Oxfam Horn, East and Central Africa Blog

Good news in Somalia, but we must not get complacent

Today the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) announces its latest data from Somalia.

125,000 children no longer face severe malnutrition – thanks largely to the efforts of the Somalis themselves and the humanitarian aid they’ve received. That can only be excellent news, but we must not be complacent. The situation in Somalia is still in the throes of its worst humanitarian crisis in decades. Insecurity is already disrupting the supply of aid to tens of thousands of people at a critical time in the crisis. The gains made so far could be reversed if the conflict worsens, if access becomes more difficult than it already is, or if there is a reduction in aid from the international community. The world shouldn’t turn its back on Somalia, solely because statistics say there is no longer a famine.

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It’s not just about farmers – in reply to Bill Gates

Bill Gates has an opinion piece in the New York Times this week, following Oxfam and Save the Children’s recent report on the slow response to this region’s current food crisis. He rightly outlines how aid can be effective in solving hunger.

But, by focusing solely on support for farmers and agriculture, the solutions that he proposes miss the target for millions of people affected by the drought.
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AU Summit needs to boost Intra-African trade

As the 18^th African Union Summit starts in Addis Ababa,  civil society organisations from across Africa are concerned that the summit’s central theme, “Boosting Intra-African Trade,” risks being overshadowed and will not get the focus it needs.

Intra-African trade remains weak, making up only 11% of total trade in Africa. Comparatively, in Asia intra-trade represents 52% and in Europe 82%. Failure to invest more in intra-African trade is likely to harm the continent’s development.

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Uganda land dispute update: Some good news

A few months ago an Oxfam investigation in Uganda found that over 20,000 people were evicted from their land to make way for a UK-licenced tree-planting company. Now the Office of the Compliance Adviser/Ombudsman (CAO) – which handles complaints from communities affected by investments made by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – has announced it will launch an independent process to resolve the issue.

In December, the CAO received letters of complaint from affected communities in Kiboga and Mubende (the two affected areas) – co-signed by Oxfam and the Uganda Land Alliance – outlining the adverse social impacts related to NFC operations. Find out more about the CAO cases here and here. Read on for Oxfam’s official reaction to the news:

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African Nations Cup stars join Oxfam to win match against hunger

Seydou Keita joins the campaign to tackle hunger

This week Oxfam, together with Save the Children, launched a new report called A Dangerous Delay, which found that the international community responded too late to the current Horn of Africa food crisis. Thousands of lives were lost as a result. The report calls for much earlier action to prevent such crises from happening, rather than waiting until people start dying to respond.

Now, on the eve of the 2012 African Cup of Nations, 25 footballers heading to the tournament have joined with Oxfam to call for early action to prevent disaster in West Africa. The footballers – including Mali and Barcelona star Seydou Keita, and Newcastle and Senegal striker Demba Ba – have begun a new campaign called “Let’s Tackle Hunger”

The warning signs are already there. Poor rains across the Sahel region in 2011 have seen harvests drop by 25 percent (in some parts of Mauritania and Chad cereal production is down by as much as 50 percent). Food prices have almost doubled in many areas. Pastoralists are migrating to search for pasture much earlier than usual. A million children are at risk of severe malnutrition.

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The East Africa appeal – 6 months on

Six months ago Oxfam launched our biggest ever Africa appeal in response to the drought in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. The crisis is one of the worst we have faced in many years – over 13 million people have been affected, thousands have died, and many families have lost their livelihoods. The situation remains extremely concerning, especially in Somalia. However, your help has gone a very long way. In response to the appeal, the public all over the world donated around $32 million to Oxfam. This response has saved countless lives and Oxfam continues to provide emergency and long-term support to nearly 3 million affected people across the region, helping them recover and cope with future droughts. I am currently in Turkana, in northern Kenya, meeting communities affected by the drought and it is clear the great difference that Oxfam’s work is making here and elsewhere. Thankyou to everyone for your incredible support.

A dangerous delay cost lives in the Horn of Africa

Trucks bringing in water in drought-hit southern Ethiopia

Last year countries in the Horn of Africa were hit by a major drought. Approximately 13 million people have been affected by the impacts of the drought, conflict, high food prices and chronic poverty. Peoples’ lives in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have been turned upside down and many thousands are struggling to recover, pushed into desperate poverty from which it will take decades to recover. No one knows exactly how many people died but an estimate by the UK’s Department for International Development estimated the figure could be as high as 100,000.

One tragic thing about this ongoing crisis is that there were warnings that it was coming long before it hit emergency levels. But the international system only kicked in once people started really suffering in their thousands rather than addressing the issue ahead of time.

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Thousands of lives and millions of dollars lost due to late response to food crisis in East Africa

Lessons learnt can help prevent future disasters and save lives

Thousands of needless deaths occurred and millions of extra dollars were spent because the international community failed to take decisive action on early warnings of a hunger crisis in East Africa, according to a new report by the international aid agencies Oxfam and Save the Children.

The report, A Dangerous Delay, says a culture of risk aversion caused a six month delay in the large-scale aid effort because humanitarian agencies and national governments were too slow to scale up their response  to the crisis, and many donors wanted proof of a humanitarian catastrophe before acting to prevent one.

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Doing development differently

The development community must not be afraid to experiment and “fail” sometimes if it helps us achieve success in the long term. The evolution of development work needs critical analysis and increased consciousness that both success and failure are natural parts of development. The Accountability Tanzania Fund (AcT) and Oxfam’s Chukua Hatua project are good approaches to doing development differently:

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Connected agriculture – mobile technology and small farmers

A Maasai pastoralist checks his mobile phone in southern Kenya. Photo: Sven Torfinn

Connected Agriculture is a new report produced by Vodafone, with input from Oxfam and Accenture, looking at the role of mobile tehnology in driving efficiency and sustainability in the food and agriculture value chain. Barbara Stocking, the CEO of Oxfam, wrote the following foreword:

Oxfam welcomes this report. Its focus on the opportunity to improve agricultural productivity using mobile services highlights the opportunity to bring new investment to a key group: smallholder farmers. Oxfam recognises that mobile telephony could have significant potential to help the poorest farmers towards greater food and income security.

An estimated 1.5 to 2 billion people worldwide are dependent on smallholder agriculture and these smallholders include half the world’s under-nourished people. Investment that can increase the productivity and incomes of smallholders – particularly female smallholders – remains the best opportunity for these 1.5 to 2 billion people worldwide to feed themselves and trade their way out of poverty.

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