POVERTY: HORN OF AFRICA: Food insecurity grips region

NAIROBI, 18 May 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN
Aid agencies have expressed concern over severe food insecurity in the Horn of Africa (file photo)

The number of people requiring humanitarian assistance in the Horn of Africa could increase sharply in coming months due to below-average rainfall and high food and fuel prices, say aid workers.
Moreover, funding shortfalls, drought and conflict could further increase the number of people needing humanitarian aid in the region from an estimated 8.75 million people.
Peter Smerdon, spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Kenya, told IRIN on 18 May: "The total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in the Horn is 8.75 million; some of them get food aid from governments and other aid organizations. At least six million people need food assistance from WFP but this number could increase if the current rains are poor or below average."
According to Smerdon, by early May, about halfway through the rainy season, rainfall was well below average in most of the Horn, ranging from 5 to 50 percent of normal rates, and well below forecasts.

Funding shortfalls
Of particular concern, he said, were areas of southern and southeastern Ethiopia.
"Amid growing concern about the impact of drought in the southern and southeastern pastoralist areas, many of WFP's food assistance activities in Ethiopia face significant funding shortfalls," Smerdon said.
The agency said it was assisting 4.3 million people in Ethiopia.
In Somalia, WFP faces a 70 percent shortfall from May through October and urgently needs contributions of US$53 million to feed one million people in accessible areas for the next six months.
In Kenya, Smerdon said, WFP has a 50 percent funding shortfall of $47 million needed to provide food aid for the next six months to 1.7 million people.
In an April food security report Kenya's Agriculture Ministry said the national stock of maize - the country's staple - is expected to be about 5.9 million 90kg bags by the end of July, adequately covering only 1.7 months beginning in August.
The April–September 2011 Food Security Outlook by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) forecast that most households in the hard-hit pastoral areas would become extremely food insecure and many more livestock would die.
According to WFP, the Horn of Africa drought, which began with the failure of the short rains in December 2010, is the first since a two-year regional drought in 2007-2009 that saw the number of people needing humanitarian assistance in the region rise to more than 20 million.
Conflict could further increase the number of people requiring help. In early May, dozens of people were killed and others displaced when violence broke out on the Ethiopia-Kenya border between two communities over rising food prices.
The fighting between the Turkana community of Kenya and the Merille of Ethiopia, local media reported, reflected a broader pattern of inter-ethnic conflict resulting from food scarcity and persistent drought.
On 15 May, international NGO CARE called for more attention to severe food insecurity in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, saying almost eight million people in these countries needed emergency aid.
"Chronic vulnerability, poverty, social injustice and climate change are all responsible for recurring food insecurity in the Horn of Africa," Mohamed Khaled, CARE's regional emergency coordinator for East Africa, said in a statement. "On top of that, a significant increase in food and fuel prices has worsened the current situation.
"In Kenya, for example, the price of maize, a staple food, has increased over 27 percent during the last three months. Sufficient attention is needed now to prevent further loss of lives and livelihoods. At the same time, the underlying reasons need to be tackled to break the recurring cycles that have persisted in recent years."

 Photo: Jamal Osman/IRIN
Conflict could further increase the number of people requiring help (file photo)

Measures taken
Djibouti and Somalia have declared the drought situation a national disaster while the Ethiopian government revised its humanitarian requirements document in April 2011 to reflect the growing needs and mobilize a scale-up of humanitarian response.
Khaled said: "While governments of the affected countries have already started interventions, short- and long-term international assistance is needed to help address critical needs but also underlying structural causes and chronic vulnerabilities. What is needed is a set of interventions which strengthens people’s own resilience capacity and coping mechanisms to survive such severe conditions while at the same time responding to their current humanitarian needs and protecting their livelihoods. It is crucial that people can feed themselves through their own means instead of being dependent on food distributions."

Somalia
Somalia's situation is dire as conflict continues. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Security, Nutrition and Analysis Unit (FSNAU), some 2.4 million Somalis are in food crisis, representing 32 percent of the population.
The effects of the ongoing drought, deteriorating purchasing power, rampant conflict and limited humanitarian space continue to aggravate the situation in most parts of the country, FSNAU said in an April update.


Women walk from Bakara market past a bullet-ridden building in Mogadishu


http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92752

MALNUTRITION: DJIBOUTI: Challenges remain, despite nutrition gains

 Photo: IRIN
The government of Djibouti is working with partners, such as UNICEF, to eradicate malnutrition by 2015, according to Mohamed Aden Ahmed, the medical doctor in charge of nutrition in the Ministry of Health

DJIBOUTI, 15 February 2011 (IRIN) - In a region with some of the world's worst indicators for malnutrition, Djibouti is making gains and ensuring mothers and their children have access to life-saving interventions, say officials.
"We are making progress in the fight against malnutrition but much remains to be done; I applaud the government of Djibouti for its efforts to ensure that children have access to the help they need," Josefa Marrato, the representative of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Djibouti, told IRIN.
The rate of global acute malnutrition in Djibouti has dropped from 17 percent three years ago to 10 percent today, according to UNICEF.
Marrato said serious challenges, such as funding, remain, with almost 70 percent coming from emergency monies.
"The problem with emergency funding is that you cannot plan for, say, next year," Marrato said. "You cannot plan for non-life-saving interventions which are critical to the fight against malnutrition.” Emergency funding is "to respond to a crisis, it is not for prevention and we need that here".
Lack of statistical data to facilitate proper planning and adequately trained staff were the other challenges, Marrato said.
"In all of Djibouti, we have one pediatrician," she said.
Djibouti’s neighbours in the Horn of Africa have large populations and experience frequent conflict; its tiny area and population mean it is often overlooked by donors.
"People look at the Horn and see a small country, in peace and [with] a growing economy, and say Djibouti has no problems," Marrato said.

Possible progress
However, Marrato said she was confident that further progress against malnutrition is possible. "If we continue the way we are today, malnutrition will be under control in 2015 in Djibouti."
A sentiment echoed by Mohamed Aden Ahmed, the medical doctor in charge of nutrition in the Ministry of Health, who said the government was working with partners such as UNICEF to eradicate malnutrition by 2015.
"It is extremely important for the government and the ministry to not only reduce, but eradicate, malnutrition," said Ahmed.
At present, only 70 percent of malnourished children are reached, Ahmed said. "Our aim is to reach 100 percent by 2015."
In 2010, he said, with the help of UNICEF, a community-based surveillance system was established throughout the country. "What this does is alert us to problem areas and enable us to know what the situation of malnutrition is in any given area."
The system involves local communities participating in the fight against malnutrition. "We train them to identify malnourished children and provide them with the medicine and the food they need."
Ahmed said the government had deployed nutrition specialists to all six regions of the country to treat the most vulnerable.
He said the national nutrition surveillance system aims to collect data continuously, to follow up on interventions and to identify problem areas and give early warnings; "basically, it allows us to be proactive instead of reactive".
Through such strong community-based health networks, mass media education and support from partners, "we will achieve our goal of total eradication of malnutrition", said Ahmed.

Reaching more children
According to Aristide Sagbohan, a nutrition specialist for UNICEF, since the introduction of these systems, coverage of malnourished children had improved dramatically.
"Two years ago, we were covering 40 percent of the children in need, now our coverage is over 70 percent," Sagbohan said. "This, in large measure, is due to improvements in the management of therapeutic supplies, such as milk and Plumpy’nut [a high-energy peanut paste]. We have decentralized the storage of supplies where now you have stocks in different regions for easy delivery to where they are needed, instead of coming to Djibouti city."
Another component in the fight against malnutrition is the promotion of infant and young child (younger than five) feeding, which involves educating mothers on better family nutrition.
"At this level, we promote exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and adequate complementary feeding," said Sagbohan.
Mohamadou Bachir Mbodj, head of UNICEF's child survival and development programme section, said Djibouti had also recorded some success in its maternal and child health programmes.
He said immunization coverage was up to 89 percent via the expanded programme on immunization (EPI), the introduction of new vaccines and campaigns, as well as improving the cold-chain by replacing and maintaining refrigerators to ensure vaccine storage at correct temperatures. Djibouti is also introducing the pneumococcal and pentavalent vaccines.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91929

POVERTY: Putting fraud in global health spending in context

By Michael Gerson michaelgerson@washpost.com

February 4, 2011

Digging in the garden of a health official in Mali, investigators discover more than 30 counterfeit "stamps" used to validate fraudulent invoices to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The inspector general of the fund reports serious corruption in the programs of four countries - Mali, Mauritania, Zambia and Djibouti. A breathless Associated Press story concludes that "as much as two-thirds" of some Global Fund expenditures are being misspent. Germany and Sweden suspend their support. Some conservatives run with the story, which reinforces their preconceptions about foreign aid and fits the need for budget cuts. After all, in this view, two-thirds of Global Fund money is thrown down a rathole of corruption.
When scandals fit preexisting ideological narratives, they assume a life of their own. This particular narrative - the story of useless, wasted aid - is durable. It is also misleading and might be deadly.
The Global Fund controversy illustrates the point. The two-thirds figure applies to one element of one country's grant - the single most extreme example in the world. Investigations are ongoing, but the $34 million in fraud that has been exposed represents about three-tenths of 1 percent of the money the fund has distributed. The targeting of these particular cases was not random; they were the most obviously problematic, not the most typical. One might as well judge every member of Congress by the cases currently before the ethics committee.
The irony here is thick. These cases of corruption were not exposed by an enterprising journalist. They were revealed by the fund itself. The inspector general's office reviewed 59,000 documents in the case of Mali alone, then provided the findings to prosecutors in that country. Fifteen officials in Mali have been arrested and imprisoned. The outrage at corruption in foreign aid is justified. But this is what accountability and transparency in foreign aid look like. The true scandal is decades of assistance in which such corruption was assumed instead of investigated and exposed.
The Global Fund has a difficult challenge. It gathers resources from governments, foundations and individuals but relies on local partners to implement programs. When providing relatively expensive commodities - anti-retroviral treatments or combination drugs for malaria - through relatively unsophisticated structures, there are opportunities for corruption. So the fund audits every grant it makes, requires measured outcomes, cuts off ineffective programs and encourages whistleblowers. It was the United States - the fund's largest supporter - that pushed in 2005 for the appointment of a strong inspector general to fight fraud. He is now doing his job. It would be difficult to make similar claims of accountability for most domestic programs in America.
The response of the fund to these cases of corruption has been, so far, serious. With fraud concentrated in training programs, all training activity has been suspended. Tighter expensing procedures are being implemented. The fund is double-checking expenditures in high-risk countries. It is also proposing an independent review of its financial-control mechanisms. The corruption in places such as Mali is not representative, but it is also not unique. There will, no doubt, be more cases exposed and more reforms needed.
But American policymakers should keep two things in mind. First, the fund is not expendable. It supports about two-thirds of the global effort against malaria and tuberculosis, and about a quarter of the fight against HIV/AIDS. Since 2002, it has helped detect and treat 7.7 million cases of TB, distribute 160 million insecticide-treated nets and put millions of people on AIDS treatment. These are not the results of a fundamentally dysfunctional program.
Second, the fund is the primary method by which America spreads the burden of encouraging global health to other nations. About a third of its funding comes from the United States. The rest is raised elsewhere. If the fund was diminished or discontinued, American health commitments around the world would need to dramatically increase - at least if we want to avoid complicity in a global tragedy.
In a scandal, the first response is anger. In global health, corruption kills. The most important response, however, is to make sure the right people get punished - not an African child who needs a bed net, or the victim of a cruel and wasting disease. They had no part in the controversies surrounding the Global Fund, but depend, unknowingly, on their outcome. An overreaction to corruption can also cost lives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/03/AR2011020305176.html

MALNUTRITION: DJIBOUTI: Drought appeal for 120,000 vulnerable pastoralists

Photo: IRIN: Tens of thousands of pastoralists in Djibouti need food and nutrition assistance
12 November 2010 (IRIN) -
A “forgotten emergency” has left tens of thousands of pastoralists in Djibouti needing food and nutrition assistance as well as longer-term coping mechanisms, according to the UN.
The tiny Horn of Africa state is the subject of a US$38.9 million appeal for food aid ($16.2 million), agriculture and livestock ($6.5 million), health and nutrition ($7.4 million), water and sanitation ($2.4 million), and emergency preparedness and sanitation ($6.4 million).
Pastoralists and other rural dwellers have been particularly affected by successive years of drought since 2005, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
"Water reserves have been depleted, there has been a massive loss of livestock, and as a direct result many people are facing the destruction of their livelihoods and lost sources of income," the agency said. "Increasing numbers of pastoralists have had to give up their traditional activities and are settling in urban areas."
Djibouti's food security situation is likely to further deteriorate due to the effects of La Niña events, expected to result in drier–than–normal conditions during the October–December rainy season, according to OCHA.
The country is also affected by the worsening violence and insecurity in neighbouring Somalia, OCHA said, with Djibouti hosting a refugee population of 14,500.
Launching the appeal in Geneva earlier this month, Valerie Amos, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said, “Due to high food prices and reduced purchasing power, too many people are unable to feed their families.
"While this appeal will help meet immediate humanitarian needs, like food and nutrition, it is important that we also address the root causes of recurrent food crises and improve the country's capacity to respond to these emergencies," she said.
Djibouti is considered a least developed low-income food deficit country and was ranked 147th out of 169 countries in the 2010 UN Human Development Index.
In an effort to mitigate the effects of drought, Djibouti abolished tax on food and some agricultural inputs and promoted the cultivation of unused arable land, according to Mohamed Siad Doualeh, the country’s ambassador to the UN.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91075

POVERTY: How many poor Arabs are there? Call to create poverty map, update data in the region

29 August 2010
Nadim Kawac>
Arab nations need to create a common data network and a map for poverty in their region as part of a strategy intended to upgrade their socio-economic information and combat poverty, according to an official Arab group.
Despite widespread poverty in many regional countries, Arab governments still far lag behind in gathering accurate data on local poverty and need to change criteria used in measuring poverty and preparing indexes in this respect, the Khartoum-based Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (AOAD) said.
In a study released this week, AOAD said a poverty index should be based on family consumption data instead of GDP per capita income.
“To support efforts to fight poverty develop related indicators in the Arab world, regional countries should work on two fronts,” AOAD said.
“The first one should focus on upgrading the mechanisms used in poverty indexes…the second should be aimed at developing and improving the skills of Arab human resources in the field of poverty measurement.”
AOAD, an affiliate of the Cairo-based Arab League, proposed the holding of a regional conference on poverty indicators to pool expertise and exchange views, the creation of a regional poverty data network to be published on AOAD’s website and the preparation of a poverty map in all Arab nations.
“These should include regular publication of poverty indicators in the Arab countries and the preparation of a study on the distribution of wealth,” it said.
“They should also include measurement of poverty in the Arab world using data based on household consumption spending instead of income since this consumption is more associated with the living standards of the family…it also better and more accurately illustrates poverty.”
The study urged all regional funds as well as financial and development establishments to fund training programmes for Arab officials in poverty measurement and in chalking out strategies to combat poverty.
According to another Arab League institution, many regional nations are suffering from poverty because of high population increases and slow economic growth due to poor investment, low exports, flawed economic policies and other factors.
In 2008, poverty rate was above 30 per cent of the total population in such countries as Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, Yemen, Palestine and Comoros, according to the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund (AMF).
The rate averaged around 19.6 per cent in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco and Algeria. The AMF said it had no accurate data on poverty in Gulf oil producers but said the rate was relatively low.
Besides those factors, many Arab economies have remained dormant because of conflicts and high defence spending, which was at the expense of development expenditure, according to the Arab League.
Its figures showed defence and security allocation in all nations have averaged as high as 28 per cent of the current expenditure over the past eight years while economic affairs allocations have not exceeded eight per cent.
The figures showed current expenditure totalled around $309 billion in 2007 as it accounted for nearly 72 per cent of the total spending of $430 billion.
At 28 per cent of the current spending, defence and security allocations totalled nearly $86 billion. Economic affairs allocations stood at only $24.7 billion.
“Latest indications point to a decline in poverty rates in some Arab countries but an increase in others…despite the decline in those members, the poverty rates are still considered very high,” said the League’s joint Arab economic report.
The figures showed poverty has declined in Tunisia and Morocco over the past few years but sharply increased in Djibouti, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine.
“Poverty in the Arab countries is closely linked to economic growth rates and developments in wealth distribution…economic growth alone is not enough to reduce poverty as wealth re-distribution could not be to the advantage of the poor…Arab states should focus on even and fair distribution of wealth.”
While Arab economies have recorded high growth over the past eight years, it was nominal growth as real growth was relatively weak and much lower than the population growth in some Arab countries, the report said.
High nominal growth over the past few years was mainly a result of a surge in oil prices as the economies of many Arab nations, mainly the Gulf oil producers, recorded low performance and some of them declined during 1990s.
Besides worsening poverty, such developments have resulted in a deterioration of the long-standing joblessness problem in the Arab region, with the number of unemployed persons peaking at nearly 17 million at the end of 2008.
AMF wealth indicators showed Qatar and the UAE were the richest Arab nations in 2008 while Mauritania and Yemen maintained their position as the poorest.
Although it controls more than a fifth of the world’s recoverable oil deposits, Saudi Arabia was the sixth wealthiest Arab country and the least well off in terms of GDP per capita in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The figures showed Qatar’s nominal GDP per capita stood at $70,651 and that of the UAE at $52,574. The report gave no data for 2009 but the per capita income is expected to have receded because of lower oil prices.
http://www.emirates247.com/news/region/how-many-poor-arabs-are-there-time-to-find-out-2010-08-21-1.281752

MALNUTRITION: DJIBOUTI: Widespread food gaps despite ongoing rains

NAIROBI, 13 August 2010 (IRIN) - The northwest and southeast regions of Djibouti should receive good rains from July to September, but thousands of pastoralists will still need food assistance until the end of the year, warns an agency. The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) said the problems were due to several consecutive seasons of poor rainfall before the last two seasons of good rains. Other factors included above-average cereal prices, decreased demand for milk, and reduced remittances caused by the high cost of staple foods in urban areas. Djibouti is one of the Horn of Africa countries that suffers recurrent drought. In June, the European Commission warned that drought had affected the coping capacity of vulnerable populations in the region and 12 million needed help. "Drought is by far the main cause of natural disasters in the Greater Horn of Africa," said EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva, who heads the EC humanitarian aid portfolio. She announced a ?20 million (US$26 million) package on 23 June for six countries in the region. "Worryingly, the effect of climate change is felt more dramatically in this region." Climate concerns According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 40 percent of the population in the Horn of Africa is undernourished. Millions are food insecure, especially subsistence farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, whose livelihoods largely depend on agriculture and animal production. "Although populations in areas affected by cycles of drought and flooding have developed specific coping mechanisms, [they] are strained as the climate is becoming more unstable and shocks increasingly severe," FAO said in its 2010 food security outlook. "More than half of the populations in the region survive on less than US$1 per day," it added. "With little or no saving and lacking the capacity or skills to diversify their sources of income, the poorest suffer the most from external shocks. "The needs of populations already food insecure or the most vulnerable to food insecurity, namely pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and marginal farmers, as well as women and girls across categories, should be prioritized." Children hit hardest Children, many of whom live in abject poverty, have been particularly hit. According to a recent report by the government and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), about two out of three children in Djibouti lack at least one basic right, including shelter, water and sanitation, information, nutrition, education and health. More than half lack proper housing. "The intensity of the poverty situation in Djibouti tells us of the dangerous environment in which children live, one that exposes them to exploitation and abuse," said Josefa Marrato, UNICEF representative in Djibouti. Most of Djibouti's 800,000 people live in urban areas. Conditions, FEWS Net said, were expected to improve in October, which would lead to an improvement in the health of animals. This would also be after September when schools re-open and petty trade plus casual labour employment opportunities pick up. But until then, 60,000 urban poor would require assistance.

MALNUTRITION: Djibouti

NAIROBI, 5 May 2010 (IRIN) - About half of Djibouti's rural population will need emergency food assistance this year due to the combined effects of drought, livestock losses, unfavourable livestock-to-cereal terms of trade and high staple food prices, according to an assessment by the government and UN agencies. "Most pastoralists had lost a considerable proportion of their livestock [70-80 percent] over the last five years and they suffered from diminished sources of food and income and had exhausted their coping strategies," Peter Smerdon, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Nairobi, said. "The assessment estimated global acute malnutrition among children under five [in rural areas] at 20 percent - above the emergency threshold of 15 percent."