There is a grim predictability about the way the world responds to impending famines. First there are warnings that travel from barren fields in far-off conflict zones to the headquarters of humanitarian agencies.
Even when these warnings are shrill, they tend to go unheeded - as they have been to varying degrees in Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen and north-east Nigeria in recent months and years. In these countries, 1.4m children are at risk of starving, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. Only when dying children appear on television, as they are now, does a sense of urgency arise.
Emergencies bring out the best humanitarian instincts. Often the western public responds generously - as has been the case in the UK since the launch of an appeal for Yemen. When faced with a real crisis, aid workers spring to action with war room mentality and lives are saved.
Yet many more lives could be spared - and funds saved - were preventive action taken earlier. This is the case today. The most severe crisis is unfolding in South Sudan, where the first full-blown global famine in six years has been long in the making.
So too have the disasters in Somalia, where chronic conflict and persistent drought have put millions at risk, and in north-east Nigeria, which has been ravaged by the violence of the extremist Boko Haram group. Not since the 1960s, when images of starving children drew attention to the plight of ethnic Igbos living under siege in the separatist enclave of Biafra, has Africa’s most populous nation faced a humanitarian crisis on this scale. Not since the 2011 famine in Somalia has the international response been so lethally slow.
Aid agencies pored over the evidence from Somalia last time round, when a quarter of a million people succumbed to hunger and disease. Their conclusion was that “never again” should signs of malnutrition on that scale be left unattended, and “never again” would they allow food imports to be blocked by men with guns. Yet here they are again, billions of dollars short and without a fully elaborated action plan.
To be fair, the global context is grim. Between 2000 and 2014 there was a more than twelvefold surge in funds raised for humanitarian action, which increased to $24.5bn. Yet despite those increases, only 62 per cent of total needs identified were being met.
Climate change, natural disasters, conflict and associated economic turmoil have together made 125m people around the world dependent on humanitarian aid.
The problem is not just funding shortfalls. The whole architecture of humanitarian financing is in need of an overhaul. If aid agencies are to nip disasters in the bud, they require reliable data. Ethiopia, where climate change is wreaking havoc, has developed ways of targeting stricken communities in a timely way. For this reason it may be off the screen today. Aid agencies also need a pipeline of upfront financing commensurate with the needs. For this, there has to be a much larger pool of resources within the UN system for fighting emergencies.
UN agencies could be more open to working with local non-governmental organisations. Too often they act like multinational wholesalers subcontracting to their favourite retailers, the big western charities they trust. Sometimes, national actors are better equipped to act early in the field.
Germany and Norway tomorrow launch an appeal for Nigerians in need. No doubt, there will be pledges aplenty. For too many, it will already be too late.
