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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Remarks by J. Brady Anderson,
delivered at National Press Club
USAID Administrator
May 31, 2000
Good morning. I'm pleased to be here with you today to give you an update on what the U.S. government has been doing to address the drought conditions in the Horn of Africa.
We estimate that over 16 million people are at-risk in the Horn of Africa region from the serious drought conditions there. When I speak of the Horn of Africa, I am including the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Some areas within these countries have not had significant rainfall in the past three years, and as a result, their ability to cope with the present drought is already reduced.
Today, I am announcing our latest assistance package for the region, totaling more than $11 million. That includes 2.8 million for Eritrea, $1.9 million for Ethiopia, $2 million for Kenya and $4.4 million for Somalia. This brings the total of disaster assistance to about $22 million for this fiscal year, in addition to a total of $323 million so far in food aid.
This situation did not catch us by surprise. Some of you may remember the Ethiopian famine of 1984 - 1986, when approximately one million people died. We learned some important lessons from that experience, and as a result, we created the Famine Early Warning System, which is designed to forecast famine in the region. We have monitored the rain shortfall and drought conditions over the past three years. We helped the Ethiopian government establish a Food Security Reserve, so that it could respond to drought. We helped fund and set up the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission within the government of Ethiopia.
We knew last summer that if the belg or short rains, as they are called, did not fall in March of this year, many areas within the Horn of Africa region would experience serious drought conditions, caused by a lack of rain over the last three years. With this knowledge, we began planning to send extra food into the region, including replenishing Ethiopia's food reserve, which I just mentioned. By the beginning of April, no rain had fallen, and it was evident that the harvest had failed - for the seventh consecutive planting season.
Because of our concerns, I asked Hugh Parmer, who runs all of USAID's humanitarian response programs, to travel to the Horn of Africa in March and assess the drought conditions in the region and the infrastructure for getting food to the people who need it most. Hugh traveled to Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea.
As a result of his trip, Hugh was quite concerned about the conditions in Gode, in southeastern Ethiopia, and immediately ordered an airlift to bring special nutritional foods to the people of that region. USAID airlifted 80 metric tons of therapeutic milk and high-protein biscuits. I'll let Hugh speak a little more in depth about his trip in a few moments.
Also as a result of Hugh's trip, we recently sent a Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, to the Horn of Africa to work in coordination with the UN, non-governmental organizations and regional governments to respond to the drought that has affected many parts of the region.
Let me give you some of the numbers involved in our assistance effort. Through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture - we have committed 863,000 metric tons of food, valued at $320 million. The food has been arriving all year; in particular after the failure of the spring rains, large quantities began arriving. To date, 162,000 tons of food aid has arrived in Djibouti, and 100,000 tons are scheduled to arrive in June.
About two-thirds of the food is destined for Ethiopia, the country in the greatest need. We believe as many as 8.3 million people are at-risk in Ethiopia, and that number is expected to increase as we get up to date assessments of conditions, which we expect next week.
We believe we are taking the steps necessary to avoid a recurrence of what happened in the 1984-86 famine. At this moment, we are optimistic that we can avert another famine.
One question on everyone's mind these days is whether the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea is affecting our delivery of food to the drought-stricken areas in those countries. The conflict will undoubtedly complicate the situation but will not deter us from trying to get aid to those in need. We intend to continue our humanitarian and diplomatic efforts in the region. But there is no question that the war makes it more difficult.
The conflict is also forcing people to flee their homes. The fighting has resulted in upwards of 550,000 internally displaced persons inside Eritrea, plus 30,000 refugees who have crossed the border into Sudan. Today, as I mentioned earlier, we will be providing $2 million in food aid to Eritrean refugees in Sudan, and $800,000 worth of shelter materials to the displaced in Eritrea. This is in addition to the shipment of food and supplies, valued at $500,000 we sent to Eritrea last week.
We call on the Ethiopian government to desist from all further offensive actions on the port of Massawa and the Asmara airport. These facilities must remain functional to allow delivery of humanitarian supplies to the civilian victims of the conflict.
I am also concerned about transportation. We know our food is getting to Djibouti, but we are less confident about the transport system of moving food from the port to the places in Ethiopia where people are most in need. Our goal has been to have sufficient trucks at the port so that 6,000 metric tons of food a day can be unloaded. In the last week, however, we have averaged an offload rate of 4,800 metric tons a day.
Another issue that may impact our ability to deliver food is the security situation in southern Ethiopia, where some of the most severely affected populations live. Armed bandits can make delivery of food extremely dangerous in some areas. We need to make sure we have monitors to oversee the distribution of our food aid.
But some of the charitable organizations that we fund to do this have been reluctant to go in to the area because of the danger involved. One organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres, was ambushed and a staff member was killed while trying to deliver assistance to a remote location. Other organizations have also encountered problems.
Before I turn it over to Hugh, who has recently been consulting with the World Food Program in Rome. Let me just close by saying we at USAID have been working for months to respond to this crisis. I can promise you that we are doing everything within our power, and will continue to do all that is necessary, so that a famine does not occur in the Horn of Africa.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 12, 2001 |
