Horn of Africa seeks drought resilience strategy

Dejene Sojato in Walta.info (Ethiopia): The Horn of Africa countries are facing the worst drought in half a century. UN estimates that 12.4 million people are in urgent need of emergency assistance. Following the below-normal 2011 spring rains in the eastern Horn of Africa, food security among pastoralists and populations in marginal farming areas sharply deteriorated. The situation has reached famine conditions in several parts of Somalia and refugee flows have grown sharply into Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti because of the drought._Moreover, Somalia presents an array of political and security challenges.

In response to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis that hit the Horn of Africa, recently, leaders of Eastern Africa and the African Union, UN representatives, development partners and international agencies held a 'Summit on the Horn of Africa Crisis' in Nairobi. The Summit discussed and adopted a strategy to mitigate the effect of drought. It notes current crisis is a reminder that the Horn of Africa is more vulnerable to Climate Change than most other regions in the world. While droughts may be an unavoidable natural phenomenon, the Summit notes but their impact can be mitigated by human action.

The Summit highlights the importance of introducing a new twin track approach to drought risk management. The new approach and focus should be preventive rather than reactive and should be holistic, rather than emergency oriented. It should encompass the continuum of relief, recovery, reconstruction, innovation and long-term development towards sustainable development to ensure drought resilience and ensuring food security. In this regard, farmers should be encouraged and supported to increase their productivity and overall production by promoting availability of inputs, extension services, dependable markets, competitive prices and good infrastructure....

Orthographic projection of the Horn of Africa by L'Américain, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license