SOMALIA: Growing Food Emergency on Security
Thursday, August 14th, 2008The Oxford Analytica released following report on “The effect of a growing food emergency on security in the Horn of Africa”.
SIGNIFICANCE: Poverty, drought and food insecurity are well known in the Horn of Africa. This latest emergency occurs at a time of global increases in the price of food and fuel and when regional conflicts threaten to destabilise the region.
ANALYSIS: The sharp increase in food and energy prices globally has hurt the poorest and most food insecure regions of the world particularly hard. According to the US Agency for International Development’s latest estimates, as many as 16.3 million people in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti) are in need of emergency assistance or face food insecurity. Hunger and security. This latest food security crisis arises in a context of increasing tensions within and between the states of the region:
1. Somalia. In Somalia, this is the third year that the rains have failed. The incredible scale of the food security crisis is overshadowed by the humanitarian emergency caused by the brutal insurgency and counter-insurgency which have persisted since early 2007. In June, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the opposition Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) signed a UN-brokered peace agreement in Djibouti. Under the Agreement, the TFG and ARS agreed to end their conflict and called on the UN to deploy an international stabilisation force. However, prospects for such a force are remote, violence continues, and a faction of the ARS based in Asmara has condemned the accord.