Hunger in East Africa: What's Driving Famine?
- KBFC
- Oct 28, 2022
- 4 min read
By Lara Defterios
Famine is a form of poverty well-known to us. Living in Europe, fundraising events aimed at combatting famine are also commonplace; indeed, sometimes to the extent that they risk shaping the narratives of those countries. This is the argument of author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for example, who describes her experience in the West as a Nigerian: ‘My room-mate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe.’
During research, I decided to zoom in on East Africa as a region after a King’s Broadcast for Change talk on October 5th as part of our focus on poverty. Here, Oxfam’s Kelly Mundy explained the nature of the crisis in specifically Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, and her experience in delivering solutions both at home and abroad. This article delves further into the causes of famine in these areas; conflict and climate change. Its aim is to show by understanding causes of famine, it is not an unpredictable phenomenon, but a preventable crisis.
Put simply, the situation is dire; the Horn of Africa is now facing a desperate food security crisis as humanitarian organisations warned this year that 20 million people in the region are facing starvation. Over 49 million people are in urgent need of assistance overall; this winter, without increased international aid, conditions are very likely to worsen. Already, according to estimates, one person every 48 seconds dies due to severe hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. Malnutrition in children is growing as well, with one International Rescue Committee clinic in Somalia reporting a 265% increase in malnourished children under the age of five in one month. As Manuel Fontaine, Director of Emergency Programmes at UNICEF, notes, ‘drought not only means lack of water. It means that children are going hungry and thirsty every day.’
"Drought not only means lack of water. It means that children are going hungry and thirsty every day." Manuel Fontaine, Director of Emergency Programmes, UNICEF
The driving cause is climate change leading to increased frequency of extreme weather, with droughts or flooding leaving over 28 million people in the region in urgent need of aid. The Horn of East Africa is currently facing its third major drought in the past decade, while severe flooding South Sudan enters its fifth year. The most recent ongoing drought began in 2021, making it the region’s longest-running drought in 40 years. The increased frequency of droughts and flooding brought on by climate change creates chaos among populations reliant on their country’s dominant agricultural sector, severely damaging crops and livestock. This, in turn, threatens livelihoods, worsening hardship in the midst of what should be a post-Covid period of economic recovery.
Developing countries in the global south carrying the burden of global warming is a sadly unsurprising fact though. Last year, the US Global Leadership Coalition, for example, described the fact that climate change would disproportionally affect developing countries as a ‘consensus’. IMF research in their World Economic Outlook, years ago, warned that higher temperatures and their consequences would be the harshest on the countries who could least afford it, and were the least responsible.
The other side of this is the role that conflict plays in perpetuating conditions that lead to famine. The most relevant example of this is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February this year, that led the IRC to call for urgent action in its Emergency Watchlist report. The conflict has had more disastrous effects on food security in East Africa than anywhere else globally, despite first exports of grain since February restarting in August. This is because Russia and Ukraine combined produced 90% of the regions’ imported wheat; when war came, prices increased, and access decreased. To make matters worse, the World Food Program actually buys over 50% of the wheat that it distributes from Ukraine, causing further shortages and supply constraints.
Local conflict also hinders humanitarian efforts in the region, at times creating government resistance to aid. International organisations aim to provide assistance on the ground while putting pressure on governments to increase aid budgets. Regional solutions by Oxfam, for example, include cash beneficials. This, from a cost analysis point of view, gives recipients agency and stimulates local economies. However, they are sometimes met with government resistance due to political instability and conflict. Mundy mentioned, for example, that governments are reluctant to declare a state of famine. This is the case with Ethiopia, who are less forthcoming with data, and have been denying humanitarian access to Tigray for over a year. It is not always like this, though; in Malawi, Mundy said, the government extremely cooperative, to the extent that international organisations could transition out of the equation entirely and pass over projects efficiently.
"There is nothing natural about famines in the 21st century... the slide into famine and mass death is man-made, driven by international inaction." David Miliband, President & CEO, International Rescue Committee
This article has unpacked some of the complexities behind famine in East Africa. It also serves, hopefully, as a reminder that famine is not an inevitable aspect of global inequality that unfortunately falls to developing countries. David Miliband, CEO of the IRC, expresses this aptly: ‘There is nothing natural about famines in the 21st century… the slide into famine and mass death is man-made, driven by international inaction.’ The solutions we come up with, therefore, require a nuanced and impact-driven approach. This ranges from adopting proven solutions, addressing global trade challenges, and using our relational power as individuals to increase public campaigning at home.
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Insightful article!