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Famine's Many Faces
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11635 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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9 / 1986 |
3,100 Words |
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Laura Kullenberg
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It has been almost two years since the famine in Ethiopia was first documented by the international press for the entire world to witness. Those initial images of children starving in Koream and Makelle will remain etched in many people's minds for years to come. It was precisely the horror of those images that sent shock waves around the world, igniting the largest international relief effort to date.
The African drought and famine affected an estimated 150 million people in 24 nations and continues to afflict at least six countries. Having been closely involved in relief programs in both Ethiopia and Sudan, I find the questions most frequently asked now are "Did our assistance get there?" and "Are things any better now that the rains have come?"
There is no doubt that international donations of food, medicines, and relief supplies helped save hundreds of thousands of lives. According to the latest staff report issued by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Policy (committee on the Judiciary), some 1.3 million metric tons of grains were delivered to Ethiopia since December 1984 and an estimated seven million lives were saved through relief assistance to that country.
Clearly, despite the many problems associated with delivering and distributing relief supplies, the international aid community played a vital role in helping to save lives and stave off further human disaster.
Most people agree that getting food to drought-stricken communities and refugee centers was morally imperative, especially for surplus-producing countries such as the United States, which had bumper grain harvests, a portion of which was being held in storage.
However, it was really the intensive media coverage of the famine and the overwhelming public response that pushed many of the Western donor governments to increase their official aid budgets to levels commensurate with the magnitude of the problem. This was especially true in the case of Ethiopia, with which the West does not share a compatible political ideology. The response therefore underscores the important role that public opinion and the compassion or ordinary citizens played to ensure that critical relief supplies got to those countries needing it most, regardless of political orientation.
Nature Not The Villain
Famine is the most extreme manifestation of a farmer's vulnerability, and nowhere in the world is famine as pervasive as in Africa. Contrary to popular conception, famines are neither caused by drought nor extinguished by a season of good rains, but are the result of a complex set of social, environmental, and political relationships that create chronic poverty among small farmers and pastoralists, who are the primary food producer in most African countries.
And so, however generous the donations, however compassionate the public response, and however well-run the emergency feeding programs, famine will recur in Africa - probably several times before the end of this century - unless the systemic causes of rural poverty and vulnerability among Africa's food producers are addressed through sincere and genuine policy reforms backed by a sustained commitment to
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