How to fight the next African famine

Earlier this month, I reported a story about the U.N. removing three Somali regions from its list of famine-wracked areas. The news was not all good. More than 250,000 Somalis are still at risk of starvation and famine is expected to persist in other parts of the country until the end of the summer.

But the loosening of the grip of the famine — caused by fresh rains and increased levels of humanitarian assistance in stricken areas — is a good starting point to consider the region’s vulnerability to future famines.

I reached out to Joseph Chamie, director of research at the Center for Migration Studies and the former director of the U.N. Population Division, to ask what degree population growth may have played a role in East Africa’s famine. 

A lot, he says, noting that the Horn of Africa has seen a rapid spurt in population growth in recent decades that has correspondingly increased stress on local resources.

Somalia, for instance, has seen its population grow from 2 million in 1950 to 9 million in 2010; Ethiopia has seen its population increase from 18 million to 83 million during the same period.

"First, this is not the last famine in Africa. More famines should be expected in Africa in the coming years," says Chamie. "And some will be far worse than the current one in East Africa, bringing with it increased starvation and higher mortality rates, especially among children and the elderly."

The prospects for future famines are not limited to demographics.

Despite the uncertainty of predicting local or regional weather patterns, climate experts have raised concerns about the impact of global warming in the Horn of Africa, which potentially might bring about longer and more frequent droughts.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon once attributed the political unrest in Darfur, Sudan, in part to the struggle among communities for natural resources stretched by a warming climate. And competition for resources is likely to grow, according to U.N. projections, which show rapid population growth in the Horn of Africa over the next 40 years, including a tripling of population in Somalia. 

For Chamie, the projections forecast a greater human toll. "There are many reasons for this, including simply many more people, poverty, lack of social-economic development, no safety net for the starving, weak and often unresponsive government, [and] political/ethnic conflicts."

He says that "the provision of food and related aid is needed on an emergency basis, this is clearly not a solution. These countries will need to progress socially, economically and politically.  However, this will be a Herculean task for many of these failing states, which are experiencing rapid population growth and slow economic growth."

Climate scientists are concerned that a key expression of global warming — extreme weather — may inflict greater environmental pressure on the Horn of Africa. But they cannot link global warming directly to the ongoing famine.

The current drought has been caused by two successive seasons of extremely low rainfall, making 2010-2011 the driest or second-driest period since 1950, depending on various analysis.

Mean annual temperatures have increased by as much as 1.3 degree Celsius in Ethiopia, one of the worst-affected countries. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on global warming, has not established evidence of statistically significant trends in rain patterns in East Africa. But reports from the Kenya Food Security Group and pastoralist communities "show that drought related shocks used to occur every ten years, and they are now occurring every five years or less," notes an Oxfam briefing paper. "Borana communities in Ethiopia report that whereas droughts recorded every 6-8 years in the past, they now occur every 1-2 years."

But perhaps the key challenge for addressing the next major drought, notes Chamie, is money. "With the current global economic crisis, donor countries will find it increasingly difficult to continue to provide food, water, medicine, aid, etc. to the millions of people who will be in need," Chamie said. "As the famines become more frequent and commonly reported in the media, the willingness of the general public and elected officials in donor nations to contribute monies and aid will decrease, especially as they are likely to see no end to the assistance and dependency."

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