Drought in the Horn of Africa: What the U.S. Is Doing

Real Audio of Briefing 

3:40 P.M. EST

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. For this afternoon's briefing on drought in the Horn of Africa and US efforts to deal with that situation, we are delighted to be able to welcome here today the Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Mr. Andrew Natsios, as well as Lauren Landis, the Director of USAID's Food for Peace Office. Mr. Natsios will make some opening remarks, after which, unfortunately, he will have to leave, but Ms. Landis will then report on her recent trip to Africa and provide you with a good amount of detail on that and then be available for questions, as well.

So, Mr. Natsios.

MR. NATSIOS: Thank you very much. We have been focusing our attention in the US Government and the donor community on the Southern African drought crisis that we are facing. We now have evidence of a second major crisis that the countries of Africa are facing, and that is in East Africa, specifically in Ethiopia and Eritrea, that is caused by both a structural deficit in their food production -- which is year-to-year regardless of whether there is a crisis -- with a drought and major crop failure superimposed on top of that.

In the worst case scenario, 15.5 million people are at risk in both Ethiopia and in Eritrea, and the total food requirement -- the food deficit -- is 2.7 million tons, which is almost the same as the requirements for the Southern African drought.

The United States has already made commitments of over 200,000 tons and we're making an additional commitment today of 60,000 metric tons for Ethiopia, for a total of 278,000 metric tons for both Ethiopia and Eritrea toward this crisis which they are facing.

I just want to say that in the case of Ethiopia in particular, we are blessed with having a country where the leadership recognized there is a problem, has announced that they have a problem and is doing everything they can to facilitate assistance. We frequently face crises where the governments deny there's a problem and put every impediment in the way of getting food in -- Zimbabwe is a classic case of that -- where they are putting their own population at risk.

Ethiopia is in exactly the opposite situation, where there is a national leadership that does not want to have loss of life and is mobilizing the donor community to respond to this before we face a crisis.

We are not facing a famine. We are facing an emergency, which, if it is not dealt with, could become deadly. We are not at that stage. We are not even close to that. But the time that is always important in an emergency -- food emergency -- is early in the crisis. If you catch it early enough and you have sufficient time, you can plan and move food in and take other measures to avoid the loss of life.

Just let me also say, there's a third point here that countries can, on their own, or with donor support, take measures to avoid in the future food shocks that are a result of weather-related or economic collapse.

In December of 2001 and early 2002, the Government of Ethiopia, let by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, reformed its food security policy to help the country better address its long-term food needs. The Government of Ethiopia has recognized something which is, we think, of central importance, that continual appeals for emergency food assistance cannot be sustained from the donor community; the government itself needs to take action, in fact, has taken action, to change their policy environment and their national strategy so that these emergencies happen with less frequency in the future and each will be of less severity as these new policies go into effect.

The government has agreed to a new food security strategy and a new rural development strategy, which will help mitigate the effect of these problems in the future. One change they have made is they have begun to budget in their own budget, with their own national resources, food aid and nonfood assistant expenditures. Even though they don't have all of the resources necessary to deal with these emergencies, they are at least taking responsibility in their own budgeting system for part of this.

Secondly, they will, December of this year, make an appeal to create a new safety net system. It's called the Transition Asset Protection System for Chronically Food Insecure Areas. These are areas where there's a structural deficit no matter whether there's a good harvest or a bad harvest in the country as a whole.

And in those areas, they will move from traditional crop mechanisms and patterns to alternate crops, alternate means of generating household incomes and pilot activities that will address some of the structural impediments to food security; for example, better home-to-market road development. Roads make a big difference in being able to move surplus from one part of Ethiopia to another part that might be in deficit.

People died in 1985 in the famine because we could not legally move food surpluses from one area of the country to another area.  Meles Zenawi wants to facilitate that and is now designing a rural road strategy that will help facilitate the movement of the surpluses to deficit areas.

They are also looking at alternate income generation, micro-enterprise development, and other means of supporting families when there are food shocks. They are also looking at developing grain and stock market information systems that will help producers get their best price for crops.

They are looking at new feed varieties that are drought resistant that would lead to increased agricultural production and they are improving their agricultural extension and marketing of agricultural imports to farmers.

I just want to say, this program started basically late last year in December. The President, himself, has taken leadership on this issue prior to this emergency, and we would urge this Ethiopian Government to use this crisis as a way of accelerating the implementation of these reforms.

One thing we've noticed when we've studied emergencies, whether it be a natural disaster or man-made disaster in other countries, is many countries have successfully used crises to get their bureaucracies and their economic system and their social structure to accept major changes much more readily and at a much more accelerated rate than would normally be the case.

That's true, by the way, in the United States. The best reforms in earthquake mitigation in California have always taken place in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake. It's the same principle for other countries. So I would only urge the Ethiopian Government to consider accelerating the implementations of these reforms.

What I would like to do now is to leave this to Lauren Landis, who just returned from the Horn of Africa, and she is much more expert, since I haven't been there in four years, on what's really happening.

Lauren.

MS. LANDIS: Good afternoon. Actually, I returned from Ethiopia last month. I had both -- the opportunity to travel to both Ethiopia and Eritrea with Kenzo Oshima, the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and the Emergency Response Coordinator at the UN.

The purpose of the trip was to see the drought conditions, to raise awareness, and to look at ways that the emergency could be implemented better -- make recommendations. The delegation also included representatives of the EU and of the World Food Program.

The delegation was very honored in that it was able to meet both with the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the President of Eritrea, as well as other key government, NGO and UN officials in each country. We were also able to travel to the field in both countries to see the impact of the drought firsthand. I will go first through Ethiopia and then describe the trip a bit in Eritrea.

The first thing that we noted upon visiting Addis Ababa is that the Government of Ethiopia had really done, and continues to do, a great job in early warning and in quick response. In fact, the Government of Eritrea really led the international response using food reserves out of the grain reserves that they have in Ethiopia and other resources, agricultural resources -- from their government in order to launch the effort.

They then proceeded to really mobilize the international community. We found that the international community is working quite well together. They were working well on doing various assessments and planning for the implementation.

We also participated in the launch of the government appeal, where we also saw that there had been a tremendous amount of good work at looking at the situation in both the best case, mid case and worst case scenario and figuring out what would be required in terms of food stocks as well as nonfood supplies in each possible scenario of the emergency.

We also had the opportunity to travel to West Hararge. This is an area of Ethiopia that is not traditionally known for needing a lot of food assistance but where it is predicted this year that there may be up to 90 percent crop loss.

We were greeted by people who lined the streets. They presented us with their stunted and wilted crops, and we were able to quite easily see malnourished children who had also come to greet us.

There were livestock carcasses throughout the villages that we visited, and it was clear that a lot of livestock loss had taken place quite early in the emergency.

We heard and spoke with many farmers who talked about planting two and three times, yet were unable to get significant production. They took us out to the field. We pulled back crops and looked at wilted and stunted ears of sorghum. It was clear that even if additional rains came at that time, that there would not be -- it would not help those crops and that the production was going to be significantly limited.

We talked with a number of people, a number of women, and met with a number of community groups that talked about all of the natural coping mechanisms that we see in people that are in crisis. People talked about using their resources to produce handicrafts. They were selling their livestock, but they were getting reduced prices for them. They were selling off some of their other assets. Some were migrating to live with other family members. All indicators of a very severe crisis situation.

We also saw some food distributions that were already taking place. Many of the people who work for NGOs and the WFP in the region said that already they had seen an improvement in the population once the food distributions had started. One of the things that the US got a lot of praise for was our pledge at that time of 100,000 metric tons, which allowed the Ethiopians to immediately take an equivalent amount from their grain reserve and immediately distribute it to populations in need.

And as Andrew pointed out, it's this quick effort that helps the situation from further deteriorating that can really have an impact in stopping a food crisis from becoming a famine.

We also talked to NGOs and many of them were really working very hard, very diligently to expand their feeding programs, seeing that -- given the situation as it was now -- that as we went further, after the harvest that they were going to need to expand their feeding programs because they were anticipating that the harvest would be very small.

And also, they were working very hard on many of the nonfood needs -- vaccination campaigns, looking into seeds, and particularly, supplementary and therapeutic feeding that targeted children primarily and other vulnerable groups, "Zero to Five," that were showing signs of acute malnourishment.

In Eritrea, we also saw that very good early warning was in place and that quick action was being taken. Again, Eritrea, as I'm sure you're well aware, is a very complex situation. We talked to NGOs who are working in zones that are traditionally drought-prone. We also talked to a number of returnees and internally displaced persons, due to war and other crises that this very young nation has been fighting.

What was very powerful was that whether you spoke to a government official or a local elder or anyone in any community, there was a real sense that these people wanted in every way, shape and form to be self-sufficient. There was no desire to linger on food aid assistance. They really felt that they wanted to build a very self-sufficient nation and that they just needed assistance to get through this temporary crisis.

What was also very powerful was what we saw in terms of the crop. I have never actually seen total crop failure, and I think I just saw it for the first time in the regions that we visited. We visited areas of Eritrea that are traditionally the breadbasket of the country, but what we saw were crops that were totally devastated, brown, and were simply being used as forage for the remaining livestock. Clearly, this will have a huge impact on a very vulnerable population.

Overall, the conclusions of the trip and of the delegation were that the early warning systems that are in place that are very much supported by the international community have allowed us to respond to this emergency in time to avert massive hunger or to avert famine, but probably not all hunger-related deaths.

There was a lot of discussion about the fact that this crisis had happened so quickly after the drought situation that we've seen in 2000 and there was a lot of concern about why was this happening again so quickly. Why was there another emergency?

And it was clear from talking to a number of leaders in each country that the fact that the emergency occurred so quickly after the previous drought that people had not had time to recover, that their coping mechanisms that they had in place were still weak. They had not gotten completely back on their feet and this new crisis which just happened from two seasons of poor and erratic rain had put them back into an emergency scenario.

I think the delegation would agree that we also saw the possibilities for the worst case scenario, the figures that Andrew Natsios has quoted, that could be a real possibility in both Ethiopia and Eritrea.

It's also very clear that the response will entail a number of logistical challenges. It will be very difficult to respond in the magnitude that may be needed, given the logistical constraints. For example, if we're talking about the worst case scenario in Ethiopia, a landlocked country, of 2.4 million metric tons of food being needed, that means at the height of the emergency, which we're looking at somewhere between January and April, that there would have to be 200,000 metric tons that would have to go into that country per month.

Just to give you an idea, most of that food would go through the Port of Djibouti, which has probably a capacity of about 130,000 metric tons. So we see tremendous logistical challenges.

What is very clear is that whether we're talking about 10 million or 14 million people in need, it isn't really relevant. What's most critical is that we need to start moving now.

The US Government has proactively contributed, as Andrew said, approximately 300,000 metric tons of food in the region since July. But it's really time for other donors to take action and we can't wait for further assessments to be formalized. It needs to happen now.

As Andrew said, what is really critical is that what is done in the next two months will really determine the magnitude of the crisis to come.

Thank you.

MR. DENIG: We would like to take questions. Again, we remind you to please use the microphone and introduce yourself and your organization.

QUESTION: Raghubir Goyal for India Global and Asia Today. First, how many people you think are dying of hunger in Africa and, two, total number globally due to food shortage, and if you have any commitment from another government that you are working with?

MS. LANDIS: I can't tell you how many are dying of food-related or hunger-related deaths worldwide. What I can tell you is that we clearly know that there are 800 million people worldwide who are hungry or who are in need of food assistance. And what we're really concerned about, as you can see by the map, is the magnitude of these emergencies that we currently see happening, particularly in Africa, but also in other parts of the world. We may see that, in fact, this number of chronically malnourished, this 800 million, may increase in a time when we're really trying to reduce the amount of hunger around the world.

QUESTION: -- go to Afghanistan? Can you answer on Afghanistan?

MS. LANDIS: I'm really not prepared to answer on Afghanistan.

QUESTION: Okay. Just, which governments you are working with the crisis in Africa? You've confirmed any commitments from any governments?

MS. LANDIS: As I said, we're really concerned about other donors participating in the response. Up to about 87,000 metric tons so far have been pledged by other donors. But as we have articulated today, with the magnitude being so large, it's really clear that we can't take a "wait and see" approach, that we really need to step up to the plate now in a much larger way.

QUESTION: Finally, are you working with the United Nations?

MS. LANDIS: No, I work for the US Government. I just have --

QUESTION: Well, I mean, as crisis in Africa your concern, are you working with the United Nations?

MS. LANDIS: Yes, yes. We're working, particularly in my office, which is the Office of Food for Peace, with the World Food Program that has real expertise in responding to emergencies, and we are working with them throughout Africa to provide assistance.

MR. DENIG: The gentleman in the back.

QUESTION: Alan Beattie from The Financial Times. Can you tell us why, I mean, notwithstanding what you've said about putting early warning systems in in the last couple of years and food security programs in in the last couple of years, the lessons from the '84-'85 famine in the Horn of Africa don't appear to have been learnt or at least don't appear to have been acted on until relatively recently?

MS. LANDIS: I don't know which lessons you're referring to. I would say that we were, in fact, working very hard on the lessons learned out of previous crises to reduce the number of chronically malnourished, particularly in Ethiopia. But what we found is this very severe drought condition has come so soon upon a previous crisis that it has not allowed us, has not allowed the international community, to step back and take a break. We very much need to continue to respond, and we see the crisis as very severe.

QUESTION: Catherine Drew with the SABC. Could I ask you about Zimbabwe?

MS. LANDIS: Really, this is a briefing on the Horn of Africa.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. LANDIS: Thank you.

MR. DENIG: Can we have one more? The gentleman in the back there.

QUESTION: Chuck Corey from The Washington File to Africa. Could you give us a little insight into not only the food problems that are going on because of the drought in the area, but also, does that compound AIDS problems and other health problems -- how that all ties together? Thank you.

MS. LANDIS: You're very right. It ties together in a very real way. I think a lot of the problems that we're facing are obviously -- the fact that there is drought in the Horn is compounded, clearly, by poverty and all of the related factors.

Clearly, if you are unhealthy, if there is prevalent disease, the fact that there is a lack of food is going to exacerbate the situation. And we're very much concerned that there will be deterioration more quickly in populations that are suseptible -- whether it's childhood diseases or HIV/AIDs -- and it's very important to us that we particularly focus on these most vulnerable populations and that we get the most balanced and nutritious food basket to those populations because their weakened state because of hunger will really compound the poor health that we see.

QUESTION: (Raghubir Goyal, AEN News, India) My question was really why we left this area, this continent, in this situation? Is this because the rich nations have no interest in this area? Or, two, what are the long-range solutions to the problem, because these are short terms happening every month and all that? And it's also due to war or even corruption?

MS. LANDIS: I mean, clearly the long-term solution is development, and AID is very much focused and works in all of these countries in Africa on the longer term impact. But when a crisis like a drought in the Horn or in Southern Africa occurs, we also feel very much compelled to use our plentiful agricultural resources to respond proactively. But development is really the clear solution and we feel we're working hard on that, as well.

MR. DENIG: All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.