DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize-winning head of the World Food Program says support from donors like the United States and Germany has allowed him to postpone, though not entirely prevent, famine in Somalia. but emphasized that “we” are not out of it yet.”
WFP Executive Director David Beasley said countries in the Horn of Africa have faced an “unprecedented climate shock” from years of drought, and the UN agency hoped to announce a famine in Somalia before donors “will intensify magnificently.”
“And we have been able to, I don’t know if the right word is ‘avoid’ famine, but we have definitely postponed it,” he told The Associated Press at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. . “We’ve been lucky so far, given the climate crises inside Somalia. But we’re not out of it yet.”
But he warned that “we could still technically end up with a famine in Somalia” because “famine-like conditions” already exist.
“Once you officially declare a famine, well, it’s too late,” Beasley said.
Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases such as cholera. A formal declaration of famine means that data shows that more than a fifth of households have extreme food deprivation, more than 30% of children are severely malnourished and more than two people in 10,000 die every day.
Beasley, who announced plans to resign in April, has used his political experience as the former Republican governor of the US state of South Carolina to secure increased funding for Washington’s World Food Program under the Biden and Trump administrations.
The United States announced $411 million in additional funding for the Somalia crisis last month after a report by the UN and other experts said more than 8 million Somalis are severely food insecure due to drought and high food prices. the food. Thousands have died.
When Beasley took office in 2017, some 80 million people around the world were on the brink of starvation and chronically hungry. Conflict, climate change and COVID-19 have caused that number to skyrocket to 350 million today due to economic devastation and supply chain disruptions.
“You think you can’t get any worse. Then the granary of the world closes: Ukraine,” Beasley said. “Now (the country has) the longest bread lines in the world,” an allusion to the war in Russia that has disrupted Ukraine’s food production and exports.
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AP writers Masha Macpherson and David Keyton in Davos, Switzerland contributed to this report.
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