From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Thu Oct 22 2009 - 23:39:15 EDT
Ethiopia: Drought Need Not Mean Hunger And Destitution - Oxfam
22 October 2009
http://allafrica.com/stories/200910220789.html
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Nairobi — With droughts becoming more common, donors and the Ethiopian
government must look beyond the traditional "band aid" responses to
disasters by using approaches that are more cost-effective, sustainable and
better suited to the population, international aid agency Oxfam says in a
new report.
"We cannot make the rains come, but there is much more that we can do to
break the cycle of drought-driven disaster in Ethiopia and the Horn of
Africa," Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director, states. "Food aid
offers temporary relief and has kept people alive in countless situations,
but does not tackle the underlying causes that continue to make people
vulnerable to disaster year after year."
Oxfam issued the report, Band Aids and Beyond, on 22 October, the 25th
anniversary of one of Ethiopia's worst famines when an estimated one
million people died. The report looks at how aid has worked since 1984,
arguing that the current donor trend of focusing on emergency food aid had
to change.
"Donors need to shift their approach, and help to give communities the
tools to tackle disasters before they strike," Lawrence said. "Drought does
not need to mean hunger and destitution. If communities have irrigation for
crops, grain stores and wells to harvest rains then they can survive
despite what the elements throw at them."
Calling for a radical shake-up in the way the world tackled food crises,
Oxfam said it was essential that donors rise to the challenge and provide
adequate funding for emergency assistance for this year's crisis, adding:
"Current responses by international donors are far below requirements
estimated by governments and UN agencies."
New approach
In the report, Oxfam argues that "it is equally essential that donors do
more to back programmes that manage the risk of the disaster before it
strikes, such as early warning systems, creating strategically positioned
stockpiles of food, medicine and other items, and irrigation programmes.
"For instance, in Somali region, Oxfam is building birkhads, or protected
wells, to enable communities to 'harvest' rain during the rainy season to
make sure there is more water available nearby when the rains stop. These
types of programmes receive just 0.14 percent of overseas aid."
Climate change threat
"Climate scientists predict that by 2034, the 50th anniversary of the 1984
Ethiopia famine, what are now droughts will become the norm, hitting the
region three years out of every four," Oxfam said. "A shift of approach is
needed to prevent climate shocks developing into disasters which will push
more people into poverty."
Lawrence said: "Climate change makes the urgency of this approach greater
than ever before. Ethiopians on the frontline of climate change cannot wait
another 25 years for common sense to become common practice."
World hunger
On 16 October, another international aid agency, ActionAid, issued a
report, Who's really fighting hunger, questioning why one billion people
the world over were hungry.
"Over one billion people - a sixth of humanity - don't have enough to eat,"
ActionAid said. "Almost a third of the world's children are growing up
malnourished. This is perhaps one of the most shameful achievements of
recent history, since there is no good reason for anyone to go hungry in
today's world. "
However, ActionAid said hunger was a choice man makes, "not a force of
nature".
It added: "Hunger begins with inequality - between men and women, and
between rich and poor. It grows because of perverse policies that treat
food purely as a commodity, not a right. It is because of these policies
that most developing countries no longer grow enough to feed themselves,
and that their farmers are among the hungriest and poorest people in the
world. Meanwhile, the rich world battles growing obesity."
Arguing that policies can be changed, ActionAid detailed the dramatic
progress made when countries translated the right to food into concrete
actions, "such as investing in poor farmers, and introducing basic measures
to protect the vulnerable. Their success makes the inaction and apathy of
other countries all the more inexcusable."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]