In 2011, famine has begun to strike the Greater
Horn of Africa with apocalyptic force, with rows of fly-haunted corpses and the
skeletal orphans crouched in pain, the nomads and pastoralist desperately
scrambling for help. Despondent Somali mothers are
abandoning their dying children as they travel to engulf crisis centers in
Kenya and Ethiopia. The Horn
of Africa witnessed a devastating drought, the worst in 60 years, causing
widespread famine with 13 million people affected. The AU held a Pledging Conference
at joint Summit at which they declared their firm commitment to end drought emergencies
in the Horn. In Ethiopia in 2015, contrary to the forecast at the beginning of the year, inadequate Belg
(mid-February-May) rains received this year drastically changed the humanitarian
context in Ethiopia. Increasing water and pasture shortages were reported in
parts of the country, leading to deteriorated livestock production and
productivity, deepening food insecurity and rising malnutrition. The Belg harvest
is expected to be significantly less than the projection in the 2015 Humanitarian
Requirements Document. Ad hoc requests were coming from regional (state) authorities
for increased food aid. Preventing the spread of the measles outbreak is also
crucial to avert higher morbidity and mortality rates, especially in nutrition
hotspot areas (UN OCHA, 2015:1). For once, the Horn of Africa’s food
insecurity responses need not be fire fighting as this is not an act of God in the Old Testament; neither
should they be a subject of conferences and committees. It requires calculative
reflection as the most viable refined sphere of a potentially promising region,
whose labyrinthine trek towards transformation necessitates a visionary
filament of disaster prevention, preparedness and a matching mitigation plan
that must all be embedded in entrepreneurial development rooted in the human
security dictum of Freedom from Fear and
Freedom from Want.
Key words: preparedness,
prevention, mitigation, policy, strategy, operations
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