Category Archives: Aid

Africa, Aid, Government, Society, United Nations, Yemen

UN: World facing gravest humanitarian crisis since 1945

AFRICA

Food Crisis

Intro: The UN has received only about 10 per cent of the money it has sought since launching appeals last month for the drought-affected countries

The world is facing its biggest humanitarian crisis since the end of the second world war, with 20m people facing starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria, the UN has warned.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Stephen O’Brien, has told the Security Council that $4.4bn was needed in the next four months to address the escalating situation.

“Without collective and co-ordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death,” he said. “Many more will suffer and die from disease.

“Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations.”

The UN last month declared a famine in parts of South Sudan, which has been wracked by civil war for more than three years. But Mr O’Brien said the most serious crisis was in Yemen, where two-thirds of the population, some 18.8m people, need assistance and more than 7m are facing starvation.

“That is 3m people more than in January,” he said, adding that in the last two months almost 50,000 people had fled fighting between forces loyal to the government and Houthi rebels.

Some 6.2m people need help in Somalia, of whom 2.9m are in dire need; 4.9m in South Sudan and some 1.8m in north-eastern Nigeria.

Kenya and Ethiopia are among other countries facing the impacts of severe droughts but their governments have a better capacity to cope.

Famine is declared when daily mortality rates are two or more deaths per 10,000 people and 30 per cent of children suffer from acute malnutrition, among other criteria.

Mr O’Brien stressed that the looming catastrophe was “man-made” and “preventable”.

“It is possible to avert this crisis, to avert these famines, to avert these looming human catastrophes,” he said, stressing that the warring parties in South Sudan were making little effort to alleviate the situation.

The international community has started reacting to the threat of famine much more quickly than in the last such crisis, when 260,000 people died in Somalia in 2012. Many agencies, particularly UN bodies, have started spending pledged aid money before it has been disbursed by using their own reserves.

António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said this week after visiting Somalia that the situation was deteriorating. He described how he saw children dying from acute watery diarrhoea and cholera.

He said that systems were in place to avert the worst of the looming crisis, if money and aid are delivered.

However, Save the Children UK warned that despite a better response than in 2012 some of the mistakes made then were being repeated. Kevin Watkins, Save the Children’s chief executive, singled out inadequate planning and a slow response from donors.

The UN has received only about 10 per cent of the money it has sought since launching appeals last month for the drought-affected countries.

Mr O’Brien said that if money is not committed soon, not only will many people die but many children who survive will be stunted by severe malnutrition, gains in economic development will be reversed and “livelihoods, futures and hope will be lost”.

 

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Aid, Britain, Europe, European Union, Government, Politics, Uncategorized

Taking back control of the foreign aid budget

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Destinations and allocations of British foreign aid in 2015.

BRITISH FOREIGN AID

Intro: Enshrined into UK law is Britain’s ill-judged legal commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid which ministers are obliged to spend.

The statement made by the European Commission that hundreds of millions of pounds spent on international aid will be returned to the Treasury will be welcome news for Out campaigners. This goes to the heart of the Brexit cause and why British voters chose to leave the European Union: leaving means that decisions taken in the name of British voters, using money that belongs to British taxpayers, are made by people who are directly accountable to those people.

This is one of the starkest examples of what was wrong with Britain’s involvement with the EU; a situation where large sums of money were extracted from taxpayers and handed to unelected and unaccountable Commission officials to spend on aid and vanity projects about which British voters were never consulted. Regaining control of such cash and such decisions is the essence of Brexit.

But, as things stand, that money will not be used very differently. Enshrined into UK law is Britain’s ill-judged legal commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid which ministers are obliged to spend. This grim irony, a policy which is as unpopular with voters as EU membership was, shares similar undemocratic origins: a political project beloved by metropolitan elites who felt entitled to foist that commitment on taxpayers who did not consent to it.

Taking back control of money sent to Brussels, just as voters instructed, reconciles directly to what Brexit means. The same control must now be restored over the aid budget: the 0.7 per cent target should follow our EU membership into history.

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Aid, Government, Politics, Society, United Nations

Food, hunger and undernourishment…

ENOUGH TO GO AROUND

Global undernourishment shouldn’t exist. Each day the world’s farmers produce the equivalent of 2,868 calories per person on the planet – enough to surpass the World Food Programme’s recommended intake of 2,100 daily calories and enough to support a population inching toward nine billion. The world as a whole does not have a food deficit, but individual countries do.

Why do 805 million people still have little to eat? Access is the main problem. Incomes and commodity prices establish where food goes. The quality of roads and airports determines how easily it gets there. Even measuring undernourishment is a challenge. In countries with the highest historical proportions of undernourishment, it can be hard to get food in and data out.

Things are slowly getting better. Since the early 1990s world hunger has dropped by 40 percent – that means 209 million fewer undernourished people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Future progress may prove difficult, but it will be critical to first improve overall food production and availability in places like sub-Saharan Africa. Once that is secure, the focus can then turn to access.

What causes hunger?

Although there are enough calories for everyone alive, people go undernourished for a variety of reasons – virtually all of which are related to access. Reasons and specific examples include:

Natural Disasters – In Haiti, a series of events, including an earthquake (2010), hurricane (2012), and a drought (2014), have severely limited Haiti’s capacity to ease undernourishment.

Erratic Weather – Almost two-thirds of Bolivians living in rural areas of western South America depend on subsistence crops. Recurring droughts and floods bring food deficits. Undernourishment has stunted the growth of one-quarter of all children under five.

Civil War – In the Central African Republic, fighting between government forces and Muslim rebels has led to wide displacement. Farm yields decreased by 40 per cent from 2012 to 2013. Nine out of ten households report eating just one meal a day.

Economic Swings – Since the 2008 recession, Tajikistan has seen reduced prices for its main exports – cotton and aluminium – which has led to lower incomes. A majority of its people spend up to 80 percent of their income on food.

Poor Infrastructure – In Zambia, unreliable roads are the biggest barrier for Africa’s food imports and exports, according to the World Bank. Only 17 percent of the rural population has access to an all-weather road.

Restrictive Leaders – Strained diplomatic ties have resulted in severe sanctions on nearly all North Korean trade. Much of the population of North Korea relies on food rations. The country has received food aid from China, South Korea, and the United States.

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