Why is famine happening in africa

As of mid, famine conditions were concentrated mainly in Southern Africa, but by the end of the year they had emerged just as severely in the Horn of Africa, and on a lesser scale in several countries in West and Central Africa see map. An exceptional effort is urgently needed if a major catastrophe is to be averted. Business as usual will not do. Morris and other participants in the Security Council debate pointed to a variety of factors contributing to the current crisis:.

For relief organizations, the most immediate challenge is mobilizing enough food, medical care and other assistance to prevent massive loss of life in the famine-stricken countries. This will not be easy, and pledges have been lagging well behind needs. The underlying factors contributing to Africa's recurrent cycles of famine also highlight the need for greater attention to long-term strategies to promote development and peace.

In the seven most severely affected countries of Southern Africa, nearly 16 million people are in urgent need of food aid. Drought is the most immediate reason. Although South Africa itself is not threatened by famine, the UN regional office in Johannesburg noted that inadequate rain for the country's maize, wheat, sunflower, sorghum and soya crops will have a serious impact beyond its borders, since it is the main food exporter to the rest of the region.

In his 9 December address, Mr. Now, however, "as AIDS is eroding the strength of Africa's women, it is eroding the skills, experience and networks that kept their families and communities going. Therefore, Mr. Annan said, "this new international effort must put women at the centre of our strategy to fight AIDS. Political strife has further complicated the situation. In Southern Africa, Zimbabwe accounts for the greatest number of people affected, 6. Although drought has been the main cause of Zimbabwe's poor harvests, analysts have also pointed to the impact of political tensions and the government's controversial land reform policies.

After members of Zimbabwe's ruling party seized some WFP food stocks in October for distribution to party supporters, Mr. Annan reaffirmed the UN's "zero tolerance" policy against distributing food on the basis of political affiliation. In Angola, the signing of a peace agreement in April has brought a dramatic decline in that country's long civil war. Ironically, however, this has led to an increase in the amount of food and other relief assistance required, since hundreds of thousands of Angolans previously beyond the reach of relief agencies can now be assisted.

At the beginning of , the WFP was feeding about 1 million Angolans, a number that climbed to 1. By the turn of the year, an additional , Angolan refugees were expected to begin returning home from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The WFP warns that relief pledges have not kept pace with Angola's mounting requirements. As of late December, only about a third of the amount had been pledged. With no further pledges, the food in the WFP's pipeline will run out by March. And by that point, the number of Angolans needing food aid could well climb to between 2. Serious famine conditions have also developed in the Horn of Africa, principally Ethiopia and Eritrea, just two years after the end of a devastating war between the two countries.

The UN, Ethiopian government, relief agencies and non-governmental organizations NGOs , after assessing the full impact of Ethiopia's inadequate and erratic rainfall, estimate that some A subsequent FEWS assessment noted that conditions may actually be worse than in Ethiopia's last major famine.

Some million poor rural Ethiopians are chronically unable to feed themselves, even in good years. Many others have very low household grain stocks, following previous poor harvests.

The situation in some of these countries could worsen if the international community do not address urgent needs and resolve the root causes. Famine represents the most serious food insecurity situation in terms of both scale and severity. It occurs when a substantial number of people are dying due to a lack of food or because of a combination of lack of food and disease.

Learn more about the language of food crises. There is not a single root cause that just explains all famines - each context has its unique aspects. However, there is always a fatal combination of various factors that can include conflict, insecurity, access, chronic poverty, lack of trade and severe weather events such as persistent drought.

For example, ongoing war and conflict are the primary drivers of the situation in north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, and for Somalia it is drought and weak governance after years of conflict. In some parts of Ethiopia and Kenya, communities are also suffering from a catastrophic drought which makes it incredibly hard for them to buy food locally or have any source of income. What is sure is that we always have the power to prevent and end famine, but we always let it happen.

A declaration of famine is effectively an admission that the international community has failed to organize and act in time and that national governments have been unable or unwilling to respond. Our response so far has included:. It is hard to explain how it feels. You take care of the animal, feed it and water it and take care of it. It is hard to explain. My family has lost all its income. My children are weak. Most of the men are not with their families — everyone is separated.

We do feel scared because we are women alone but we stay together, all the women and make sure that we all stay in a group, especially at night.

In Kenya, the drought left 2. In South Sudan, a famine was officially declared in with 4. ActionAid supported 64, people in Somaliland, , people in Kenya, and 38, people in Ethiopia during the drought in This included providing cash transfers , rehabilitating water sources, and school feeding programmes. We also provided food, including cereals, pulses and oil, to malnourished children and lactating and pregnant women.

ActionAid does not have a programme in South Sudan. To respond most effectively to the food crisis in East Africa, we used scarce and valuable resources by building on where we already had a presence and capacity such as in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somaliland.

Starting a programme in South Sudan would have demanded considerable time and money that could have been used to meet the immediate needs of communities that we already worked with.

However, by working with other agencies, for example, through our involvement in the Disasters Emergency Committee DEC , we ensured that work across the region was coordinated and that other agencies were responding to needs in South Sudan. Food crisis in East Africa In this section Show. What causes food crises? What is causing the food crisis in East Africa? Southern Africa food crisis Due to many similar and overlapping circumstances, countries in Southern Africa are currently facing a devastating food crisis, putting nine million lives at risk across Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

What is happening in Somalia and Somaliland in ? What is happening in Kenya and Ethiopia in ? The impact of drought in Somaliland in Hoda Ahmed, 50, has five children, and lives in Somaliland. In Somaliland, 6 million people were affected by the drought.