AFRICA: The scope and depth of the hunger crisis facing millions of people across several African countries is unprecedented and requires an urgent response, the executive director of the UN's World Food Programme said yesterday.
Mr James T Morris appealed to governments, private charities, non-governmental organisations, citizens' groups and everyone "who cares about fundamental human decency" to join a new global campaign - Africa Hunger Alert - to assist more than 38 million famine victims.
The campaign, being co-ordinated by the World Food Programme (WFP), will be launched next month. It aims "to alert the international community to the enormity of the crisis faced by millions of innocent men, women and children who run the very real risk of death by starvation", Mr Morris said.
It will encourage people and organisations across the globe to join in fundraising to generate urgently-needed resources.
The hunger crisis in Africa has grown particularly acute following two major emergencies in southern Africa and in the Horn of Africa this year.
In the six countries of southern Africa - Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique - almost 15 million people are threatened by starvation. In Ethiopia and Eritrea, an additional 11 to 15 million are at risk.
"Without a massive response, the humanitarian community will not be able to counter these looming disasters. We are desperately appealing to donor countries to stave off this horrifying catastrophe, but the reality is additional resources are scarce.
"Government aid budgets have been stretched to the limit while, at the same time, drought in some grain-producing countries has caused sharp price increases, which means that today's aid dollar buys even fewer emergency food supplies," Mr Morris said.
Details of funds raised during the Africa Hunger Alert campaign, which runs for three weeks from December 16th, and how the money is being used, will be posted on the WFP website at www.wfp.org/AfricaHungerAlert.
Also yesterday, Trócaire announced that its emergency staff were developing a programme to tackle the needs of vulnerable communities in Ethiopia, where the current famine is predicted to affect more people than famine did in 1984.
The aid agency's deputy director, Mr Eamonn Meehan, said while the country was landlocked with poor roads, Ethiopia was in a better position to respond to the crisis today than it was in 1984. Logistics, communications and government systems have improved. "There is no excuse to let the Ethiopian people down by not getting supplies to them now.
"While the immediate cause of the current situation is the failure of rains, there are several underlying reasons, including the land tenure system where the land is owned by the government and not conducive to farmer investment. Farmers are taxed immediately after the harvest when market prices are at their lowest. People can usually rely on selling coffee as a back-up source of income but coffee prices have seen a slump and are at a 30-year low."