CHURCH leaders and Christian charities are calling on the UK Government to wake up to the food crisis in East Africa (News, 6 May), and to fund programmes that provide long-term solutions.
An open letter from 44 Anglican bishops in South Sudan and Kenya, published on Wednesday, asserts that “existing commitments to strengthen resilience have not been backed up by funding that is so desperately needed. This must change. Every day, more lives are lost, and more are at risk.”
The bishops warn that “another famine is on the horizon, but it is not inevitable” if emergency funding is provided.
On Monday, Christian Aid published a report, Ripping Off the Band-aid, that brands the international response to the food crisis as “hugely inadequate”.
Hunger has more than doubled in the past year, the report says, and tens of millions now face food insecurity in the region, precipitated by the worst drought in 40 years. This has been exacerbated by conflict there and in Ukraine, which has affected grain imports (News, 29 July).
The report argues that the existing model of international aid, with its cycles of appeals and crisis funding, is not equal to the task of breaking the cycle of food insecurity.
It argues that the focus should instead be on increasing support for local organisations that are able to work sustainably with communities long-term, to increase land productivity, and resilience in the face of fluctuating yields.
“It’s time to rip off the band-aid and invest more in communities during and between crises,” the report argues.
Christian Aid’s global humanitarian manager, Mbaraka Fazal, said on Monday: “In a world where there is enough food for everyone, it is a moral outrage that people are dying of hunger.”
She continued: “While helping people currently facing life-threatening hunger is of the utmost importance, so, too, must we start thinking longer-term. We must accept the aid system is but a sticking plaster that is not fit to respond to the ever increasing scale of emerging crises.”
The report describes the effects of recent droughts across East Africa. In Ethiopia, where 20 million face food insecurity (an increase from five million this time last year), farmers’ need to travel beyond their area in search of scarce resources has created conflict. This, in turn, lowers productivity.
The charity Mary’s Meals, which feeds schoolchildren, has drawn attention to the resumption of fighting in Tigray, a region of northern Ethiopia where there is conflict with the federal government.
The founder of Mary’s Meals, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, said on Wednesday: “The resumption of fighting is making it almost impossible for our partner to get aid to those in need, but we must not make the mistake of thinking there is nothing we can do. We have a voice, and we must speak up for the people of Ethiopia now.”
In August, during the Lambeth Conference, the Bishop of Central Tanganyika, in Tanzania, the Rt Revd Dickson Chilongani, emphasised the part that climate change was playing in creating the conditions for food shortages. Extreme weather — too much or too little rain — was causing severe problems, he said.
Bishops attending the Lambeth Conference joined a prayer vigil on behalf of the millions facing famine in East Africa (News, 5 August).
The Bishop of Abyei, in South Sudan, the Rt Revd Michael Deng Bol, was one of those who attended the vigil. “Drought in some regions and flooding in others means people are leaving their homes, and crops are failing. Many people no longer have any food left, and they are starving,” he said.