Action needed now to avert humanitarian disaster

As a prolonged drought ravages communities in the Horn of Africa, destroying crops, killing livestock and leaving more than 20 million people in need of emergency food assistance, CARE International is warning that the international community must act now or risk a full-blown humanitarian disaster. Across the region, CARE staff are reporting that livestock are dying due to lack of water and grazing land, high prices of food and water, and children dropping out of school to help find food. In Somalia, decades of civil war and consecutive years of drought is causing widespread hunger and forcing people to flee in record numbers into refugee camps in Kenya. In Ethiopia, a growing outbreak of Acute Watery Diarrhea is making the situation worse, as chronic hunger and malnutrition leaves people more susceptible to illness. Even Kenya is increasingly crippled by water shortages as rivers and water wells dry up, and farmers are herding their starving cattle en masse to slaughterhouses in a desperate attempt to sell them before they die.

“Repeated drought, failed rains and harvests, and ongoing conflict and insecurity are destroying people’s coping mechanisms,” said Mohammed Khaled, CARE’s Regional Emergency Coordinator for East Africa. “If you have one bad year, people can survive. They sell some assets to buy food and make it through the hard times, and hope to make it back the next year. But three bad years? People can’t recover.”

CARE is already implementing long-term programming to help mitigate the impact of the current drought, such as building and maintaining boreholes and water distribution points, providing extra nutrition to young children and mothers, distributing seed for farmers, and helping pastoralists cope with the effects of climate change by diversifying their herds and sources of income. But to date, investment in long term solutions has been insufficient to avert the coming crisis. Immediate emergency measures are needed to help the more than 20 million people now in need of food assistance.

“The situation is already becoming desperate in some areas. The levels of acute malnutrition are rising rapidly, especially amongst young children. We need to get more nutrition programs going as soon as possible,” said Khaled. “At the same time, we need to act now to prevent more people from falling into the hunger trap. In southern Ethiopia, for example, we have a short window to provide seed to farmers before the next rainy season starts. If we miss it, we’ll be forcing people into a position of relying on food hand-outs, rather than helping them feed themselves through their own crops.”

Climate change is making the situation worse, as shorter and unpredictable rainy seasons, and more severe weather have led to years of failed harvests and dead livestock, and forced many pastoralists and farmers to give up their land or animals altogether. The El Niño rains expected in the next month may ease the situation in some pasture areas, but could cause devastating flooding and damage to infrastructure in other parts of the region.

“The consequences of climate change are unambiguous,” said Charles Ehrhart, CARE’s Climate Change Coordinator. “In East Africa, we are seeing widespread reductions in food production by smallholder farmers and pastoralists. This has been predicted, and the predictions are for reductions to reach 50% below 1990 levels by 2020. We may reach this number before or after 2020, but the trajectory is clear.”

Long-term solutions and commitment are needed to prevent drought and hunger from becoming annual disasters.

“Unless we get serious about addressing the underlying problems causing these crises, East Africa will be caught in an endless cycle of massive drought and hunger,” said Khaled. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Notes to Editors:

Media contacts:
Deborah Underdown (London) 020 7934 9417 or

About CARE: CARE is one of the world’s largest aid agencies, working in 70 countries to fight poverty and helping more than 55 million people every year. CARE is helping more than 1.3 million people affected by the current drought and hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa through activities such as building and maintaining water sources, distributing emergency food, implementing nutrition programs for vulnerable children and mothers, and helping farmers diversify their crops.

CARE’s response to the current drought and hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa:

Ethiopia:
Severe drought in early 2008 and the failure of seasonal rains in early 2009 has left 6.2 million people in need of emergency food assistance. CARE is building and rehabilitating water infrastructure to create access to potable water for drought-affected people, providing extra food to malnourished women and children, and providing emergency food rations to more than 300,000 people affected by hunger. To address long-term food insecurity, CARE is distributing seeds and livestock to support household income. CARE is responding to the recent outbreak of Acute Watery Diarrhea by providing water purification sachets and training communities about how to treat water to make it safe for drinking, and how to prevent water-borne illnesses.
Affected population: 6.2 million people
CARE is helping: 569,336 people

Somalia:
Decades-long civil war combined with three years of drought have left 3.6 million people in need of assistance. Families are migrating in search of water. Water sources are running out, and overcrowding over water sources is increasing the risk of further conflict. Some areas have reached malnutrition rates of 18 percent, well above the 15 percent threshold that constitutes a crisis. CARE is helping people by installing and rehabilitating water distribution points and boreholes for drinking water and so herders can water their livestock, and building sanitation equipment such as latrines, to help prevent the spread of waterborne illness.
Affected population: 3.6 million people
CARE is helping: 311,511 people

Kenya:
More than 10 million people in Kenya are food insecure. The election violence in 2008 caused hundreds of thousands to flee, meaning many families missed the planting season and lost a harvest. Drought and conflict are causing Somali refugees to stream into camps in Dadaab, Northern Kenya, in record numbers, straining the capacities of aid agencies to respond and draining the already scarce water supplies in the region. CARE is providing food aid, water and sanitation, education and community development activities to 290,000 people in the Dadaab refugee camps, and is implementing programs in drought-affected areas of Kenya to build people’s animal-caretaking and health skills, manage and maintain water sources, and help communities diversify their income sources so they are less reliant on livestock during times of drought.
Affected population: 10 million people
CARE is helping: 390,000 people