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Shame on You: Drought, Famine & the Failure of International Aid! (PERSPECTIVE)
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:34AM by Rachel Zedeck
At a UNICEF-supported feeding centre in East Africa, a weary mother pauses after her baby received emergency therapeutic food. CREDT: M Bociurkiw(HN, August 31, 2011) During this weeks’ hash a Director at the German Red Cross said to me, “The drought was so inconvenient this year. We were all on annual leave. Do people expect me to give up my holiday.” After swallowing some vomit, I started to reflect on exactly how this humanitarian disaster has been allowed to escalate to such an extreme. More and more, my nausea has been induced by the world of international aid; in particular the inaction of the Red Cross coupled with the pandering of World Food Programme, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Oxfam and the list goes on. These organizations (whether non-profit or UN agency) literally have every means available to understand impending drought and insidious threat of famine. I focus on three.
First, weather is predictable. That’s right. In Kenya and in many regions of Sub Saharan Africa we have historic and predictive weather mapping. Even in darkest Arica, rain isn’t magic. Second, how long have NGOs been operating here? What happened to common sense? Every year this region suffers through a drought of varying intensity and subsequent adversity. 2010 was the first break from drought in 7 years while Kenya experienced more than a billion dollars in economic loss in 2009. So while this may be the worst drought in the last 60 years, this is not a new story! Finally, why was no one talking about preventative measures? I was in Nairobi and can’t remember one campaign speaking publically about impending drought. Mr. Abbas Gulet, the Head of Kenya’s Red Cross, head of the region’s only non-profit Superbrand should be most ashamed. Not only responsible for one of the largest humanitarian missions in the world, he is ethnically Kenyan theoretically giving him even greater insight into how is organization’s $30+ million annual budget. Instead of answering what they should have been doing, I can tell you what the community as a whole isn’t doing. It’s actually worse than the mismanagement following Katrina.
First, neither the public, private, or NGO sectors are educating Kenyans about drought, better water management or irrigated crops. Ironic because irrigation is a key component in Kenya’s 2030 Vision for the country’s strategic development. With the unprecedented use of mobile phones and content (ICT for Development) in Africa, educating and supporting millions of people in rural Kenyan isn’t just a fantasy. Considering the UN seeks $16.9 Billion USD for emergency relief let alone campaigns like Kenyans for Kenya, raising funds to purchase food that doesn’t exist. Instead we could have sent a series of 10 sms’ to every Kenyan citizen for less than $6 million. Another $100 million (or much more) could have been allocated to low interest loans to help farmers purchase drip (gravity fed) irrigation and trained them on how to install, maintenance and store excess crops for drought season. Guess what, food aid is still food and needs to be grown which means farming.
There isn’t a simple answer to food security and we can’t end drought. Instead, Kenya and its neighbors need to grow and store more food while eliminating crop losses. This translates into a combination of hard work complimented by agriculture innovation, affordable agriculture finance, community outreach and expansion of existing road networks. NO overnight solutions but practical, sustainable and scalable. It is time for an evolution; the UN and NGOs must recognize their chronic failures and share leadership with the commercial sector able to offer proactive and practical strategies for the future of humanitarian disaster.
- Rachel Zedeck is Managing Director of the Backpack Farm Agriculture Program, an internationally recognized social enterprise in Nairobi, Kenya exclusively supporting smallholder farmers with access to ecologically friendly training and packages of green agri-tech believing “Africans can feed Africa” thru the power of multi-functional farming impacting social, economic and ecological domains.
Horn of Africa, International Aid, drought, famine, kenya 
Reader Comments (2)
Rachel, I doubt we agree on many things, but you are spot on with this criticism. The attitude of all the donors is pathetic. Read my own take if you will at my post on Somalia (see web link). My issue with most if not all NGOs is that somehow they consider themselves legitimate entities, when in many cases they are pure self-promoting scams for [profit and fat salaries. At least in the private sector the profit motive is upfront and profits make for jobs and sustainability.
This article is written in a very frank and honest manner and I find it very enlightening, with regard to the attitude of NGOs, working in the area. NGOs must always remember that they were created and continue to be created to complement government efforts, in the ares of development and emergencies,using resources from the donor community. It seems quite vivid that NGOs have evolved away from this noble cause and are now just about creating lucrative employment for their Chief Executives. I strongly submit that NGOs have to re-orient their work and attitude to their original purpose and begin to fulfill just that, otherwise they risk becoming irrelevant.