Drought need not mean hunger and destitution - Oxfam

With droughts becoming more common, donors and the Ethiopian government must look beyond the traditional "band aid" responses to disasters by using approaches that are more cost-effective, sustainable and better suited to the population, international aid agency Oxfam says in a new report.

"We cannot make the rains come, but there is much more that we can do to break the cycle of drought-driven disaster in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa," Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director, states. "Food aid offers temporary relief and has kept people alive in countless situations, but does not tackle the underlying causes that continue to make people vulnerable to disaster year after year."

Oxfam issued the report, Band Aids and Beyond, on 22 October, the 25th anniversary of one of Ethiopia's worst famines when an estimated one million people died. The report looks at how aid has worked since 1984, arguing that the current donor trend of focusing on emergency food aid had to change.

"Donors need to shift their approach, and help to give communities the tools to tackle disasters before they strike," Lawrence said. "Drought does not need to mean hunger and destitution. If communities have irrigation for crops, grain stores and wells to harvest rains then they can survive despite what the elements throw at them."

Calling for a radical shake-up in the way the world tackled food crises, Oxfam said it was essential that donors rise to the challenge and provide adequate funding for emergency assistance for this year's crisis, adding: "Current responses by international donors are far below requirements estimated by governments and UN agencies."

Photo: Anthony Mitchell/IRIN

Food aid: Oxfam says in a new report that donors need to shift their approach and help to give communities the tools to tackle disasters before they strike (file photo)

New approach

In the report, Oxfam argues that “it is equally essential that donors do more to back programmes that manage the risk of the disaster before it strikes, such as early warning systems, creating strategically positioned stockpiles of food, medicine and other items, and irrigation programmes.

"For instance, in Somali region, Oxfam is building birkhads, or protected wells, to enable communities to 'harvest' rain during the rainy season to make sure there is more water available nearby when the rains stop. These types of programmes receive just 0.14 percent of overseas aid."

Climate change threat

"Climate scientists predict that by 2034, the 50th anniversary of the 1984 Ethiopia famine, what are now droughts will become the norm, hitting the region three years out of every four," Oxfam said. "A shift of approach is needed to prevent climate shocks developing into disasters which will push more people into poverty."

Lawrence said: "Climate change makes the urgency of this approach greater than ever before. Ethiopians on the frontline of climate change cannot wait another 25 years for common sense to become common practice."

World hunger

On 16 October, another international aid agency, ActionAid, issued a report, Who's really fighting hunger, questioning why one billion people the world over were hungry.

Photo: Gijs van ‘t Klooster/FAO

Impact of drought: Climate scientists predict that by 2034, the 50th anniversary of the 1984 Ethiopia famine, droughts will become the norm, hitting three years out of every four (file photo)

"Over one billion people – a sixth of humanity - don't have enough to eat," ActionAid said. "Almost a third of the world's children are growing up malnourished. This is perhaps one of the most shameful achievements of recent history, since there is no good reason for anyone to go hungry in today's world. "

However, ActionAid said hunger was a choice man makes, "not a force of nature".

It added: “Hunger begins with inequality – between men and women, and between rich and poor. It grows because of perverse policies that treat food purely as a commodity, not a right. It is because of these policies that most developing countries no longer grow enough to feed themselves, and that their farmers are among the hungriest and poorest people in the world. Meanwhile, the rich world battles growing obesity."

Arguing that policies can be changed, ActionAid detailed the dramatic progress made when countries translated the right to food into concrete actions, "such as investing in poor farmers, and introducing basic measures to protect the vulnerable. Their success makes the inaction and apathy of other countries all the more inexcusable."

js/mw