Red Cross Blogs

Drought, famine and food insecurity in East Africa

By Jamie
July 22, 2011 at 1:59 pm

Food insecurity. It’s a phrase that’s been used a lot recently. But what does it actually mean?

Right now in some parts of Somalia, we’re seeing the most extreme effects of food insecurity – where people’s only choices are to a) leave their homes and travel miles in search of food and work, or b) stay where they are, and possibly die. A perfect storm of conflict, drought and successive failed harvests has seen a huge number of Somalis displaced both within the country and flooding over the border into Ethiopia and Kenya. Northern Kenya is already struggling – there too the drought has killed off crops and cattle. Armed gangs have even raided areas lucky enough to still have working boreholes and livestock. All these pressures, plus rising food prices mean many people struggle to get hold of enough food.

Food insecurity is a complex term. It covers a range of issues that can lead to someone not being able to get enough food. Experts in food insecurity often talk about ‘access’ to food – which sounds straightforward, but it’s not. It may be that food is available, but it’s expensive. And perhaps you start buying more food to compensate for your failed crops, but then your crops fail again, and again, and the prices keep spiraling. And perhaps the food doesn’t have much in the way of nutrition, but that’s all you can get. Or access to it is difficult due to conflict, or your political or tribal affiliations – food can also be used as a political tool by different actors.

Food insecurity can refer to a ‘non-emergency’ situation, but if no-one tackles the underlying issues, it can deteriorate into an emergency. Combine deterioration with man-made factors such as conflict and politics, and you’re in danger of reaching the most extreme level of food insecurity – famine.

On Wednesday, the UN announced that parts of south central Somalia are now experiencing famine. To you or I, that may seem obvious from the pictures we are seeing, but it has a technical definition. Famine is declared when the following criteria are met:

• At least 20% of the population has extremely limited access to food (in the south central Somalia, cereal prices are 2-3 times 2010 levels; 30% of people there are unable to meet basic food needs)
• Acute malnutrition exceeds 30% of population (double the standard emergency threshold of 15%, and in many parts of southern Somalia it’s now 38%. In some places, malnutrition exceeds 50%)
• The death rate exceeds 2 in 10,000 of the whole population per day and 4 in 10,000 per day for children under five.  Both of these thresholds are double what is used to define a humanitarian emergency.  (The under-fives death rate in south central Somalia is above 4 for all the assessed areas; in some areas it is as high as 13-20 children per day)

Mary Robinson from the UN described the situation in Somalia as ‘the worst food security situation in the world’.

At the moment famine has been declared in two regions of Somalia, but it is expected to spread across all areas of the south central area in the next 1-2 months. The time-frame for action is incredibly short – 3.7million people are in crisis, but 3.2million of those are in need of immediate, life-saving assistance.

Since the impact of drought on food insecurity takes a long time to become apparent, it does not get media attention until needs are most acute and severe. Before that point, it’s not a story. Areas can be food insecure, but if people are still getting hold of some food, they’re OK, right? Well, no. If food is scarce, people eat less, and often poor quality food. Over a period of time, and with ill health, this can lead to malnutrition. If this continues for a long time, children’s growth can be stunted. Brain development is affected. People become more susceptible to health problems; medical treatment such as anti-retrovirals for HIV won’t work properly. And if you’re spending 50-75% of your household income on food, you’re not able to afford other things. Education. Healthcare. Travel for work, or get to a doctor. Which would you give up? Or alternatively, which of these would you starve yourself for?

Food insecurity means your access to food is compromised; it’s not affordable, you have less of it, and what you get doesn’t provide enough nutrition.

Its causes are manifold: conflict; floods; drought; population movement; lack of agricultural development; global markets and food prices; loss of livelihoods or income; lack of ‘safety nets’ (alternative incomes or emergency food or seed stocks); lack of basic infrastructure (storage, refrigeration, decent roads); …it’s a long list. This is why ‘food insecurity’ is complicated and requires a whole range of different responses at different levels by different groups or stakeholders to tackle it.

In 2008, there were food riots in 35 countries. We didn’t hear about all of them. A sixth of the world’s population experience hunger. We don’t hear much about that either. We’d like more people to know what food insecurity is, and what causes it. But ideally we’d like it to be eradicated. But until it is, let’s make sure we all have a better understanding of it, what it really means, and work towards addressing those problems.

This year, the IFRC will launch their World Disasters Report on food insecurity and nutrition. David Naburro from the UN spoke recently at a RedTalk event. See here to watch it in full:

http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/meetings-and-events/red-talk/events-archive/19-may-2011—david-nabarro/

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Tags: drought, East Africa, famine, food insecurity, Horn of Africa, Somalia

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Emergencies, International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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