Food security alarm for east, central Africa

IRIN: Some 20 million people are facing acute food insecurity in eastern and central Africa, with most of them being at “crisis” and “emergency” levels, according to aid agencies. This figure compares unfavorably with 15.8 million people in July 2013.  The affected countries include Somalia, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Central Africa Republic (CAR), Sudan, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Tanzania.

“The overall nutrition situation in the region has deteriorated precipitously and, according to survey results, the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) levels are higher than 20 percent, exceeding the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold of 15 percent, especially in parts of South Sudan, CAR, Somalia and northern Kenya,” said the East and Central Africa Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG), a multi-stakeholder regional forum chaired by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

FSNWG warned that the situation could deteriorate further in the absence of quick action.  “FSNWG strongly believes that in the absence of an increased and immediate multi-sectoral response, the food and nutrition status of affected populations is likely to deteriorate further.”...

Kenya food aid, image by USAID

New thinking needed on food aid for refugees in Africa

Kristy Siegfried in IRIN: The World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have launched an urgent appeal to address a funding shortfall that has already resulted in food ration cuts for a third of all African refugees. As of mid-June, nearly 800,000 refugees in 22 African countries have seen their monthly food allocations reduced, most of them by more than half.

WFP is appealing for US$186 million to maintain its food assistance to refugees in Africa through the
end of the year, while UNHCR is asking for $39 million to fund nutritional support and food security activities to refugees in the affected countries. A joint report by WFP and UNHCR released last week warns that failure to prevent continued ration cuts will lead to high levels of malnutrition, particularly among children and the most vulnerable.

Worst hit have been refugees in Chad, Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan where a total of nearly half a million refugees are experiencing ration cuts of 50 to 60 percent.

The funding shortfall is not the result of shrinking budgets for either WFP or UNHCR, but a substantial increase in the need for food assistance generated by an unprecedented number of refugee emergencies in 2014. “The amount of large-scale, simultaneous emergencies has never been so high to the best of my memory,” said Paul Spiegel, UNHCR’s deputy director of programme support and management, speaking to IRIN from Geneva...

Yams at a refugee camp in Chad, shot by Mark Knobil, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Heavy rains, ongoing violence push South Sudan towards 'hunger catastrophe', warns UN agency

UN News Centre: Already working hard to get supplies to people in South Sudan cut off by flooded roads, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that the rains, as well as the ongoing fighting, are pushing the country towards a “hunger catastrophe”.

“Fighting has led to alarming food insecurity in areas isolated by conflict,” WFP spokesperson Elisabeth Byers said today in Geneva, explaining that the agency is facing serious challenges in transporting food to “deep field” locations due to access and security concerns.

This has hampered WFP's annual pre-positioning exercise, in which it stocks up warehouses in areas that will become inaccessible during the rainy season. Heavy rains had made most of the roads in Unity State impassable, she added.

Moreover, Ms. Byrs said, WFP estimates that more than 4,600 metric tons of food has been lost through looting in several locations – enough to feed more than 275,000 people for a month. “[We] urge all parties to respect the neutrality of humanitarian agencies, and to protect the humanitarian supplies so badly needed to assist innocent civilians affected by the conflict,” she said.

Despite those immense challenges due to insecurity, she said the agency had dispatched more than 91,000 metric tons of food around the countrysince the start of 2014.

WFP is using a combination of airlifts and airdrops to reach people in remote areas of Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile states. As the rainy season set in and road access is cut off to two-thirds of the country, the agency has launched a special operation requiring almost $17 million to provide 10 aircraft needed for food deliveries....

Locator map of South Sudan created by TUBS, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Early heavy rains pummel South Sudanese

Joe DeCapua in Voice of America: The International Rescue Committee says early rains in South Sudan have created catastrophic conditions for thousands of displaced people. The humanitarian agency says it’s a race against time to provide shelter, sanitation and clean water.

Heavy rain and powerful winds struck Juba last Friday night. The storm lasted just an hour, but when the skies cleared the damage was severe. IRC South Sudan Country Director Wendy Taeuber surveyed the U.N. Tomping Displacement Camp -- once filled with shelters made of plastic sheeting and bamboo sticks.

She said, “646 were destroyed in just one hour of that intense rain with the severe winds. The base holds 23,000 people. But if one hour of rain can do that kind of damage, it’s a matter of time before hundreds more are losing their shelters.”

About 8,000 people are living in flood conditions at the Tomping site. The IRC and other groups are encouraging the displaced to move to sites on higher ground. But Taeuber said many are reluctant to move....

Locator map of South Sudan created by Spesh531. and others, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Worsening food crisis in South Sudan’s swamplands

IRIN:  In the vast swamplands of South Sudan’s Sudd region, tens of thousands of recently displaced people (IDPs) are living with little food and no sanitation facilities on inaccessible islands, according to local officials. They fled after attackers, allegedly from Rumbek (Lakes State in central South Sudan), swarmed across the county burning houses and raiding cattle on 7 February.

Flying over the county headquarters of Panyjiar in southern Unity State, at least half of the houses appear to have been burned to the ground. The IDPs on the islands need food, but for now there is no way to reach them. “If you don’t have a canoe, you can’t go there,” said Simon Kuol, coordinator of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission of Panyjiar County.

On 27 February, the UN’s top humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, expressed deep concern over “the grave humanitarian situation in South Sudan, where, despite the recent ceasefire agreement, the lives of millions of civilians are threatened by lack of food, outbreaks of disease, and continued violence.”

.... The events unfolding in Nyal and its surrounding swamplands are just one example of how communities all over South Sudan are in urgent need of food assistance, but out of reach, either due to insecurity or lack of infrastructure. A scramble is under way to prepare food distributions to assist them, aid workers say. Some 3.2 million people are currently in an “emergency” or “crisis” phase of food insecurity under the IPC classification system. In less than two months, much of South Sudan will become inaccessible due to rain....

Fishing in the Sudd wetland, shot by Karen Conniff, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Flood response continued across South Sudan

AllAfrica.com via PR Newswire: Flood response continued with aid partners reaching nearly 138,000 of the 223,500 flood-affected people across the country.

During the reporting period, partners distributed household items and shelter supplies to 1,050 of 1,690 targeted families in Aweil town, Northern Bahr El Ghazal. Verification of needs was completed in Aweil West and Aweil South counties, with distribution planned for next week.

In Jonglei State, where response to flood-affected areas has been diffi cult due to lack of access and insecurity, partners nevertheless were distributing food and household materials to affected people in Ayod town, Bor South, Twic East and Uror counties.

Some 3,130 affected families in Lakes State's Rumbek North County received food assistance and response was ongoing in other areas such as Cueibet and Wulu counties....

Locator map of South Sudan created by TUBS, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

A bank aids South Sudanese flood victims

AllAfrica.com via the Sudan Tribune: National staffs from KCB South Sudan bank on Saturday donated items worth 15,000 South Sudanese Pounds [$4,500) to flood victims in the country. The staff association chairman said the move followed recent appeals by government for various stakeholders to support thousands displaced by floods in the country.

"We have done this little contribution to our people as KCB national staff simply because we are South Sudanese societies in this bank and we can be tasked and task others in building our country. It is not the first time we ever did it", said Noble Arem Riak.

Items donated, include 40 bags of flour, 20 Jerry cans of cooking oil, two sacks of sugar, assorted powdered juice, washing soap, tea leaves, among others.

"We call on others to emulate us contribute [the] little as we manage the crisis befalling our country," Arem stressed.

Persistent floods, a government-led assessment showed, displaced over 220,000 people with at least 37,000 households affected. The most affected states were Jonglei, Warrap, Upper Nile and Unity. On his part, however, the association deputy chairperson urged South Sudanese to learn the art of self reliance and desist from dependency on foreign donations...

Republic of South Sudan appeals for international assistance to manage floods

Martin Jada Gabriel in AllAfrica.com via the government of South Sudan: The government of the Republic of South Sudan has appealed to the international community for support to help it manage floods currently affecting eight states leaving thousands hungry and displaced.

The government, despite the austerity budget, has put aside seven million pounds to manage the damages caused by the flood but this is not sufficient to address the consequences of the catastrophe. The flood, according to the minister for Cabinet Affairs, Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro, was caused first by heavy rainfall and later by the River Nile which burst its banks due to the rising water levels.

Dr. Lomuro said it is difficult to access some places in Northern Bahr el Ghazal neither by land nor by air because it is challenging to differentiate between rivers and roads. He added that the situation is even worse since wild animals and human beings are sharing the little space left by the flood.

According to the latest news from Warrap state one person was killed by a crocodile while many more are under various risks associated with flooding. The minister for Gender, Child and Social Welfare Hon. Awut Deng Acuil said at least 150,000 people are in need of assistance. She said the number could double to 300,000 saying the assessment was not done well because some places affected were inaccessible.

The minister for Information and Broadcasting, Hon. Michael Makuei Lueth prioritized the urgent needs as food, tents, blankets and medicines for both human beings and animals. Meanwhile, the minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin called on the Asian countries especially China and Japan which have good flood management systems to assist South Sudan.

Orthographic projection of South Sudan, by Spesh531, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Sudan's worst floods for 25 years leave 500,000 facing destruction and disease

Mark Tran in AllAfrica.com via Guardian Global Development Network: Forty-eight people have been killed and more than 500,000 affected by the worst floods in Sudan in quarter of a century.

The region around the capital, Khartoum, was particularly badly hit, with at least 15,000 homes destroyed and thousands of others damaged. Across Sudan, at least 25,000 homes are no longer habitable. A UN official described the situation as a disaster.

The flooding, caused by continuous rains, has damaged public buildings, including schools, clinics, offices, shops, markets and water and sanitation facilities. Roads have been inundated, disrupting transport.

One of the major health worries is the collapse of more than 53,000 latrines; the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of an increase in malaria cases in the past two weeks.

WHO and Unicef, the UN agency for children, are supporting Sudanese authorities and national NGOs to run 50 emergency health clinics. The centres will be open for two months in eight states - Khartoum, White Nile, El Gezira, River Nile, Northern, Blue Nile, North Darfur and South Darfur...

Khartoum and environs via satellite

South Sudan floods destroy homes, health center

AllAfrica.com via Voice of America: Heavy rains last week destroyed at least 70 homes and the only health center in Raja County in Western Bahr el Ghazal state, relief workers said this week as they struggled to help victims of the flooding.

The health center that was flooded served more than 350 families, and Raja County Commissioner Hassan Jalaab Khadaam said the county does not have the money to repair it.

South Sudan Red Cross state chairman Leon Archangelo said no one died in the flooding a week ago on Tuesday, but warned that families without shelter faced an increased risk of disease, especially malaria, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that breed in stagnant water.

The Red Cross has provided temporary shelter to families made homeless by the flooding, but was limited in how far its help would stretch. "Frankly speaking, the donations we have are not enough, based on the reality on the ground," Archangelo said...

The White Nile near Jinja in South Sudan, shot by Ina96, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Newest nation South Sudan ravaged by war, climate

Terra Daily via AFP: The world's newest nation, South Sudan, appealed Thursday for help in healing a land ravaged by war and disruptive weather as it made its maiden appearance at the UN climate talks. "Climate change in Southern Sudan has very, very serious negative effects. In terms of agriculture, this is really catastrophic," its environment minister, Alfred Lado Gore, told AFP.

Independent from Sudan since only July, the country has been crippled by nearly four decades of conflict that left an estimated two million dead. It has almost no infrastructure, a third of its population is threatened with famine and only four percent of its arable land is under cultivation, by some estimates.

Global warming would seem to be far down the list of South Sudan's priorities but is in fact a pressing concern, Gore said.

"It's a drastic climatic change, and this is manifest in the pattern of rain," he said, speaking before he delivered his country's first address before the 194-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). "Nobody can actually predict when rains come, and this is causing a lot of concerns," Gore said....

Nile Basin states appeal to UN over failure to access climate funds

Walter Menya in the East African: Ten African countries have appealed to the United Nations, funding agencies and the developed nations to eliminate bottlenecks to access to climate change adaptation funds. Convening in Kigali, Rwanda for the 3rd Nile Basin Development Forum from October 26 to 28, ministers in charge of water resources from the Nile Basin countries underscored the need to remove the bureaucracy that has slowed down access to the billions of dollars in the Climate Change Fund for developing nations.

The forum, attended by ministers, lawmakers, researchers and water experts under the theme “Climate Change and its Implications for Sustainable Development and Cooperation in the Nile Basin” also called on the African governments to establish national policies and initiatives for climate change adaptation that would not rely on donor funds.

The 16th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico, last year established a yearly fund, potentially worth up to $100 billion to help countries adapt to climate change. However, the participants from the Nile riparian states of Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, complained about inability to access the funds...

Map of the White Nile and the Blue Nile by Roke, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

How can we prevent the next famine? The case for disaster risk reduction

Duncan Green in the "From Poverty to Power" blog at Oxfam's website: When it comes to natural disasters, and their very un-natural impact on poor people, prevention is better than cure. Yet this lesson seems incredibly hard to turn into practice, because however good the early warning system in the run-up to disasters like the current crisis in East Africa, the money to head off future suffering often doesn’t start flowing until the images of human suffering hit the TV screens.

This is all the more frustrating because as a new paper by Oxfam’s humanitarian policy adviser, Debbie Hillier, argues, we know far more than we used to about how to do this preventive work (known in the deadening jargon of development as DRR – disaster risk reduction) and just how much more cost effective it is than waiting for disaster to strike before reacting. Whilst it is too simplistic to give an overarching cost benefit ratio (often quoted as 1:4 or 1:7), studies have shown time and time again that good prevention saves lives and money. Protecting livestock is much cheaper than rebuilding them once they have been decimated by drought: in the Afar region of Ethiopia, restocking sheep and goats cost 6.5 times more than supplementary feeding, and restocking cattle cost 14 times more. According to the International Federation of the Red Cross, it costs around £3.50 person per year to build up resilience, compared to £150 per person for relief assistance for just three or four months.

DRR also ensures that aid and government investments remain effective. All aid – whether humanitarian, development, recovery/reconstruction – should be resilient to disasters. Otherwise, hospitals, schools, roads and water points (as well as livelihoods) can be damaged or washed away when a natural hazard strikes. Between 1997 and 2007, Ethiopia lost on average US$1.1bn to drought every year, almost eclipsing the US$1.3bn per year in international assistance to tackle poverty and emergencies over the same period, and exceeding the amount Ethiopia invested in agriculture, a sector clearly crucial to ending food shortages....

This NASA image by Jesse Allen shows plant growth during the growing season for the crop normally harvested in June and July. The image was made with observations from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the NOAA-18 POES satellite, which records the amount of light plants in a broad region absorb during photosynthesis. Where there were more leafy photosynthesizing plants than average, the image is green. Brown indicates that plants were sparser or growing less than average.

Egypt's new democrats ready to defend Nile

David Arnold in Voice of America: In the beginning, Egypt was the Nile. That could now change, as Egypt, Sudan and the countries that supply the Nile’s waters face new politics, economic development, skyrocketing demographics and climate change. Egypt confronts at least a half a dozen other African countries that have for generations delivered their waters to Egypt’s Nile. What historically appeared to be Egypt’s birthright has now become a privilege they must negotiate with their upstream neighbors. It is a major issue in Egypt’s upcoming elections.

“Some of the political parties are talking about the Nile agreement,” said Dr. Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, “but all of them are talking about water security, which means no disturbance of the historic rights and that countries should not implement projects which would affect our uses of the Nile in Egypt.” And that is what is at stake for Egypt as a newly elected government in Cairo will define its role in a new regional initiative that will decide the future of the Nile and its beneficiaries.

...Population has driven much of the new politics in the Nile Basin. “Water doesn’t increase, but the population does,” said Richard Tutwiler, a research professor at the American University in Cairo and director of school’s Desert Development Center. In the 1950s, when Egypt and Sudan decided how much of the Nile they needed, there were about 22 million Egyptians and 9 million Sudanese and 18 million Ethiopians.

Today, Egypt has a population of 82 million, Sudan has a population of 45 million, and Ethiopia has a population of 85 million. Between these three countries the population has increased four times and in recent years Egypt has succeeded in increasing by 25 percent its inventory of farmlands by irrigating deserts through extensive and expensive canal systems...

The Merowe High Dam in Sudan, shot by Sudani, Wikimedia Commons

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

Security key to ending Somalia famine, say African leaders

Katy Migiro in AlertNet: Horn-of-Africa leaders on Friday rallied behind Somalia’s embattled government at a summit in Nairobi, supporting its efforts to oust Islamic militants from famine zones in the south of the war-torn country.

The presidents of Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Somalia and South Sudan met to discuss solutions to drought which has left 13 million people across the region hungry. Somalia is at the epicentre of the crisis, with famine declared in parts of the south in July.

“If there was full security, we are sure that the people in the famine areas would have been saved,” said Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. “But due to the fact that that areas are controlled by al Shabaab, which does not allow food aid through, it’s allowed these people to suffer,”

Al Shabaab rebels, allied to al Qaeda, have refused to allow the United Nations to deliver food relief into the areas they control. The U.N. said 750,000 people face imminent death from starvation. The U.N. said on Monday that the famine is likely to spread across all of southern Somalia by the end of the year….

Sudan: Water secure but Egypt worries over South Sudan

Bikyamasr: The Sudanese government attempted to reassure Egypt over water resources in light of the recent independence of South Sudan. Sudanese Information Minister Sana Hamad al-Awadi said that Khartoum does not believe South Sudan will go against international agreements that give Egypt the lion’s share of Nile River water.

Al-Awadi continued to say that the South is not needed to address the situation, pointing to continued coordination between Sudan and Egypt on Nile Basin deals. The Sudanese minister said that the water, which comes through the White Nile from the south, “does not represent a problem for the Republic of Sudan, because it represents about 14 percent of the water coming through the south to Sudan” and ultimately Egypt.

However, with the infant new country, Egypt has a number of worries that South Sudan, which now sees itself in control of much of the Nile water and its path toward Egypt, could join the opposition to Cairo and Khartoum over maintaining what many upstream nations say is an “unjust” water-sharing agreement.

“We are certainly concerned over the future of our water security, but we must give South Sudan time to see what is right,” said Amr Hassan, an environment ministry official. Egypt has already attempted to throw some carrots to Juba through infrastructure projects, including at least four electricity stations.

Cairo has repeatedly refused to sign onto any convention without assurances by other Nile Basin Initiative members that the country would not lose the 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water they are allowed to use and demanded a veto power over any projects implemented upstream in southern Nile nations....

Map of South Sudan from the CIA's World Factbook, July 12, 2011