Freedom from Want Vol 1, Issue 3 by Mahbooba Amin

Famine from Afar Marcus Prior1 aying the word ‘famine’ – and knowing that it’s for real – is almost unbearable for an aid worker. It’s like passing a kidney stone and coughing up a fur-ball at the same time – painful, discomforting, and a sign that something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong. Until last year, I spent seven years working for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) across Africa, for the most part based in Nairobi, Kenya. From there I visited southern Somalia several times. Famine was declared there in July, and many other areas in the parched and brittle Horn of Africa are living through the worst drought in 60 years. Somalia’s neighbours Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti are battling critical shortages of food, water and other necessities. Watching events unfold on televisions screen in my office and home in Bangkok has been an unnerving and ‘disconnected’ experience. For the first time in my adult life, there is a famine in Africa – a continent where I have spent half my life, much of it working to prevent hunger – and I am too far away to help. I’ve been in turn tormented, frustrated, deeply sad and – on several occasions already as I try and write this down – grasping for the words to make sense of it all.

Volume 1 • Issue 3 • September 2011

But it’s not all darkness. I can’t be there this time, but hundreds of experienced and tireless WFP colleagues are, working alongside numerous other humanitarian organisations to limit the suffering in whatever ways we can. WFP knows this part of the world intimately, understands the terrain, the needs, and the best ways to deliver. The greatest challenge of all is Somalia. Our Country Director – who worked previously in Afghanistan – has called it WFP’s most complex operational challenge. Fourteen relief workers have been killed in Somalia since 2008, and WFP was forced to suspend operations in the southern part of the country (with the exception of the capital Mogadishu) in January 2010 in the face of unacceptable demands from the fractured but powerful Al Shabab militia, which controls most of the area. It’s simply not possible to work in the face of regular death threats, constant demands for unofficial taxes, and directives that you may not employ women. And here’s the rub – access. The complete breakdown of law and order in southern Somalia means it has been all but impossible for international aid agencies to get supplies into many of what are now the worst affected areas. WFP has been worried for months

– our Executive Director visited Mogadishu in July as part of efforts to bring attention to the unfolding disaster – but with only small-scale, haphazard deliveries possible through a limited group of organisations, we are now dealing with a human catastrophe. WFP will continue to appeal for urgent, unimpeded access to the famine zones so that lives can be saved, but we know that any operation in southern Somalia will carry enormous risk – something the international community needs to understand in its full implications as they support our life-saving efforts. The first lives to be saved in a crisis such as this must be children’s – they are the most vulnerable, the first to become weak, and the least able to fend for themselves. The television pictures tell that story plainly enough. Science and technology, research and development, mean that we are now better placed than ever to save young lives. The nutritious and restorative powers of a small sachet of specialised food are astonishing. Air lifts are expensive, but getting enough of these products into Mogadishu to feed 30,000 malnourished children was a vital first step in late July. Many more deliveries of ready-to-use fortified pastes and biscuits will follow, giving us the best chance yet of saving thousands of young lives. Somalia has become the focus of this crisis, but pastoralist communities in Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are struggling terribly, too. WFP has worked with many communities to build resilience to drought through agricultural and other infrastructure projects which means they are better able to cope during the bad years

– but this year has been the worst in living memory. It’s the deep humanity of the people of Africa that drew me to work there. For now I watch, and support my colleagues in whatever way I can. All predictions are that things will get worse before they get better – there is a long road ahead. For more information on WFP’s operations in the Horn of Africa, please go to http://www.wfp.org/crisis/horn-of-africa To donate to WFP’s operations in the Horn of Africa, please visit https://www.wfp.org/donate/hoa_banners

It’s the deep humanity of the people of Africa that drew me to work there... All predictions are that things will get worse before they get better – there is a long road ahead.

Marcus Prior is Asia Spokesman, UN World Food Programme (www.wfp.org). He is based at WFP’s Asia Regional Bureau in Bangkok, Thailand. He moved there in 2010 after seven years in Africa with WFP, where he worked extensively in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda.

Volume 1 • Issue 3 • September 2011