A catastrophic drought in the Horn of Africa demands “massive and urgent” action from the international community, the UN food agency’s chief said yesterday as emergency talks opened on the crisis.
The worst drought in 60 years has wreaked havoc on war-torn Somalia and parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, increasing pressure on world leaders to boost aid for millions of people on the brink of starvation.
“The catastrophic situation demands massive and urgent international aid,” said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which was hosting the meeting at its headquarters in Rome.
DONATIONS
“It’s imperative to stop the famine,” Diouf said, adding that US$1.6 billion were needed for the next 12 months.
Donor countries will meet on the escalating drought crisis tomorrow, French Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing Bruno Le Maire said at emergency UN talks in Rome.
He said yesterday’s meeting of UN aid chiefs and charities in the Italian capital would also “prepare for the donor conference in Nairobi in two days’ time.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on donor countries for that amount in aid for two regions of southern Somalia declared famine zones by the UN last week.
The FAO has warned the situation will deteriorate if nothing is done now.
And despite recent EU fund pledges, aid agencies say more needs to be raised, and fast.
France, which called the meeting as current head of the G20 group of leading world economies, said the international community had failed to ensure global food security.
“The international community has failed to ensure food security in the world,” Le Maire told UN aid agency chiefs and charity representatives.
“If we don’t take the necessary measures, famine will be the scandal of this century,” Le Maire said, adding: “Our meeting is a question of life or death for tens of thousands of people.”
UN officials say famine over the last few months has killed tens of thousands of people, forcing desperate survivors to walk for weeks in search of food and water.
GELDOF TO THE RESCUE
Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof joined activists in urging the international community to come up with more aid relief for famine victims, in a letter published yesterday ahead of the meeting.
Geldof and other celebrities, such as actress Kristin Scott Thomas and director Richard Curtis, attacked countries such as France, Italy, the Arab states and Germany.
They accused them of having “so far given miniscule amounts of money to prevent people dying from hunger.”
The meeting was to address not only immediate aid, but long-term solutions for the crisis — such as assistance to livestock farmers, the introduction of more drought-resistant crops and measures to control food price volatility.
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