Food aid aystem 'needs an overhaul'

Aug 23 2011

The cost of addressing the effects of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa "has soared to $2.5 billion, just to keep malnourished children alive, and the number of people requiring humanitarian aid has doubled" since "November last year, [when] it would have cost $500 million to prevent the situation from deteriorating," Jo Khinmaung, a food security policy adviser for Tearfund, writes in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog."

"It's simply unacceptable that donors respond at the 11th hour when children are starving to death. We need to plan for cyclical droughts, roughly every two to three years, as east Africa has had six food crises in the past 30 years," she writes, adding, "We can't blame drought alone for pushing people over the edge and the current food crisis is only the tip of the iceberg, because there is a silent hunger crisis all over the world. The entire aid system needs an overhaul" (8/22).