Read at : Google Alert – desertification
http://www.economist.com/node/21524864/comments
Chronicle of a famine foretold
The Horn of Africa
ON JULY 27th, after days of toing and froing, the first aid flight at last landed in Mogadishu, capital of famine-hit Somalia. It carried 10 tonnes of plumpy nut, enough to reverse malnutrition in 3,500 children. The mission seems late. After the 1985 Ethiopian famine America’s aid agency set up a Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) to give warning of disasters. It has been forecasting a threat of famine in Somalia since November.
Famine has a technical meaning these days. It is declared when 30% of children are acutely malnourished, 20% of the population is without food, and deaths are running at two per 10,000 adults or four per 10,000 children every day. Parts of Somalia exceed these dreadful thresholds. In three provinces almost a third of people are acutely malnourished, says the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). FEWS Net conducted surveys across southern Somalia this month and found that malnutrition exceeded 38% in most areas—a catastrophic rate. Famine is likely to spread all over the south in the next few months (see map). About 2.8m people are thought to need immediate life-saving help.
Yet famine was not declared until July, eight months after the first FEWS Net forecast. The UN did not issue its first appeal until then, though it made a small provision for expected problems in November. The response by donors has been patchy. In a sign of its growing global role, Brazil has pledged more to Somalia than Germany and France have combined. Italy offered nothing. Of the $2 billion the UN says the region needs, it has received less than half. The cash available for food in southern Somalia looks likely to run out well before the next rains.
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