AN EMERGENCY ministerial meeting at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome yesterday argued that the burgeoning drought and hunger crisis in Somalia required “an immediate, twin-track programme designed to avert an imminent humanitarian catastrophe and build long-term food security in the region”.
Hastily convened at the request of the French government, who currently chair of the G20, the meeting was essentially an attempt to heighten awareness of the gravity of the current situation in the Horn of Africa.
Attended by representatives of UN agencies, French agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire and by several non-governmental organisations, the meeting was a prelude to a donor country meeting due to be held in Nairobi later this week.
Among the speakers yesterday was Tom Arnold, chief executive of Concern Worldwide, who identified “three urgent priorities” for the international community’s efforts to deal with the starvation crisis.
Mr Arnold, who has just returned from a week in Kenya and Somalia, told the meeting: “There are three urgent priorities needed to deal with this terrible humanitarian crisis … First, there needs to be a major focus on saving the lives of severely malnourished children through the scaling up of therapeutic feeding and basic health services.
“Second, there needs to be a rapid increase in the supply of food and, where there is some amount of food available in local markets, cash and/or food vouchers need to be given to people to purchase that food.
“Third, there needs to be a rapid increase in getting seeds and tools and livestock to farmers and pastoralists in advance of the expected rainy season that is due – and there is no guarantee that will transpire adequately – in late September or early October.”
Some of the most disturbing testimony came from Josette Sheeran, head of the World Food Programme, who was also in Somalia last week and who said that there was no time to lose if the lives of perhaps as many as half a million children were to be saved: “This is the worst food crisis that many of us have ever seen. I met with women who had walked for six weeks to get food and who on that walk had to make the horrific decision to abandon one weaker child so that the stronger child might get enough food to survive and make it to the camp …”
Ms Sheeran said Somalia was the most dangerous place in which the food programme operated, pointing out that not all of the country was accessible because of the activities of the al-Shabaab islamist guerrillas. The UN body has seen 14 of its people killed in the last three years.
Ms Sheeran called the drought “epic”, adding that “this is a children’s famine”.
Ms Sheeran stressed the importance of making high protein, fortified food available to the starving children, including in particular a special foodstuff made up of dried milk, chick peas and various minerals.