At the Washington Post Jackson Diehl laments the lack of attention that famine in Nigeria, Yemen, South Sudan, and Somalia is receiving from the rest of the world:
Still, it’s shocking that so little heed is being paid to what the United Nations says is the worst humanitarian crisis since 1945: the danger that about 20 million people in four countries will suffer famine in the coming months, and that hundreds of thousands of children will starve to death.
Not heard of this? That’s the problem. According to U.N. and private relief officials, efforts to supply enough food to stem the simultaneous crises in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria are falling tragically short so far, in part because of inadequate funding from governments and private donors. Of the $4.9 billion sought in February by the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for immediate needs in those countries, just 39 percent had been donated as of last week.
Let’s turn to a NPR feature on the famines. What is famine?
A famine is when levels of malnutrition in the population have passed 30 percent, where people are actually starving and dying. And it is a sign of failure because in all these cases famine can be predicted. So if you kick in with aid early enough, you can prevent famine. Drought you can’t prevent, but famine you can prevent.
That’s true as far as it goes. Like defining smallpox as a bad rash that develops into fluid-filled blisters. You can’t define it adequately without talking about what causes it.
Famine is always and everywhere a failure of government. Either by action or inaction the government prevents food from getting to hungry people or people from fleeing the area of the famine. In all four of the countries mentioned there is civil war fomented by Islamist insurgencies. Either there is no government (as in Somalia) or the governments’ priorities are in fighting the Islamists rather than helping the victims of famine.
The Saudis’ fingerprints are everywhere in all four countries. Rich Saudis have supported radical imams who have preached violent jihad to their congregrations. They’re actually making war in Yemen. In Somalia their anti-terrorism activities are probably doing more harm than good. The Sudanese president who has fomented the famine in South Sudan has received substantial aid from the Saudis. And so on.
Actually fighting famine will require some hard realizations and harder decisions. We can’t end the famines in those countries just by supplying food aid. That would be like applying calamine lotion to smallpox pustules.
I’m getting tired of hearing about all the children starving. It’s been going on my entire lifetime, always “the children.” Don’t these children need their mothers and fathers, too?
You have just answered Jackson Diehl’s question.
Remember the Ethiopians? Horribly offensive video of starving Ethiopians jokes: WARNING!WARNING!WARNING!
Those were going around when I was going through puberty.
Just one example of the problems these populations face is theft of food aid in Nigeria:
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/nigeria-famine-2017
Case in point for why just sending money or food will not accomplish the objective.
And yet, almost every liberal prescription to social problems problems is some tight variant around raise taxes and shovel money at it.
For some the 1930s and the New Deal are the nostalgic past. They don’t realize that in 1930 spending by government at all levels was 10% of GDP while today it’s 40%. There is some point at which the deadweight loss of government overwhelms economic growth and I think we’ve reached it.
That doesn’t mean that you abolish government. It means that we need to start making prudent decisions, deciding what’s more important.
As me auld mither used to say we can have anything we want. We can’t have everything we want.
Find a way to save those hundreds of thousands of children and the world will applaud you.
Then fast forward 20 years and see what you have. A million starving children, left behind as fathers head toward Europe as refugees.
Sorry, no happy ending.
The ills of the world are hard to comprehend, define, let alone make any substantive worthwhile contributions towards the rectification of said ills. I only wish our two major parties were less dysfunctional and self-serving than they appear to be, and more on board with solving problems with all the people’s best interest in mind.
Yes, almost all famines are man-made and the cause is usually war. There is actually a huge logistical capability to send food to almost anywhere on the globe but it doesn’t work in a war zone.