Blog Action Day: Drought and floods hit the poorest

Fewer and fewer people who believe "Climate Change" is fiction. The hard evidence the climate *is* changing, is in our face: Hurricanes and typhoons become more frequent and more violent. Extensive droughts are followed by devastating floods.

Unfortunately, the poorest are hit the hardest. Look at what Typhoon Ketsana recently did in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Followed a few days later by Typhoon Parma.

For months now, the humanitarian community has been warning about the droughts in Kenya, which is now taking its full toll. What is said to be the worst in the country since 1996, with 3.8 million people now tumbling over the poverty line and becoming dependent on food aid.


The misery is not over, as floods are kicking off the rainy season in many parts of Africa.

The frustrating part is that even those who previously were able to sustain themselves independently, are pushed again to become dependent on aid. One step forward, two backwards. And the answer is in the hands of the richer countries, to impose proper limits on pollution. Is that not tragic?

Unless we can turn around the causes of climate change, it will only get worse.

This post is part of Blog Action Day, which concentrates on Climate Change this year.

Picture courtesy BBC

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Picture of the Day: Record drought in China

A riverbed in Zhengzhou, in Henan province (China).

Winter rainfall levels have been as much as 80% lower than normal in China's wheat-growing provinces, causing the worst drought in 50 years. Amid economic unrest in rural areas, the government pledged US$13 billion support for wheat growers. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy AFP/Getty Images

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Acute hunger spots in the world

Myanmar faces food shortages in many parts of the country, largely because of last year's cyclone Nargis destroyed most of the delta's harvest and a rat infestation wiped out most of the remaining crops.
A total of 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of rice paddy were submerged saltwater waves and 85 percent of seed stocks were destroyed. A shortage of labor - 130,000 were left dead after Nargis - higher fertilizer prices and lower rice prices have dissuaded delta farmers from planting, causing about 185,000 tons of emergency food aid needed this year. (Full)

There is a general alert going out for an upcoming wave of hunger due to a drought in the Horn of Africa:

In Uganda's Karamoja region 970,000 people are heading towards starvation. The Government declared the whole region as an emergency area and said "food must [quickly] be distributed to this area to avert this problem." Drought conditions will cause conditions unlikely to improve before October when the next harvest is due. (Full)

The same regional drought also hit Kenya hard. In the South-eastern regions, the third consecutive bad crop will force 3.2 million people to resort to food aid. (Full)

Since August last year, WFP, the UN's main food assistance agency, has lost 4 staff in Somalia due to security incidents. Last week they said if the situation does not improve, they will be forced to cut their food aid, which will affect 2.5 million people. (Full)

In Zimbabwe, the hunger figures are even worse. The prolonged political turmoil has turned Africa's former breadbasket into one of the continent's poorest countries. Currently 4.5 million Zimbabweans are fully dependent on food aid, a figure expected to raise to 6 million in the next month.
Due to lack of donor funding, WFP has been forced to cut core monthly maize rations from 10kg -already 2kg below the recommended ration- to 5kg a month for adults. That is just about 600 calories a day. (Full)

News discovered via NewsFeeds and AidNews.

Picture courtesy James Akena (WFP)

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Rumble: Water for the Toposa in South Sudan

Meet the Toposa people. These traditional herdsmen live in a remote area on the shared borders of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan. Their tribe is called "Karamojong" in Uganda, "Turkana" in Kenya (an area stretching from the Rift Valley to Lokichoggio) and "Toposa" in Sudan (from Lokichoggio to Narus and Kapoeta, in the eastern Juba).

They live the life as it once was. Clothing is optional in their "country". If they have a cloth, serves the whole village, used when travelling outside the community.

Their life is centered in function of their cattle. Their cattle is their life. Traditional diet is cow blood mixed with a sort of cassava.

The family and tribe has a patriarchical system: Toposa men take decisions on behalf of the family or tribes in meetings where women and children are kept at a distance while the men discuss the people’s affairs. Tradition has it that important matters are decided in the early hours of the morning before sunrise.



Last year, the Toposa in South Sudan faced drought, cutting not only their water supplies, but also their food production. Only delivering food aid was not enough, so we started trucking in water with the food.
It was clear that a more permanent solution was to be found, to provide them with water, a rare item in the Toposaland.



This solution was to dig a bor hole, where they could pump water from an underground well. We trucked in the mechanical pump, and connected it to a small plastic storage tank. A low cost, low tech but also low maintenance solution.




Aid with a permanent impact...

This post was written as follow-up to a previous one: World Water Day: One billion people without clean water.

Pictures courtesy Constance Lewanika (WFP), with a special thanks to Cyprien Hiniolwa.

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Rumble: Climate Change Gives Flowers To One, Famine To the Other.

Subtitle: Climate Change? You Bet!

Two newsflashes came in today....

Newsflash: Belgium Had the Warmest Winter Ever.
“With an average temperature of 6.6°C, this winter has been the warmest ever in Belgium.”

I thought to remember that ‘winters used to be much colder’, but I had not been home for a whole winter since a long long time. I had nothing to compare with. Apart from that one day with snow, it did not feel cold. Wet, yeah, but not cold. Until I saw heard the news: The warmest winter ever..
This evening, we were driving the kids back from school, and I found this tree in bloom, along the road. First week of March! Usually this does not happen for another 4-8 weeks. You don’t need to be an expert to know this is not normal anymore.

Newsflash: Southern Africa Heading for a Food Crisis. Again.
The other side of the “weather change medal”...

On a positive note:
Since 2004, harvests in southern Africa have generally improved due to better weather patterns and the broader availability of seeds and fertilisers. As a result, the number of people requiring food aid has steadily declined. However, due to chronic poverty and nine of the ten highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world, food security in southern Africa remained precarious. It does not take much ‘to push them over the edge’. And this is what is happening now.

First came the floods:
Erratic weather patterns in southern Africa recently devastated harvest prospects for millions of people, and could spell widespread food shortages. Parts of Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zambia, were struck by devastating floods which destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of crops during the most critical growing stage.

Then came the droughts:
In a stark contrast, Lesotho, Namibia, southern Mozambique, and much of Swaziland and large swathes of Zimbabwe’s cropland, have all been affected by prolonged dry spells which have withered and killed crops or reduced their development. Lesotho, for example, is expecting up to a 60 percent decline in agricultural output over last year’s harvest.

For more info on the food crisis and 'hunger issues', see the WFP Newsroom.

Africa pictures: courtesy WFP

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