Irish development and humanitarian organisations are joining forces to urge greater political action to respond to the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 40 years.
Jane-Ann McKenna, chief executive of Dochas, the umbrella organisation for the sector, told Newstalk’s Breakfast Briefing that there are 23 million people at risk, experiencing crisis levels of hunger in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.
“We should be able to lead at international level to call for this radical mobilisation of aid and use our voice at the table, at the UN Security Council to demand action. We need to act now. If we do act now we can end this hunger crisis, we can save lives.
“If the international community continues to ignore this situation there will be further deaths,” she warned.
The number of people at risk has doubled in the past year and over the last two years aid agencies have been sounding the alarm calling for a clear response, which has effectively been ignored by the international community, said Ms McKenna.
There have been clear warnings for years, which have effectively been ignored. “We are saying the figures today are now stark, we know that if we do not act now there will be widespread famine in the region. There will be a catastrophic humanitarian disaster and we believe that rich nations including Ireland really need to step up and act now to avert disaster.”
Political failure
Ms McKenna said starvation was essentially a political failure – “this crisis is not a one off, it demonstrates a deep fragility of the food and economic system that millions of people are relying on to survive. What we're seeing now in the Horn of Africa is the effects of the climate crisis play out in real time.
“The climate situation is essentially spiralling out of control, and it is crippling the capacity of the poorest countries to respond. The drought that we are seeing play out now effectively affects crop production, reduces the size of lake fishing waters, kills livestock, leads to population displacement and we are all seeing this happen.
“The consequence is the erosion of livelihoods and communities already living on the brink and many of these areas are affected also by conflict, by Covid-19 outbreaks as well. The fragility of the food system has been laid bare with the situation in Ukraine - we know that many of these countries are dependent as up to 90 percent of their wheat imports come from Ukraine or Russia.”
All of the Irish development and aid organisations are coming together to sound the alarm on famine, she said.
“We need to do more, we need to use our voice and use action to demonstrate and lead at international level to assure the immediate and radical mobilisation of aid into the regions.
“Every day's delay raises the cost of responding – it is really urgent that we actually have leadership in this area and that Ireland demonstrates that leadership.”
