”

USAID Administrator Dr. Raj Shah agrees, pointing out that FEWS NET indicated high risk in August 2010. “By September and October, we were able to provide early allocations of food security assistance to set up and work with a range of partners,” he says, “and to supplement some of the larger safety-net programs for [livestock-dependant] communities.”

Those safety-net programs, he adds, deserve the credit for keeping millions of people from starvation.

Therapeutic feeding products are a primary means of helping acutely malnourished children. One of the most exciting to emerge in recent years is Plumpy’nut — a peanut-based therapeutic food that requires no preparation or mixing with water. Parents can take the ready-to-eat packets home for their children. Plumpy’nut works fast and well. “I’ve personally seen children — little more than skeletons at death’s door — return to good health in weeks,” David says.

Even with better tools, no one could stop the drought emergency from escalating in Somalia into full-blown famine — the first in the 21st century. Why? David Scheiman and others note that this was the worst drought in 60 years, even more severe and widespread than the one that struck Ethiopia in the 1980s. Experts also point to climactic factors. Meteorologists have shown that mean temperatures in East Africa have risen by more than two degrees Fahrenheit in recent years. At the same time, rainfall has decreased. The combination makes growing crops more difficult and therefore tends to diminish available food supplies.

Drought-fueled hunger is a slow-onset emergency, which doesn’t always prompt quick action — even, some criticize, from the United Nations and Horn of Africa governments themselves. Aid organizations like World Vision often have difficulty focusing supporters’ attention on hunger, especially compared to more sudden, headline-grabbing crises such as tsunamis, floods, or earthquakes (see “Hunger Isn’t News,” page 20).

For example, following Japan’s major earthquake in March 2011, World Vision donors gave more than $59 million in just three months to support relief efforts there. By contrast, it took five months to raise $50 million for the Horn — only half the amount needed for ongoing relief in the region.

It’s important to note that even in the driest regions of Kenya and Ethiopia, drought did not develop into famine, which is declared when at least 20 percent of the population lacks basic food, global acute malnutrition exceeds 30 percent, and more than two people per 10,000 die daily. Improvements in those countries over the past decades, as well as stable governments, helped prevent the worst from happening.

The same cannot be said for hard-hit Somalia, where drought was exacerbated by political turmoil.

In August 2010, militants expelled World Vision and more than a dozen other aid organizations from the south-central regions of the country. According to Chris Smoot, World Vision’s director of programs for Somalia, this invited further tragedy. At the time of World Vision’s expulsion, FEWS NET maps showed yellow (stressed) in places where World Vision operated. These areas were surrounded by a sea of red (emergency).

“We knew things were going to get bad,” Chris says. “We just did not know the extent of how bad it was going to be.”

The answer turned out to be very bad indeed. Dr. Raj Shah says the militants' actions helped contribute to this famine that has taken the lives of tens of thousands of children. Lack of food, water, and humanitarian assistance forced hundreds of thousands of Somalis, mainly women and children, to flee to overcrowded refugee camps in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya, often facing robbery and sexual assault on the way.

The crisis prompted World Vision to declare a top-priority emergency in February 2011 and mount a massive relief effort in four countries — Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Somalia. (Although excluded from south-central Somalia, the organization remained in Puntland and Somaliland in the north.)

Ongoing programs across the region include supplying tents and medical care to refugees, trucking water into dry areas, providing seeds and animal feed, and initiating emergency feeding for starving children and hungry adults, especially new mothers.

World Vision also runs school feeding programs, which encourage children to stay in school and ensure they get at least one good meal every day. By July 2011, more than 1 million people were benefiting from World Vision’s relief operations in the Horn.

Thinking outside the box has helped. Conventional wisdom calls for importing food into famine-hit countries. But in Kenya, World Vision tested the idea that there was sufficient supply and infrastructure available to procure food from areas of surplus within the country. This enabled the prompt feeding of more than 3,000 vulnerable families in Moyale, northern Kenya. Food arrived within weeks, not the four months that is typical for such emergency relief. Acute malnutrition rates in Moyale were kept down to less than 14 percent, whereas in surrounding areas they exceeded 20 percent.

World Vision’s emphasis on child and maternal health in sponsorship-supported communities means malnutrition problems can be spotted early or prevented entirely. In recent years, the organization has refined an approach known as the “7-11 strategy” — seven basic steps to ensure the health and nutrition of pregnant moms and 11 steps to protect the health and nutrition of newborns. By paying attention to simple things like hand washing, breastfeeding, and vaccination, thousands of lives are being saved.

Such programs have been difficult in Somalia, says Chris Smoot, in part because nearly all of World Vision’s work there is funded by Western-government grants. These grants are critical for saving lives but relatively inflexible without matching private donations. They operate for a limited time, and money cannot be easily redirected to cope with changing priorities.

Contrast this with child-sponsorship funding in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. (Due to Somalia’s instability, sponsorship is not possible there.) Sponsorship provides an investment in communities for 15 years or more, allowing World Vision to design long-term programs that address the needs of families in holistic ways. And if the need arises, funds can be spent to address urgent problems in those communities.

A good example is in Wajir South, eastern Kenya, where rains failed completely in 2010, and all water points dried up. As is customary in World Vision’s sponsorship model, community leaders approached Jacob Alemu, who leads the project in Wajir, saying, “You are our only hope as to whether we die or whether we live.”

In response, Jacob activated his emergency budget in December 2010, and World Vision started bringing in water by truck, first using government vehicles, then taking over the whole operation to serve 7,000 households. “Nobody died because of lack of water,” he says. Water trucking continued until October 2011, when the rains came.