East Africa Famine: Reasons & Current Status

Since 2015, several countries on the eastern side of African Continent are reeling under severe drought conditions which have aggravated in 2017. In March, 2017, the United Nations announced that more than 20 million people in four countries (Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen) are on verge of famine. UN has called this situation as “the worst humanitarian crisis” since the end of World War II.  In South Sudan, the government and UN have already declared a famine and people have started dying of hunger. Currently, around 2500 people are crossing South Sudan border every day to enter into Uganda as refugees. There are around 8 Lakh South Sudanese refugees in Uganda. Thousands of refugees from South Sudan are also stranded in Ethiopia. In Somalia, the government has already declared national disaster. In Kenya also the number of people in need of food has more than doubled. The condition is also not good in Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia.  In this article, we are limiting ourselves to basic knowledge related to the current crisis in the light of below questions:

• Who declares famine? How famine is being forecasted even before its occurrence?
• What are various criteria in declaring a country as famine ridden country?
• What are the causes of current East Africa famine crisis?
• What is Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) or Indian Nino? How it is being used to explain the East Africa drought?

Who declares famine? How famine is being forecasted even before its occurrence?

The declaration of famine is made jointly by several parties: the government of the affected country, various agencies of the United Nations and a “Famine Early Warning Systems Network”(FEWSNET). FEWSNET was set up by the United States government to collect and analyze data from a range of sources. It draws data from survey which is collected on the ground by aid agencies and governments as well as climate and satellite data which is provided by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The setup was developed in 1980s in a  response to the devastating famines caused in East and West Africa. The basic idea was to prevent such disasters by providing policymakers with a input of forecasting system that which inform him about food crisis and what needs to be done to keep it from inflating to the next level.

What are various criteria in declaring a country as famine ridden country?

Generally, a five-phase scale is used to rank food crises that have been developed since the mid-2000s.

• Phase-1: This is the initial phase of minimal food insecurity but there are lesser rains and drought creeps in. This gives an opportunity to the governments and international donors to step in with aid to mitigate the crisis looming around. If the drought intensity gets normal, the phase-1 reverts and life is back to normal.
• Phase 2: If no suitable action is taken in phase-1 to mitigate the upcoming crisis, phasze-2 starts which is considered “stressed”.
• Phase 3: It is the phase of “crisis. In this phase, between 10 to 15 percent of the population is starting to suffer from what’s called “acute malnutrition”.
• Phase 4: In this situation has reached the point of an “emergency.” Where People start looking skeletal, hair become bleached due to lack of vitamin  and result in failure of multiple Organs.
• Phase 5: Phase five is “famine” situation, three criteria need to be met: At least one in five households now faces an extreme lack of food, more than 30 percent of the population is suffering from acute malnutrition, and at least two people out of every 10,000 are dying each day.

What are the causes of current East Africa famine crisis?

The reasons are natural as well as manmade. Geography and climate change are obviously the most accepted reasons for frequent food crises in several parts of Africa, the current crisis is more a food crisis than famine and each has different technical as well as political connotation.

Natural reasons

Initially, the dual phenomena of El Niño (which began in 2015) and ensuing La Niña were held responsible for East Africa drought. Lately, some have linked it to the phenomenon of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) also known as Indian Nino.

During last two years, many areas of East Africa have experienced shortened and erratic rainfalls. This has led to reduced crop production, poor conditions in pastoral areas and food insecurity. We note here that many farmers in these countries practice subsistence farming. In January 2017, the harvest of maize, a staple food crop in Africa, was expected to be 50 percent below normal. As a result, some of these countries are experiencing Phase 3 (Crisis) conditions by May 2017. The people need to engage in coping strategies including skipping meals or reducing portions, looking for off-farm labor opportunities, or selling household assets, including livestock, to support food consumption. On a broader side, since 1970s, the drought susceptibility of earth has doubled and this has made parts of Africa face severe drought in sever seven years.

Manmade reasons

Though drought is key factor to trigger famine, the later is actually culmination of several factors including civil wars, conflicts, poor farming techniques and so on. Out of the manmade reasons, conflict is the main culprit in countries like South Sudan which is engaged in conflict since its birth.  Most of the people are engaged in farming for its livelihood but war has worsened the situation making  it impossible for them to farm. As food production declines there is a shortage of supply which result in inflation which affect purchasing power of people.  Despite of warning of hunger crisis no action was taken which should be regarded as failure of collective responsibility of International community. Hence decisive action is needed early, rather than responding post-crisis; International collaboration  and all stakeholder need to work toward reducing drought risk and building community resilience which is the key to mitigate such crisis.

What is Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) or Indian Nino? How it is being used to explain the East Africa drought?

Part of the problem in East Africa is being linked to Indian Ocean Dipole or Indian Nino. IOD was identified by a team of Japanese researchers in the late 1990s.   It refers to an irregular oscillation of sea-surface temperature, in which the Western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer and then colder than the eastern part of the ocean. It has two alternative phases viz. positive and negative. During positive phase, the eastern part of Indian Ocean becomes colder than normal while the western part at East Africa Coast is unusually warm. This phase is beneficial for monsoons in India but might have triggered drought in East Africa.