JOHANNESBURG, Jan 16 (Reuters) &#8211; The United Nations World Food Programme said on Thursday that a record 45 million people in the 16-nation Southern African Development Community faced growing hunger following repeated drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray.



Southern Africa is in the grips of a severe drought, as climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries already struggling to cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai which devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2019.



Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of southern Africa, is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a decade, marked by soaring inflation and shortages of food, fuel, medicines and electricity.



&#8220;This hunger crisis is on a scale we&#8217;ve not seen before and the evidence shows it&#8217;s going to get worse,&#8221; the WFP&#8217;s Regional Director for Southern Africa, Lola Castro, said in a statement.



&#8220;The annual cyclone season has begun and we simply cannot afford a repeat of the devastation caused by last year&#8217;s unprecedented storms.&#8221;



The agency plans to provide &#8220;lean season&#8221; assistance to 8.3 million people grappling with &#8220;crisis&#8221; or &#8220;emergency&#8221; levels of hunger in eight of the hardest-hit countries, which include Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Malawi.



To date, WFP has secured just $205 million of the $489 million required for this assistance and has been forced to resort heavily to internal borrowing to ensure food reaches those in need, it said.



In December, the United Nations said it was procuring food assistance for 4.1 million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population of a country where shortages are being exacerbated by runaway inflation and climate-induced drought.



&#8220;Zimbabwe is in the throes of its worst hunger emergency in a decade, with 7.7 million people – half the population – seriously food insecure,&#8221; the agency said.



In Zambia and drought-stricken Lesotho, 20% of the population faces a food crisis, as do 10% of Namibians.



Castro said that if the agency does not receive the necessary funding, it will have no choice but to assist fewer of those most in need and with less.



(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Jon Boyle and Giles Elgood)

UN food agency says record 45 million people across Southern Africa face hunger

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With 2020 around the corner, it leaves us with only 10 years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of the most fundamental of the goals has been goal number 2 that aims at zero hunger. Amar Ali, CEO of Africa Improved Foods joins CNBC Africa for more.

Improved Foods CEO Amar Ali on the next decade of  Sustainable Development Goals

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 Zimbabwe’s food insecurity is more complex than the headline figures suggest.
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By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ian-scoones-117123">Ian Scoones</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sussex-1218">University of Sussex</a>

Since Zimbabwe’s land reform of 2000 – when around 8 million hectares of formerly large-scale commercial farmland was distributed to about 175,000 households – debates about the <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/zimbabwes-agricultural-sector-goes-from-bread-basket-to-basket-case-or-is-it-again-a-bit-more-complicated/">consequences for food security</a> have raged.

A standard narrative has been that Zimbabwe has turned from “food basket” to “basket case”. This year, following the devastating <a href="https://www.climate.gov/enso">El Niño</a> drought combined with <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/cyclone-idai-destroys-zimbabwe-farms-deepening-food-crisis-190329142611666.html">Cyclone Idai</a>, some <a href="http://fnc.org.zw/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ZimVAC-2019-Rural-Livelihoods-Assessment-report.pdf">5.5 million people</a> are estimated to be at risk of hunger, with international agencies issuing <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ROSEA_Zimbabwe_HumanitarianAppealRevision_06082019.pdf">crisis and emergency alerts</a>.

It is unquestionable that this season was disastrous – only 776,635 tonnes of maize was produced, more than a third below the five-year average. Nevertheless, the story of food insecurity is more complex than the headline figures suggest.

It’s true that Zimbabwe’s food economy has been transformed over the past 19 years. Aggregate <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=zw&amp;commodity=corn&amp;graph=production">production</a> of maize has certainly declined, and <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=zw&amp;commodity=corn&amp;graph=imports">imports</a> have become more frequent. 

But Zimbabwe suffered food shortages, often precipiated by El Niño events, before land reform. These too led to the need for more imports. And surpluses have also been produced since land reform. For example, in 2017, there was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-reform-is-a-zimbabwe-success-story-it-will-be-the-basis-for-economic-recovery-under-mnangagwa-88205">bumper crop</a>. Some of it was stored and has been used to keep people going. 

Getting behind the headline figures and understanding an increasingly complex food economy is essential. <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/">Our on-going research</a> shows just how complicated the picture is.

<h2>Farming and food</h2>

Since land reform, we have been <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/">tracking livelihood change</a> in resettlement areas in a number of sites across the country. Our research is exploring how people have fared since getting land, asking who is doing well and not so well, and why. Some of our key findings include:

<ul>
<li>Crop production is higher in the land reform areas compared to the communal lands. Larger land areas allows new settlers to produce, invest and accumulate.</li>
<li>There are substantial hidden flows of food between land reform areas and poor rural and urban areas, as successful resettlement farmers provide food for relatives, or sell food informally.</li>
<li>There is a significant growth of small-scale, <a href="https://theconversation.com/irrigating-africa-can-small-scale-farmers-lead-the-way-113692">farmer-led irrigation</a> in resettlement areas. This is often not recognised, as production occurs on disparate small plots, frequently farmed by younger people without independent homes.</li>
<li>Trade in food across regions and borders, facilitated by networks of traders, often women, is significant, but unrecorded.</li>
<li>Market networks following land reform are complex and informal, linking producers to traders and <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/small-towns-in-zimbabwe-are-booming-thanks-to-land-reform/">small urban centres</a> in new ways. Outside formal channels, the volume and flows of food through the system is difficult to trace.</li>
</ul>

Simple aggregate analyses of food deficits, estimating the numbers of people at risk of food insecurity, do not capture these new dynamics. National surveys are important, but <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/food-crisis-in-zimbabwe-2-2-million-a-risk-but-where-do-the-figures-come-from-and-what-do-they-mean/">may be misleading</a>, and local studies, such as ours, often do not match the national, aggregate picture. 

So, what is going on?

<h2>Access to food: complex relationships</h2>

Food insecurity is not just about production, it is also about access. This is affected by the value of assets when sold, the ease with which things can be bought and sold in markets, the value of cash as influenced by currency fluctuations and inflation, local and cross-border trade opportunities, and all the social, institutional and cultural dimensions that go into exchange. 

When these dimensions change, so does food security. And this is particularly true for certain groups.

Take the case of Zvishavane district, in Midlands province of Zimbabwe. In the communal area of Mazvihwa, there was effectively no production this season. Some got a little if they had access to wetlands, and a few had stores. But compared to 30 years ago, production is focused on maize, which stores poorly, rather than small grains that can be kept for years. 

How are people surviving? Some seek piecework in the nearby resettlement areas; others have taken up seasonal gold panning; others migrate to town, or further afield; others get help from relatives through remittances; while others are in receipt of cash transfers or food hand-outs from NGOs. 

With small amounts of cash, people must buy food. It’s available in shops, but expensive. So a vibrant trade has emerged, with exchanges of maize grain for sugar or other products. And it’s especially people from the land reform areas who are selling their surpluses. Many have relatives who got land, and some travel there to get food, but there is also a network of women traders who come and sell in the communal areas.

Aggregate surveys almost always <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/food-security-in-zimbabwe-why-a-more-sophisticated-response-is-needed/">miss this complexity</a>. There are sampling biases, as the importance of the resettlements as sites of production and exchange are missed. 

There are data problems too, as it is difficult to pick up informal exchanges, and income-earning activities on the margins. The result is that each year there are big food insecurity figures proclaimed, fund-raising campaigns launched, but meanwhile people get on with surviving. 

This is not to say that there is not a problem this year. Far from it. But it may be a different one to that diagnosed.

<h2>Economic collapse is causing a humanitarian crisis</h2>

As the <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/world/africa/2019-09-26-zimbabwes-economy-in-steep-contraction-as-inflation-hits-300/">Zimbabwean economy</a> continues to deteriorate, with rapidly-rising inflation, parallel currency rates, and declining service provision, whether electricity, fuel or water, the challenges of market exchange and trade become more acute. Barter trade is more common, as prices fluctuate wildly and the value of physical and electronic money diverge. With poor mobile phone networks due to electricity outages, electronic exchange becomes more difficult too.

Collapsing infrastructure has an effect on production also. Fuel price hikes make transport prohibitive and irrigation pumps expensive to run. Desperate measures by government often make matters worse. The <a href="https://www.herald.co.zw/private-grain-imports-now-legal-govt/">now-rescinded</a> edict that all grain must be supplied to the state grain marketing board undermined vital informal trade. Meanwhile, the notoriously corrupt <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2019/07/26/missing-us3bn-an-indictment-on-mnangagwas-government/">“command agriculture”</a> subsidy scheme directs support to some, while excluding others from the provision of favourable loans for government-supplied seed, fertiliser, fuel or equipment. 

Economic and infrastructural collapse is threatening food security in Zimbabwe. Even if there is good rainfall this season, the crisis will persist. Farmers will plant, produce and market less this year. While food imports are needed for targeted areas and population groups for sure, this may not be the biggest challenge. 

Stabilising Zimbabwe’s economy is the top priority, as economic chaos is causing a humanitarian crisis.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124791/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ian-scoones-117123">Ian Scoones</a>, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sussex-1218">University of Sussex</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/economic-chaos-is-causing-a-food-security-and-humanitarian-crisis-in-zimbabwe-124791">original article</a>.

What is causing Zimbabwe’s food security and humanitarian crisis ?

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According to the Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition (AROFSN), hunger on the continent continues to rise after many years of decline. Meanwhile, it’s estimated that currently, more than 40 per cent of fruits and vegetables in developing regions spoil before they can be consumed. To share insights into how to reduce food losses, Betty Kibaara, Director at Rockefeller Foundation joins CNBC Africa for more.

How farmers can reduce food losses in Africa: Lessons on food security and nutrition

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Africa has set an ambitious target of halving poverty and ending hunger by 2025. To share insights into how the continent can capitalise on science to achieve this, food Scientist and co-winner of the 2016 World Food Prize, Maria Isabel Andrade, joins CNBC Africa for more.

How innovation & technology can help end hunger in Africa

By Ifeoluwa Adenike Alade, PhD candidate,&nbsp;University of Ibadan, Nigeria



Food
and nutrition insecurity
is a chronic problem for Africa. Despite decades of humanitarian and
development efforts, <a href="https://globalnutritionreport.org/nutrition-profiles/africa/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one
in five</a>
Africans remain undernourished and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jun/05/nearly-half-of-all-child-deaths-in-africa-stem-from-hunger-study-shows" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a
third</a> of
Africa’s children are stunted. 



One little-known
crop that is essential to food security on the continent is amaranth. This
leafy green vegetable is one of the most consumed in Africa and <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/11763/chapter/3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">accounts for</a> up to 25 per cent of daily protein
intake in some countries, making it essential to their health and wellbeing.



What’s more,
it is a plant that is quick to grow, thanks to
its highly <a href="https://www.appropedia.org/Original:Amaranth_Modern_Prospects_for_an_Ancient_Crop_5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">efficient
photosynthesis process</a>,
and which &nbsp;thrives on degraded land even in hot
and dry weather, making it an increasingly important crop to mitigate the
impact of climate change on food production. 



But one threat
that holds back amaranth from making an even greater contribution to Africa’s
food security is the amaranthus leaf webber, a species of moth that is commonly
found in the tropics. The webber larvae are voracious pests, and a single leaf webber
infestation can destroy an entire field of amaranth.



To prevent
an infestation and protect their amaranth harvest, farmers rely on pesticides.
However, long-term pesticide use comes with challenges, including the
development of resistance among leaf webbers. 



So, what if
farmers had another tool to stop this pest? 



This
question motivated me to search for new crop protection techniques that could
be affordable, effective, and sustainable, and it turns out that nature may
have already come up with a solution. 



Many plants
have evolved ways to deter pests through releasing biochemicals that repel
harmful insects. By identifying the biochemical that targets leaf webber and
reproducing this as a crop protection product, we can effectively safeguard
crop harvests using the plant’s own biochemistry.



For amaranth
farmers, plant-produced repellents could be valuable new tool in the toolbox,
supported by other strategies such as pest monitoring and surveillance, using
complementary crops to repel pests and using existing pesticides when
necessary.



Taken
together, such <a href="https://croplife.org/crop-protection/stewardship/integrated-pest-management/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">integrated
pest management</a>
(IPM) can dramatically improve yields while also reducing labour and costs, by
ensuring that farmers use the most effective and sustainable combination of
crop protection techniques. 



To progress
this research, I am studying leaf samples of a group of amaranth species to
compare the levels of biochemicals with the abundance of leaf webbers. If leaf
webbers are less abundant on plants with certain biochemicals present, then I
will have detected a possible repellent.



The next
stage involves examining the genetic make-up of the amaranths that produce
these repellents to discover the blueprint for the most pest-resistant variety.




Crop
scientists can then develop a species that is no longer vulnerable to this
pest. This would be a huge boon for Africa’s food security, especially in the
rural areas that rely on amaranth, protecting both nutritious food supplies and
agricultural livelihoods.



Such a
solution is an example of how crop protection can be proactive rather than
reactive when it comes to defending vital crops against pests. 



And as one
of the next generation of crop scientists, my work is just a small part of an
increasingly innovative sector. 



Preventing
crop pests from striking is essential for Africa’s food security. And with new
research, techniques and technologies, we are better equipped than ever before
to do so sustainably.

Op-Ed: Progress in pest prevention offers hope for Africa’s food security

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Africa aims to halve poverty and end hunger by 2025 amid climate change and other setbacks that may hinder those targets. To explain the role financiers are playing in addressing this, Martin Fregene, Director of Agriculture &#038; Agro-Industry at the African Development Bank (AfDB) joins CBNC Africa for more.

AfDB’s Martin Fregene on the role of financiers in fighting hunger in Africa

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On the side lines of the Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue (AFSLD), CNBC Africa&#8217;s Zwena Bachoo caught up with Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture for the African Union Commission, Josefa Sacko to talk about the organization&#8217;s mandate of supporting and implementing major food security programs in the continent to eliminate hunger and malnutrition.

How the Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue plans to end hunger across the continent

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 Belo Horizonte’s traditional food market.
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By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brittany-kesselman-754783">Brittany Kesselman</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-the-witwatersrand-894">University of the Witwatersrand</a>

South Africa faces a <a href="https://www.health-e.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/National-Strategy-for-prevention-and-Control-of-Obesity-4-August-latest.pdf">double burden</a> of hunger and malnutrition, on the one hand, and obesity with associated non-communicable diseases (NCDs), on the other. In many countries, in both the global North and South, malnutrition and obesity frequently co-exist in the same people. This is a condition known as “<a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/hidden-hunger-south-africa">hidden hunger</a>”. 

Hidden hunger is a result of various factors. These include poverty, inequality, urbanisation and industrialisation of the food system. The interplay of these factors leaves low income households with very limited access to fresh, healthy foods. Instead, many South Africans – and other people living in similar conditions – subsist on diets high in <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/research-outputs/view/1218">sugar and processed starch</a>. These diets contribute to increasing levels of obesity. But they don’t meet nutritional needs.

My <a href="https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/handle/10413/16310">research</a> among urban farmers and low-income residents in Johannesburg identified the complexity of factors that influence dietary choices. It also identified the obstacles to accessing healthy food. Cost is a major impediment while physical access, nutritional knowledge, concentration in the food industry and dietary norms also played a role in shaping diets. Without addressing all of these, South Africa will be unable to address the double burden of malnutrition and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Despite the fact that diet has been a major contributing factor to the growth of NCDs in recent years there are virtually no connections between South Africa’s agricultural and health policies. Policies to address hunger and malnutrition have tended to be housed in the Department of Agriculture. They have focused on increasing production, whether through <a href="http://www.afsun.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Web-Battersby-et-al-Looking-Beyond-Urban-Agriculture.pdf">urban agriculture</a> or support to small-scale farmers in rural areas. 

For its part, the Department of Health remains confined to treatment with medication and limited advice – like diet and exercise. This is despite the fact that the department recognises there needs to be a <a href="https://extranet.who.int/ncdccs/Data/ZAF_B3_NCDs_STRAT_PLAN_1_29_1_3%5B2%5D.pdf">multi-pronged approach</a> to NCDs. 

This needs to change. South African practitioners and policy makers could learn from international examples, where the public and private health sectors have begun to make the link between food and wellness. In particular, policies that were introduced a quarter of a century ago in a city in Brazil provide a useful template of what an integrated approach could look like.

<h2>Connecting the dots</h2>

Innovative policies and programmes in various countries are beginning to link food and health.

To draw a few examples from the United States, which faces high rates of <a href="https://www.who.int/nmh/countries/usa_en.pdf?ua=1">obesity and NCDs</a>, the new field of <a href="https://nutrition.org/the-art-of-cooking-for-health-culinary-medicine/">culinary medicine</a> looks at how dietary changes can restore and maintain health. A number of hospitals are creating <a href="https://www.bu.edu/today/2017/rooftop-farm-at-boston-medical-center/">food gardens</a> to serve healthy meals to patients. Doctors are writing <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5496208/">scripts for fruits and vegetables</a> so that patients can afford them. 

At the same time, in the US and Canada, food banks and other organisations that combat hunger are attempting to distribute healthier foods. These organisations are also <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/214764/the-stop-by-nick-saul-and-andrea-curtis/9780307360793">engaging in advocacy</a> for a more just and equitable food system.

The link is also being made between the livelihoods of food producers and the environmental sustainability of the food system. In the US a non-governmental organisation incentivises recipients of the government’s food assistance programme, SNAP, to buy fresh produce at local farmers’ markets through a <a href="https://www.wholesomewave.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Double-Value-Coupon-Program-Diet-Shopping-Behavior-Study.pdf">double value coupon programme</a>. The UN’s <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4291e.pdf">Purchase from Africa for Africans</a> Programme leverages public procurement for school meals to improve children’s health and education while supporting small-scale family farmers. It draws lessons from Brazil and has been implemented in five African countries. 

The city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil provides a noteworthy example of how innovative, integrated food and nutrition security policies can assist communities. It has been implementing <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/152897901786732735">policies</a> designed to ensure that residents are able to enjoy the right to food for the past 25 years. The city’s programmes include:

<ul>
<li>popular restaurants serving subsidised healthy meals;</li>
<li>shops selling subsidised fresh fruit and vegetables in under-served areas;</li>
<li>a food bank. This reduces food waste by rescuing food otherwise discarded by retailers. The food is then checked and provided to social programmes (such as crèches and old age homes);</li>
<li>farm stalls and farmers’ markets. These enable small-scale farmers to sell directly to consumers, cutting out the middleman and thereby raising incomes;</li>
<li>public procurement from small-scale farmers, especially those using agroecological production methods;</li>
<li>school lunches and school gardens. These ensure that children have access to nutritious meals and that they learn about food production and nutrition.</li>
</ul>

On a <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2018/2018-12/a-healthy-meal-in-every-neighbourhood.html">research visit</a> to Belo Horizonte, I saw how these programmes improve access to fresh fruits and vegetables – a key measure in the fight against malnutrition and obesity. 

They also support decent incomes for small-scale producers through direct market access and public procurement. In addition, environmentally sustainable production is encouraged through reservation of additional public funds to purchase agroecologically-farmed foods. 

Beyond the health and economic benefits, the programmes support social cohesion through communal eating spaces, cultural events that feature local gastronomy, and local farmers’ markets where people can meet the farmers who grow their food and enjoy a sense of community.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Belo Horizonte’s food and nutrition security programme is its low cost: less than 2% of the city’s budget. Another is the degree of cooperation among government departments, as well as partnership with <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3023e.pdf">civil society organisations</a>. 

When the policies and programmes developed in Belo Horizonte were rolled out nationally, Brazil experienced a notable <a href="https://www.wfp.org/stories/brazil-shows-world-how-beat-hunger-says-wfp-head">decline in hunger</a>. 

The model provides many useful lessons that could greatly benefit South Africa. The Department of Health, along with other government departments and civil society partners, needs to take a bold move to tackle the problems of malnutrition, obesity and associated NCDs through a multi-faceted approach.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118613/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important">

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brittany-kesselman-754783">Brittany Kesselman</a>, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-the-witwatersrand-894">University of the Witwatersrand</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-should-learn-from-brazil-about-how-to-tackle-hidden-hunger-118613">original article</a>.

What South Africa can learn from Brazil on how to tackle ‘hidden hunger’

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Africa aims to halve poverty and end hunger by 2025 under the Malabo declaration. However, the latest 2019 global food policy report indicates that in 2018, malnutrition rose for the third year in a row, with 821 million people in the world now facing chronic food deprivation. For more on the findings CNBC Africa is joined by Ousmane Badiane, Director for Africa at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Report reveals global malnutrition on the rise

Press Release
African Development Bank seeks partnerships to lift 1 billion people out of hunger globally 
“We must not get carried away: we are not winning the war against global hunger” 
INDIANAPOLIS, United States of America, September 26, 2018/ &#8212; The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) called on global partners to join hands to lift one billion people worldwide out of hunger and said it was leading the way by investing US$24 billion in African agriculture over the next 10 years in the largest such effort ever.
“We are not winning the war against global hunger,” Bank President Akinwumi Adesina told an agriculture conference at Purdue University in Indianapolis on Tuesday, 25 September.
“We must not get carried away,” he added, referring to statistics showing a decline in the global population living on less than two dollars per day. In reality, the number of hungry people in the world had increased from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016, he said citing the latest World Food Security and Nutrition data.
Adesina told the audience that included researchers, implementing organizations, business leaders, policymakers and donors that simple technical and scientific methods were already making a whole difference to farm yields and income in Africa. While such technologies to deliver Africa’s green revolution exist, they are mostly just sitting on the shelves, he said.
“The release of water efficient maize varieties now allows farmers to harvest good yields in the face of moderate drought,” he noted. “Today, rice varieties exist that can give yields of 8 tonnes per ha. Cassava varieties exist with yields of up to 80 tonnes per ha. Heat tolerant and disease resistant livestock and technologies for ramping up aquaculture exist.”
Bank experts put current comparative yields at 1.5-2 tonnes per ha for rice and 10-15 tonnes per ha for cassava.
What was needed urgently was deployment of supportive policies to ensure technologies are cascaded down to millions of farmers. “All Africa needs to do is to harness the available technologies with the right policies and rapidly raise agricultural productivity and incomes for farmers and assure lower food prices for consumers.”
The Bank has launched its Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), a $1 billion initiative to extend the use of farm technologies. TAAT is currently engaging seed companies, public and private entities, and financial institutions in 27 countries to make technology available to a total of 40 million African farmers.
Combining targeted subsidies for farmers with a market-based system for rapidly expanding access to financing for farmers and agricultural value chains is the fastest way to get many people out of poverty to a sustained pathway for economic growth, Adesina added.
The conference on “ Scaling Up Agricultural Technologies for Transformation” (http://bit.ly/2NK3XL5) marked Adesina’s fond return to his alma mater.
“It was here, as a graduate student, that I began the journey of searching for ways to get technologies into the hands of millions of farmers,” he said. Adesina was to go on to make a huge impact on the transformation of agriculture in Africa, including implementing game-changing policies in his years as Nigeria’s Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development before taking up his post at the Bank in September 2015.
Adesina said the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa needed particularly urgent intervention due to the ravages of climate change. The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that Africa will add 38 million to its number of hungry people by 2050 as a result of climate change. The Institute forecasts that Africa will experience major food shortages by 2020 and beyond, while malnutrition will be on the rise over the next 20 years.
The Bank’s ongoing initiatives had the objectives of growing income for farmers, stabilizing prices for staple crops, reducing losses and stimulating multiplier effects in local economies. With its Staple Crop Processing Zones and other initiatives, the Bank is demonstrating how this can be done.
“The African Development Bank put feeding Africa as one of its topmost priorities when it launched its Feed Africa strategy (http://bit.ly/2Q7A04c) in 2015 and is investing $ 24 billion in agriculture for Africa over 10 years – the largest ever such effort,” the Bank President said. Across Africa, the Feed Africa Strategy (http://bit.ly/2Q9GnUv) is supporting the development of policies, markets, infrastructure and institutions that will ensure that agricultural value chains are well developed and that technologies reach several millions of farmers.
Adesina called for global partnerships to establish Staple Crop Processing Zones across Africa.
“The SCPZs will provide several advantages for rural economies. They will create markets for farm produce. Raw materials will no longer be moved out of rural areas, but as finished value-added products. Post-harvest losses will be substantially reduced. Well integrated agricultural value chains will develop, with supportive logistics, especially warehousing and cold chains,” Adesina added.
The African Development Bank has already started investments to develop these SCPZs in a number of pioneering African countries, including Ethiopia, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. It expects the processing zones to be active in about 15 countries in the near-term.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

AfDB seeks partnerships to lift 1 billion people out of hunger globally

Leah Samberg, University of Minnesota | The Conversation Africa
Around the globe, about 815 million people – 11 percent of the world’s population – went hungry in 2016, according to the latest data from the United Nations. This was the first increase in more than 15 years.
Between 1990 and 2015, due largely to a set of sweeping initiatives by the global community, the proportion of undernourished people in the world was cut in half. In 2015, U.N. member countries adopted the <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">Sustainable Development Goals</a>, which doubled down on this success by setting out to end hunger entirely by 2030. But a recent U.N. <a href="http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/">report</a> shows that, after years of decline, hunger is on the rise again.
As evidenced by nonstop news coverage of floods, fires, refugees and violence, our planet has become a more unstable and less predictable place over the past few years. As these disasters compete for our attention, they make it harder for people in poor, marginalized and war-torn regions to access adequate food.
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188049/original/file-20170928-2939-dzc3wr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188049/original/file-20170928-2939-dzc3wr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a><figcaption>
<a class="source" href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-I7695e.pdf">FAO</a></figcaption></figure>
I study decisions that smallholder <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9579-7">farmers</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-017-9891-8">pastoralists</a>, or livestock herders, make about their crops, animals and land. These choices are limited by lack of access to services, markets or credit; by poor governance or inappropriate policies; and by ethnic, gender and educational barriers. As a result, there is often little they can do to maintain secure or sustainable food production in the face of crises.
The new U.N. report shows that to reduce and ultimately eliminate hunger, simply making agriculture more productive will not be enough. It also is essential to increase the options available to rural populations in an uncertain world.
<h2>Conflict and climate change threaten rural livelihoods</h2>
Around the world, social and political <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343316663032">instability</a> are on the rise. Since 2010, state-based conflict has increased by 60 percent and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343311431598">armed conflict within countries</a> has increased by 125 percent. More than half of the food-insecure people identified in the U.N. report (489 million out of 815 million) live in countries with ongoing violence. More than three-quarters of the world’s chronically malnourished children (122 million of 155 million) live in conflict-affected regions.
At the same time, these regions are experiencing <a href="https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/">increasingly powerful storms, more frequent and persistent drought and more variable rainfall</a> associated with global climate change. These trends are not unrelated. Conflict-torn communities are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters, and crop or livestock failure due to climate can contribute to social unrest.
War hits farmers especially hard. Conflict can evict them from their land, destroy crops and livestock, prevent them from acquiring seed and fertilizer or selling their produce, restrict their access to water and forage, and disrupt planting or harvest cycles. Many conflicts play out in rural areas characterized by <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124010">smallholder</a> agriculture or pastoralism. These <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.041">small-scale</a> farmers are some of the <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-6_Investing_in_smallholder_agriculture.pdf">most vulnerable people on the planet</a>. Supporting them is one of the U.N.‘s <a href="http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/suc2014d5_en.pdf">key strategies</a> for reaching its food security targets.
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190031/original/file-20171012-31440-8u6mdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190031/original/file-20171012-31440-8u6mdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a><figcaption>In September 2016 Viola Tabo fled her home in Lanya village, South Sudan, after government troops executed three of her brothers. She now cultivates vegetables to supplement refugees’ diet of maize and beans at Bidi Bidi camp. 
<a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/S9zWCL">Trocaire</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Disrupted and displaced</h2>
Without other options to feed themselves, farmers and pastoralists in crisis may be forced to leave their land and communities. Migration is one of the most visible coping mechanisms for rural populations who face conflict or climate-related disasters.
Globally, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2017/02/GPI-2016-Report_2.pdf">doubled between 2007 and 2016</a>. Of the estimated 64 million people who are currently displaced, more than 15 million are linked to one of the world’s most severe conflict-related <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/20170328_Full%20Report_Global%20Report%20on%20Food%20Crises_v1.pdf">food crises</a> in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia.
While migrating is uncertain and difficult, those with the fewest resources may not even have that option. New research by my colleagues at the University of Minnesota shows that the most vulnerable populations may be “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su9050720">trapped</a>” in place, without the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/psp.2033">resources to migrate</a>.
Displacement due to climate disasters also feeds conflict. Drought-induced migration in Syria, for example, has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-drought-a-spark-in-igniting-syrias-civil-war-38275">linked</a> to the conflict there, and many <a href="http://www.africareview.com/News/Climate-change-fuels-Nigeria-terrorism/-/979180/1334472/-/vq4tja/-/index.html">militants in Nigeria</a> have been identified as farmers displaced by drought.
<h2>Supporting rural communities</h2>
To reduce world hunger in the long term, rural populations need sustainable ways to support themselves in the face of crisis. This means investing in strategies to support rural livelihoods that are resilient, diverse and interconnected.
Many large-scale food security initiatives supply farmers with improved crop and livestock varieties, plus fertilizer and other necessary inputs. This approach is crucial, but can lead farmers to focus most or all of their resources on growing more productive maize, wheat or rice. Specializing in this way increases risk. If farmers cannot plant seed on time or obtain fertilizers, or if rains fail, they have little to fall back on.
Increasingly, agricultural research and development agencies, NGOs and aid programs are working to help farmers maintain traditionally diverse farms by providing financial, agronomic and policy support for <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/user_upload/online_library/publications/pdfs/The_impact_of_Bioversity_International_s_African_leafy_vegetables_programme_in_Kenya_1418.pdf">production</a> and <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/user_upload/online_library/publications/pdfs/Bioversity_-_Andean_lost_grains_in_Bolivia_and_Peru_1947.pdf">marketing</a> of native crop and livestock species. Growing many different locally adapted crops provides for a range of <a href="https://hivos.org/sites/default/files/web_nourishingdiversity_briefing_final.pdf">nutritional needs</a> and reduces farmers’ risk from variability in weather, inputs or timing.
While investing in agriculture is viewed as the way forward in many developing regions, equally important is the ability of farmers to diversify their livelihood strategies beyond the farm. Income from off-farm employment can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060946">buffer farmers against crop failure or livestock loss</a>, and is a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518384112">key component of food security</a> for many agricultural households.
Training, education, and literacy programs allow rural people to access a greater range of income and information sources. This is especially true for women, who are often more vulnerable to food insecurity than men.
Conflict also tears apart rural communities, breaking down traditional social structures. These networks and relationships facilitate exchanges of information, goods and services, help protect natural resources, and provide insurance and buffering mechanisms.
In many places, one of the best ways to bolster food security is by helping farmers connect to both traditional and innovative social networks, through which they can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2011.09.003">pool resources</a>, store food, seed and inputs and make investments. <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2015-10-16/food-and-transformation-africa">Mobile phones</a> enable farmers to get information on weather and market prices, work cooperatively with other producers and buyers and obtain aid, agricultural extension or veterinary services. Leveraging multiple forms of connectivity is a central strategy for supporting resilient livelihoods.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84506/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />In the past two decades the world has come together to fight hunger. This effort has produced innovations in agriculture, technology and knowledge transfer. Now, however, the compounding crises of violent conflict and a changing climate show that this approach is not enough. In the planet’s most vulnerable places, food security depends not just on making agriculture more productive, but also on making rural livelihoods diverse, interconnected and adaptable.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leah-samberg-410210">Leah Samberg</a>, Research Associate, Institute on the Environment, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-minnesota-1271">University of Minnesota</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-hunger-is-increasing-thanks-to-wars-and-climate-change-84506">original article</a>.

World hunger is increasing, this is why

Global hunger levels have risen for the first time in more than a decade, now affecting 11 percent of the world’s population, as conflict, climate change and economic woes bite, U.N. agencies said on Friday.
Last year, 815 million people were hungry &#8211; 38 million more than in 2015 &#8211; the five agencies said in the first global assessment since governments set an international target to eliminate hunger and malnutrition by 2030, as one of a set of so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The number of hungry began to rise in 2014, but this is the first time in more then a decade that the proportion of the global population going hungry has risen.
About 489 million of the hungry are living in countries affected by conflict.
“Over the past decade, conflicts have risen dramatically in number and become more complex and intractable in nature,” the heads of five U.N. agencies said in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 report.
“This has set off alarm bells we cannot afford to ignore: we will not end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 unless we address all the factors that undermine food security and nutrition,” they said.
Famine struck parts of South Sudan earlier this year, and there is a high risk that it could return there &#8211; and develop in other countries affected by conflict: northeast Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, the agencies said.
The report was produced by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO).
<h3 data-reactid="50">HUNGER AND WAR</h3>
The agencies called for new ways of working to achieve the goal of ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030.
“It’s not only about meeting need, but also ending the need and addressing the root causes of hunger,” Zlatan Milisic, WFP’s deputy director of programmes told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In war-torn countries, it means agencies need to spend more time understanding the complexities of the conflict and working towards building peace, he said.
“We have a lot of research &#8230; which says food insecurity doesn’t directly lead to conflict, but it is a very powerful trigger &#8230; (and) food security has been as seen as a contributor to maintaining peace,” Milisic said.
Aid can sometimes increase tensions in a community. For example, unless aid for refugees supports their hosts as well, it may raise tensions with those families &#8211; who are often poor themselves with little access to basic services.
Aid programmes that create jobs, restore roads and improve farming in countries recovering from war help address root causes of conflict, FAO says.
Intense and prolonged droughts can significantly increase the likelihood of conflict, according to the report. And these are expected to become more frequent with climate change.
<h3 data-reactid="58">FEWER CHILDREN STUNTED</h3>
The proportion of children stunted by hunger fell to 22.9 percent in 2016, from 29.5 percent in 2005. Now, about 155 million children under five years old are affected. Stunting can undermine children’s physical and mental development.
“We see there is a decline &#8211; we also know that decline is not as fast as we would like &#8230; to meet the SDG targets,” said Victor Aguayo, UNICEF’s director for nutrition said.
The number of stunted children &#8211; short for their age &#8211; fell by 40 percent between 1990 and 2015 and Aguayo said this decline should continue.
Progress hinges around improving diets for women and children, improving the status of women in society, and lowering poverty levels, he added.
A worrying trend is the rise of child obesity, with an estimated 41 million children around the world now overweight.
“Obesity is going to increasingly affect the poor, caused by poor diet and poor lifestyle,” Aguayo said.
<h3>NEW TREND?</h3>
Asia has the largest number of hungry people &#8211; 520 million &#8211; and sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of hungry, affecting 20 percent of the population.
Wars, droughts linked to last year’s El Niño weather phenomenon and a global economic slowdown have affected people’s access to food, the agencies said.
Falling commodity prices &#8211; especially for oil &#8211; have made it harder for some countries to import food and to fund state subsidies which normally protect people from hunger, said Jose Rosero Moncayo of FAO’s statistics division.
Overall, however, it’s not clear whether the rise in the number of hungry people is a sign of longer-term trend, he said.
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Reporting by Alex Whiting @Alexwhi, Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit <a href="http://news.trust.org/climate">news.trust.org/climate</a>
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Global hunger rises for first time in decade: U.N. agencies

By Katharine Houreld
As the village wells dried up and her livestock died in the scorched scrubland of southern Somalia, Abdir Hussein had one last chance to save her family from starvation: the beauty of her 14-year-old daughter, Zeinab.
Last year, an older man offered $1,000 for her dowry, enough to take her extended family to Dollow, a Somali town on the Ethiopian border where international aid agencies are handing out food and water to families fleeing a devastating drought.
Zeinab refused.
<blockquote>&#8220;I would rather die. It is better that I run into the bush and be eaten by lions,&#8221; said the slender dark-eyed girl in a high, soft voice.
&#8220;Then we will stay and starve to death and the animals will eat all of our bones,&#8221; her mother shot back.</blockquote>
The exchange, related to Reuters by the teenager and her mother, is typical of the choices facing Somali families after two years of poor rains. Crops withered and the white bones of livestock are scattered across the Horn of Africa nation.
The disaster is part of an arc of hunger and violence threatening 20 million people as it stretches across Africa into the Middle East.
It extends from the red soil of Nigeria in the west, where Boko Haram&#8217;s six-year jihadist insurgency has forced 2 million people to flee their homes, to Yemen&#8217;s white deserts in the east, where warring factions block aid while children starve.
Between them lie Somalia&#8217;s parched sands and the swamps of oil-rich South Sudan, where starving families fleeing three years of civil war survive on water-lily roots.
Parts of South Sudan are already suffering famine, the first in six years.
In Somalia, the United Nations says more than half the 12 million population need aid. A similar drought in 2011, exacerbated by years of civil war, sparked the world&#8217;s last famine, which killed 260,000 people. Now the country teeters on the brink again.
At the moment, the death toll is still in the hundreds but the numbers will spike if the March-May rains fail. The forecast is not good.
As U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to slash aid budgets, the United Nations says the drought and conflicts in the four countries are fuelling humanity&#8217;s greatest collective disaster since World War Two.
<blockquote>&#8220;We stand at a critical point in history,&#8221; Undersecretary-General for humanitarian affairs Stephen O&#8217;Brien told the Security Council in March. &#8220;We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations.&#8221;</blockquote>
The United Nations needs $4.4 billion by July, he said. So far it has received $590 million.
THE CHOICE
Missing from the statistics are the heart-wrenching choices families make every day to survive.
Sheltering under the bare branches of a thorn tree as she waited for a cup of flour, one mother who just arrived in Dollow said she had been feeding her younger children while the older ones went hungry.
Another had left her sick 5-year-old son by the side of the road with distant kinsmen as she led children that could still walk towards help. A third woman bid goodbye to her crippled husband and walked through the desert for a week, carrying their toddler, to the place where there was food.
Hussein traded Zeinab&#8217;s freedom for the lives of her sisters.
&#8220;I felt so bad,&#8221; she told Reuters in the ragged dome of sticks, rags and plastic that shelters her and 14 other relatives. &#8220;I ended the dreams of my baby. But without the money from the dowry, we would all have died.&#8221;
Zeinab, whose henna&#8217;d hands are also covered with her own inky teenage doodles, wears a tight-fitting headscarf and a long, drab skirt. Underneath are a pair of trousers with a spray of coloured rhinestones at the bottom, and an iron will. She wants to be an English teacher. She wants to finish school. She does not want to be married.
&#8220;I want something different to this,&#8221; she said, as her 2-year-old nephew rolled naked in the sand and his baby brother cried weakly.
Weighed against Zeinab&#8217;s dreams were the lives of 20 nieces and nephews, the sons and daughters of her three elder sisters, all married young and all widowed or divorced. There was also her careworn older brother, her gap-toothed younger sister and her middle-aged parents.
Once the family had cows and goats and three donkeys that they hired out with carts for transport. But the animals died around them and Zeinab became their only hope of escape.
For a month, she refused, withdrawing into herself and running away when they forgot to lock her in her room. Finally, faced with her family&#8217;s overwhelming need, Zeinab relented.
&#8220;We didn&#8217;t want to force her,&#8221; her mother said wearily, worry lines etched into her forehead as her daughter sat stony-faced beside her. &#8220;I could not sleep for stress. My eyes were so tired I could not thread a needle.&#8221;
THE MARRIAGE
The dowry was received, the marriage celebrated, and union consummated. Zeinab stayed three days and ran away.
When her family hired cars to drive them the 40 kilometers to Dollow, Zeinab went with them. She enrolled in the local school, where stick walls topped by corrugated iron sheets serve as classrooms for 10 teachers and around 500 students.
Her husband followed.
&#8220;He says, if the girl refuses me I must get my money back. Or I will take her by force,&#8221; Zeinab said quietly. &#8220;He sends me messages saying give me the money or I will be with you as your husband.&#8221;
Her family cannot repay even a fraction of the dowry. Their only assets are their two stained foam mattresses, three cooking pots and the orange tarpaulin that covers their makeshift dome. There is nothing else to sell.
Then Zeinab&#8217;s English teacher Abdiweli Mohammed Hersi decided to step in. Hersi has seen hundreds of students drop out due to the drought.
One girl left to work as a maid to help feed her family. Her generation was the first where the daughters were sent to school. A boy sickened and died; cholera has exploded throughout Somalia as the bacteria infects dwindling water supplies.
Five girls this year also left for forced or early marriages, Hersi said. Young, reluctant brides are not unheard of in Somalia, but they are less common in good times, he said, at least in Dollow.
&#8220;Before the drought, the cases were less,&#8221; he said, an inflatable globe hanging from the ceiling of his classroom. &#8220;Some parents do give their children to other men to get that money.&#8221;
THE END
No one knows how many families are making choices like Zeinab&#8217;s.
&#8220;While we don’t yet have firm data, we understand from some reports that the numbers are small but increasing, particularly in the south and central regions,&#8221; said Jean Lokenga, chief of Child Protection for the United Nations Children&#8217;s Fund in Somalia.
Other aid groups said most drought-stricken families are too poor to pay dowries after their animals died. None knew of a program to help girls like Zeinab.
Hersi took Zeinab to a local aid group, who took her to Italian aid group Cooperazione Internazionale. The regional coordinator, visiting on a trip with EU donors, decided to intervene.
&#8220;We must do something for this girl,&#8221; said Deka Warsame, pouring tea for colleagues gathered to hear the story as the call to prayer sounded through the rooftops. &#8220;Otherwise it will be a rape every night.&#8221;
Her staff held a collection and came up with enough cash to repay the dowry. Warsame told Zeinab the group would mediate a meeting between the men of the two families. Her husband would get back his money if he divorced her in front of witnesses.
Zeinab&#8217;s dark eyes flicked up from the floor.
&#8220;Will I be free?&#8221; she asked.
(Editing by Peter Graff)

Hungry Somalis weigh a daughter’s freedom against siblings’ lives

By George Obulutsa and Abdirahman Hussein
In a makeshift camp beside a disused airfield in the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, 32-year old Nima Mohamed sits next to an open wood fire, boiling a kettle of black tea.
Unless aid groups bring them food and water, the tea is the only meal of the day for her three sons and three daughters who lie nearby in a home made of old bed sheets.
Mohamed is one of the two million people in the breakaway Horn of Africa republic &#8212; about half its population &#8212; facing starvation after an acute drought killed their livestock.
&#8220;We have lost all our animals,&#8221; she told Reuters.
Before their goats died from lack of pasture and water, they provided milk for the children to drink and butter which was used to cook rice for the family to eat, she said.
About 100 or so other families were camped out next to Mohamed&#8217;s hut in similar structures made of sticks, plastic sacks, moth-eaten canvas and cardboard.
They settled outside the airfield after migrating from various drought-stricken parts of Somaliland, especially in the eastern part of the territory.
According to the government, 70 percent of Somaliland&#8217;s economy relies on livestock.
The carcasses of goats, sheep and camels strewn around Burao and the vast, dusty scrubland surrounding the small city, are stark reminders of the extent of the hardship.
Beyond Somaliland, other regions in Somalia are also facing a devastating drought that has decimated harvests and is threatening to tip into full-blown famine only six years after a similar humanitarian catastrophe in which 260,000 people died.
In other parts of Somalia, the shortages are worsened by fighting in areas occupied by al Shabaab Islamist militants.
The Somaliland government in the regional capital Hargeisa said the drought had also led to an increase in diseases such as diarrhoea and malnutrition, especially among children and the elderly.
At another makeshift camp housing 500 people in Bardihahle, 100 km (62 miles)from Burao, pregnant Amina Haji, 23, who fled from Wardad in the eastern Sanaag region, one of the heaviest hit by drought, sat in her small hut in sweltering heat.
Haji, whose baby is due any day, fretted about the conditions in the camp with its lack of food, water and healthcare.
&#8220;We do not have any kind of help and I live under this makeshift shelter,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Nothing remains for us.&#8221;
(Editing by Duncan Miriri and Ed Cropley/Jeremy Gaunt)

Families in drought-stricken Somaliland survive on black tea

A British-Algerian journalist had died six months after staging a hunger strike in Algiers over his detention for publishing articles seen as offensive to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, prison authorities and his lawyer said.
Rights groups called for an investigation into Mohamed Tamalt&#8217;s death &#8211; Reporters Without Borders said the news was a &#8220;hammer blow to all those who defend freedom of information in Algeria&#8221;.
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The 42-year-old blogger and freelance reporter succumbed to a lung infection in hospital in Algiers on Sunday, the prison service said in a statement.
&#8220;I can confirm the death of the journalist Mohamed Tamalt in Bab el-Oued hospital after a hunger strike of more than three months and a three-month coma,&#8221; lawyer Amine Sidhoum said on Facebook.
Tamalt, who was based in London, was arrested in Algeria in June for posts he had shared on Facebook that were seen as critical of Algerian authorities.
Placed in pre-trial detention for &#8220;offending the president&#8221; and &#8220;defaming a public authority&#8221;, he was later given a two-year sentence for offence against a public official, according to Human Rights Watch.
&#8220;It is urgent that lawyers are allowed access to the journalist&#8217;s medical dossier,&#8221; Yasmine Kacha, North Africa director of Reporters Without Borders, said.
&#8220;A public apology should be presented to the journalist&#8217;s family and an investigation immediately opened,&#8221; she said in a statement.&#8221;
Algeria&#8217;s prison service said the hospital had been treating Tamalt for his lung infection, and he had been receiving daily treatment since beginning his hunger strike in late June.﻿

Journalist dies after hunger strike in Algiers

By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA &#8211; Nigeria&#8217;s economic slowdown, compounded by Boko Haram attacks, could mean 5.5 million people needing food aid in the volatile northeast by next month, double the current number, the United Nations warned on Friday.
As government troops advance against the militants, the somewhat better access for aid workers under military escort to Borno and Yobe states has exposed &#8220;catastrophic levels&#8221; of suffering and a &#8220;vast regional crisis&#8221;, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.
Inflation and soaring food prices come at a time when people have little left from the last harvest, the U.N.&#8217;s World Food Programme (WFP) said.
&#8220;Because of Nigeria&#8217;s economic downturn, the number of hungry people could double in the northeastern states that are already so heavily afflicted by the conflict,&#8221; WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher told a news briefing.
&#8220;Our experts are warning it could go as high as 5.5 million people by next month,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The drop in oil prices and sharp rise in the cost of imported staples has compounded the years of violence that these poor people had to suffer.&#8221;
WFP has delivered food to 170,000 people in northeastern Nigeria, but hopes to reach 700,000 by year-end, Luescher said. It is also providing aid to 400,000 people in the three other Lake Chad Basin countries &#8211; Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Nigerian Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said on Thursday that the OPEC country&#8217;s crude output had fallen to 1.56 million barrels per day (bpd) as persistent militant attacks have taken out around 700,000 bpd.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in late July that severely malnourished children are dying in large numbers in northeast Nigeria, the former stronghold of Boko Haram militants where food supplies are close to running out. The aid agency warned of &#8220;pockets of what is close to a famine&#8221;.
UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said on Friday the situation remains dangerous and volatile, following an attack on an aid convoy last month. &#8220;There have been frequent &#8216;hit and run&#8217; incidents by militants, including suicide bombings, attacks on civilians, torching of homes, and thefts of livestock.&#8221;
Armoured vehicles and military escorts are urgently needed to provide protection for aid workers, he said.
&#8220;We have seen adults so exhausted they are unable to move, and children with swollen faces and hollow eyes and other clear indications of acute malnutrition,&#8221; Edwards said.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)﻿

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