2006 Horn of Africa food crisis

Causes

Drought is a predictable event in the Horn of Africa, and when combined with other factors it causes conflict and terrible human misery. In the present 2006 drought, claims about factors transforming drought into famine include a ban on livestock imports to markets in the Persian Gulf States, which has reduced the income of livestock-dependent farmers, further increasing food insecurity.

The population in East Africa had increased rapidly in the decades before the food crisis. From 67 million in 1950 to 306 million in 2006. : No substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. Yves Engler has made more explicit claims about famines in the Sahel. He has claimed, consistently with Amartya Sen's general model, that the International Monetary Fund is responsible for worsening or actually creating famine in Malawi (2002), Ethiopia (2003) and Niger (2005).--

Crisis

Djibouti

Djibouti was a severely drought affected; the FAO estimated that about one third of the population (400 000 people) needed food aid.

Ethiopia

The FAO estimated that more than one million people in the Somali Region of Ethiopia were facing severe food shortages. Although crops are currently being harvested, shortages are still expected to occur in the country's south-east.

Kenya

Crop failure, drought and depleted livestock herds led to famine conditions in the Cushitic-inhabited northern and eastern pastoral districts of Mandera, Wajir, and Marsabit. As of January 6, 2006, approximately 30 deaths were reported. Some 2.5 million people (10% of the population)

Somalia

Somalia was the least affected out of the four countries. About two million people in the country's southern pastoral regions required humanitarian assistance.

Relief effort

In February 2006, UNICEF warned that 1.5 million children under the age of five were being threatened by the drought and called for $16 million USD to help fund its relief efforts in the region.

Notes

References

1. [http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000206/index.html Millions of people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-05-24 , [[Food and Agriculture Organization]] (FAO) news release, 6 January 2006)
2. link. (2012-03-07 Overseas Development Institute)
3. [http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/FEWS/2f11aca7c4604070fa13ceae0024c8fc.htm Pre-famine conditions confront Somali region] - [[Reuters]] AlertNet
4. "Population Pyramids of the World from 1950 to 2100".
5. [http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=8494 Market Famines], by [[Yves Engler]], August 13, 2005
6. link. (2006-05-02 , [[Famine Early Warning Systems Network]], 28 December 2005)
7. Catherine Broberg, ''Kenya in Pictures'', (Twenty-First Century Books: 2003), p.43
8. required food aid over the next six months, which led the Kenyan President [[Mwai Kibaki]] to declare a national disaster.[http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14235639.htm Food aid theft hurts Kenya's starving millions] - Reuters AlertNet
9. (2006-02-07). "Unicef Seeks Aid As Millions Suffer in Drought-Hit Horn of Africa". UN News Service.