U.N. wants world to prepare for famines in East Africa

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- With drought devastating Horn of Africa countries at regular intervals, a U.N. agency said it was time the world devised a strategy for chronic food crises that strike 70 million people at least once a decade.

Even in "normal" years, countries of the region are desperately short of food, with two-thirds of Ethiopian children stunted and one out of every five children in Somalia dying before their fifth birthday, says the report to be released on Friday by the Food and Agriculture Organization.

The nations analyzed by a task force from several U.N. agencies include Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia -- all of whom have been involved in wars in the last decade. Next on the list is Kenya, followed by Uganda, Sudan and Djibouti.

"The world produces enough food to feed all the people who inhabit it -- and it could produce even more," said Jacques Diouf of Senegal, the FAO's director-general, who is presenting the report to his counterparts in other U.N. agencies.

"While we cannot make hunger disappear overnight, it was my conviction that the goal of a hunger-free world can be achieved some time during this century," he said.

Apart from southern areas of Uganda and Kenya, the highlands of Ethiopia and parts of Sudan, most of the region has low and unreliable rainfall with 67 percent of the total land area classified as arid.

Because of a growing impoverished population competing for scarce land resources, even relatively small cuts in food production can have devastating effects, the report said.

The region has also suffered from wars, most of them civil conflicts, over the last 30 years, especially in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda. Consequently these states devote up to 50 percent of their revenues and up to 8 percent of their gross national product to the military expenditure.

In 1997 the figure was $2 billion, the FAO said.

The report outlines a variety of strategies, beginning with projects proposed by community leaders and local authorities. These would be followed by infrastructure improvements by the central government, increasing grain reserves and earmarking funds to deal with anticipated food emergencies .

The programme would include early warning systems for approaching famines, with rich nations offering relief "in ways that help kick-start recovery," the 88-page report said.

Since 80 percent of the poor people in the region make their living from agriculture, the first priority would be to boost production and then to diversity the economy so some farmers could find other ways to make a living.

No price tag was put on the project, envisioned to take over 10 years, but initial plans could be formulated in the middle of next year. Funds, the report said, could come from grants and concessional loans.

"Transforming the prospects of the Horn of Africa requires a long-term vision, with plans that could extend for 10 years or more. But work needs to start quickly," the FAO said.

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