By Moyiga Nduru
NAIROBI, Jan 22 1997 (IPS)

Drastic steps are needed to ensure that the widespread starvation that killed thousands of people in the Horn of Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s does not recur, according to regional and international observers.

Over the past three months, UN officials and other sources have been warning that food security is under threat in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan.

The latest alarm was sounded last week, when local and UN officials meeting in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, called for urgent assistance to counter a drought that has dried wells and boreholes, and turned grazing areas into sun-scorched wastes.

(The self-proclaimed republic of Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991, but is yet to be recognised by other states.)

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)’s Magdi Dawabi, who participated in the Hargeisa meeting, told journalists that a long- term solution to the problem was needed as drought “occurs on an almost annual basis”.

Indeed, millions of people and animals are threatened by the severe drought, which has also struck parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Kenya.

The precarious food situation in the region was highlighted in November by the International Authority on Development (IGAD).

IGAD comprises Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ertirea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, which are arid or semi-arid, with 46 percent of their total land area of 5.2 million km sq receiving less than 400 mm of rainfall annually.

“The sub-region is prone to recurrent, severe droughts which hamper agricultural and livestock production, the source of livelihood for the vast majority of the roughly 130 million people of the area,” noted IGAD executive secretary Tkeste Ghebray at a conference in Nairobi in November.

In Kenya, for instance, ministry of agriculture’s projections show that the main, long-grain maize harvest for the 1996/97 season will be 2.1 million metric tonnes, down from 2.3 million tonnes for the same period in 1995/1996.

The National Development Plan for 1997/2001 attributes the deficit to weather changes and poor rains, which have failed in the past three agricultural seasons.

Pressure has been mounting on the government of President Daniel Arap Moi to declare the famine-stricken, northeast province, on the border with Somalia, a disaster area.

Legislators from the area said this would encourage international relief agencies to step in and supply food to avert a looming disaster. They told a press conference here two weeks ago that pastoral communities had already lost a “considerable number” of their livestock.

About six million drought-affected and displaced persons in the IGAD sub-region were dependent on relief food last year, according to Ghebray. He attributed the decline in sub-regional per-capita food production over the last 15 years to “civil strife and inappropriate macro-economic policies (which) have not allowed agricultural development to match population growth.”

One of the countries worse affected by conflict is Sudan.

Last week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Ethiopian authorities said about 5,000 Sudanese refugees from drought, famine and renewed fighting between government and rebel forces had crossed into Ethiopia and more were expected to do so.

The Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SSRA), which is the humanitarian wing of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), has also warned of a severe food deficit in 1997 in Sudan where, 10 years ago, famine killed about 300,000 people.

Ghebray also pointed out that “the economies of the sub-region have stagnated, leading to further poverty, which has put nearly half of the population at risk of reduced access to adequate food. Most of the countries of the sub-region are among the poorest in the world and consequently, most food insecure.”

This is evident in Ethiopia where the annual per capita income of 110 U.S. dollars is one of the world’s lowest. About 45 percent of the some 56 million Ethiopians live in poverty.

Most Ethiopian farmers have limited access to arable land and the majority cannot afford to buy enough food for their families, or to purchase equipment that would boost their agricultural productivity.

Localized crop failures and concentrations of displaced persons aggravate food insecurity there.

Poverty and hunger are still commonplace in Ethiopia, where about one million people died of famine-related difficulties in 1984. In 1996, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) had to provide emergency food relief valued at 10.4 million dollars to some 500,000 people in various regions.

Food security remains a concern in Africa as a whole, according to the FAO, which reports that 13 countries, including Zaire, Liberia, Burundi, Sierra Leone and Eritrea, are suffering from continued food shortages and emergencies.

Even though overall food supply has improved in sub-Saharan Africa, about 215 million people — 40 percent of the region’s population — suffer chronic undernourishment.

“That number could rise to 265 million in the year 2010, unless action is taken to stem the current trend,” Abdur Rashid, chief of the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) Global Information and Early Warning System, said in October.

“There is a pressing need for large scale national and international interventions to bring about a rapid improvement in the region’s food security situation,” warned Rashid.

“Unless exceptional food assistance allocations are made, it is probable that a number of African countries will face increased hardship as many of their people will not be able to find enough food to eat,” he added.

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