UN envoy urges quick response to drought crisis

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has urged the international community to respond quickly to the needs of millions of people affected by severe drought in the Horn of Africa.

Jean Ziegler said in a statement on Monday that under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, state parties had an obligation to respond quickly to food crises in UN member states.

An estimated 11 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania are facing food shortages because of a drought that has ravaged the region. Pre-famine conditions have been reported in some of the affected areas.

The food crisis has taken a heavy toll on an estimated 1.2 million children under age five, the group most vulnerable to malnutrition and disease.

The prolonged dry spell has also caused acute water shortages and destroyed crops and grazing lands. Large numbers of livestock, upon which many pastoral and agro-pastoral communities depend, have died.

Ziegler, who reports to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged the governments of the affected countries to work in cooperation with the UN to address the problem of drought from a long-term perspective.

In a related development, Kjell Magne Bondevik, the newly appointed UN special humanitarian envoy for the Horn of Africa, was due to arrive in Kenya on Tuesday to begin an assessment mission in the region.