'Wars and weather driving hunger in East Africa' says Clara's Ronan Scully

By Clara native Ronan Scully, of Self Help Africa

"East Africa is Hungry. East Africa is Thirsty. East Africa is in Pain. East Africa is Suffering. East Africa is calling for Help. Please do not leave us alone in this hour of need as hunger and thirst stalks our lands." (A Prayer for Help)

This was the plea from those I met on recent visits to East Africa. I witnessed how drought, conflict and crop failures are leaving devastation in their wake. Millions of people are in desperate need.

As I write this article, a human tragedy, one of the worst experienced in half a century, is playing out in one of the poorest regions of the world.

I'm not speaking about the terrible war that has been raging for nearly two years in Ukraine or the appalling tragedy that is happening in front of our eyes in Gaza, Palestine and Israel.

Rather, this human tragedy has been unfolding away from the photographer's lens and the TV camera's gaze – in the north-eastern corner of Africa – a region that includes Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Somalia at its centre.

These countries, along with a wider span of East Africa, to the south, are facing a catastrophic hunger crisis caused by one of the worst droughts in living memory and also because of extreme flash flooding in places, specifically in highland areas.

A fifth consecutive rainy season has failed in most parts of the region, leaving millions of families in a desperate situation and facing starvation.

Both local commentators and international observers blame the current crisis on climate change and serious conflicts in East Africa, together with an inability of rural poor and vulnerable households to produce the crops that they need to put food on the table, from one month to the next.

I was recently giving a talk about the work of Self Help Africa at the launch of our Annual Offaly Camino Canal Way Walk 2024 to a group of supporters of the charity. Having discussed the work of the farming development organisation I work for, Self Help Africa, I explained the gravity of the current drought, now affecting close to 36 million people.

Badly Impacted

In the middle of 2023, there was a terrible statistic being shared to explain the depth of this crisis: A person in the region was dying every 48 seconds from hunger or thirst. Jump forward only four months and that statistic has worsened, with commentators saying that one person in Somalia and Ethiopia is now dying every 36 seconds.

According to the UN agencies more than seven million children are acutely malnourished across the three countries. Meanwhile, in neighbouring Sudan, devastating conflicts and floods have also destroyed several seasons of crops and over half of the population are facing acute food insecurity.

Women, girls and children are being disproportionately impacted. At the start of this year, the International Committee of the Red Cross said an estimated 146 million people are facing crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. The situation has been exacerbated by soaring fuel prices in the wake of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and indeed in many other conflict areas of our world.

Recent Visit to East Africa

During a recent visit to Kenya, with Self Help Africa, a group of amazing, caring, and fabulous GAA stars from across Ireland travelled as part of an initiative to plant another one million trees.

Under the leadership of Alan Kerins and his Warriors for Humanity organisation, 'Plant the Planet’ the group learned of the impact of climate change on some of the world’s most vulnerable.

The trip included a football and hurling match in Nairobi, tree planting with the communities in Iten, running with the Kenyan athletes, soccer matches against local communities, and seeing the wonderful work that Self Help Africa do on the ground.

The players got an insight into the projects and the positive impact of our work with Self Help Africa. They met families whose descendants are going to benefit from these trees long after they are gone.

Focus must be Kept

It is vital that the international community focus on the crisis in East Africa. The damage to Africa should be of supreme concern to all nations, especially all those nations who travelled to COP28 Dubai in Saudi Arabia recently.

This emergency has been caused by a lethal cocktail of crises, which have come one on top of the other. It is tragic, uncaring and unjust that those who contributed the least to climate change, in terms of emissions, are among those suffering the most from it.

Nine out of the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries in the entire world are in sub-Saharan Africa. As to emissions, of the 20 countries most affected by climate change, between them they account for only 0.55 percent of global emissions.

As food prices have skyrocketed here in Ireland and all over the world, millions of people in the East Africa region who were already facing extreme poverty and hunger are now being pushed to the brink.

Self Help Africa is delivering emergency aid and seeds to thousands of families in the grip of a food and security crisis in Ethiopia’s Amhara and Tigray regions.

In partnership with UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Regional Health Bureau, our local team is using its logistics’ experience to help deliver life-saving aid kits – containing cholera, malaria and medical kits – to families and health facilities in conflict-affected South Gonder, East Gojam, West Gojam and Awi zones.

Having worked with rural farmers in Amhara and various regions in Ethiopia for 40 years, we are also using our agricultural expertise to distribute 69 tonnes of seed to 3,200 farmers in 13 districts (known as ‘woredas’), with the World Food Programme.

We hope the climate-resilient seeds will enable particularly vulnerable farmers to kickstart their food production again, improving their families income but also their access, and their communities' access, to nutritious food – something that's crucial to helping address the startling malnutrition rates, particularly among young children.

The UN estimates 3.5 million people in the Amhara region alone are affected by drought-like conditions that have caused crops to fail. A lack of agricultural inputs for farmers, disease, pests and fighting are making food insecurity worse.

Top Priority

As part of the international community, we here in Ireland have an opportunity to help prevent a huge humanitarian catastrophe. But action is needed now and will continue to be needed. During earlier crises over the years, we did a lot as a country thanks to the government's Irish Aid support to help avert famines in impoverished parts of the globe, and we need to see that same commitment now, and show leadership again before it’s too late.

It is vital that the Irish Government also acts to stop crises like this from happening again by investing in resilience-building approaches to help people to break the cycle. Tackling the climate crisis, food and water insecurity must also be a top priority.

Yet, here we are some 50 years later after the famine crisis of 1984 in East Africa and the same old scenes are playing out once more in some parts of this great continent.

Earlier this year, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), called East Africa's condition "a deteriorated humanitarian situation".

Displaced People

During my trip earlier to Ethiopia, I visited Debra Berhran, in the North Shewa region, and saw first-hand a camp where over 80,000 displaced people are gathered with inadequate health and sanitation facilities. And the numbers seeking refuge are growing.

The conditions are horrible and inhumane. Water and sanitation are a huge issue. There are few latrines, clean drinking water is scarce. I have been involved with humanitarian aid efforts for three decades, Nonetheless, the situation in Ethiopia shocked me.

It's far worse than I expected. A more robust international response is needed to lift them out of extreme poverty and hunger, prevent disease and avert a massive loss of life.

'Vested Interest'

I have something of a ‘vested interest’ in what happens in Ethiopia and East Africa. It’s a connection that started way back in 1984, when the images from Michael Buerk’s BBC report on the famine prompted me to change my own life, and begin a career that has seen me spend my life since then working to support the poor of the developing world.

I worked in Africa for a long number of years, and a very important little part of the incredible country of Ethiopia came closer to home in recent times, when we adopted two beautiful Ethiopian angels, Mia and Sophie, to create the family that we have today. I have travelled to Ethiopia, Kenya and parts of East Africa many times to see for myself, first hand, the devastation the effects the drought is having on especially its most vulnerable the elderly, women and children.

This past October, I celebrated spending three decades living and working in Africa and Asia. I’m proud to say I work for Self Help Africa, an Irish development organisation supported and funded by Irish Aid, and the generosity of people like you, the Irish public.

Though I saw suffering on my last few trips to Kenya, Ethiopia and other parts of East Africa , I also met some truly beautiful people – all of them friendly and welcoming. I came away feeling richly blessed to have met them and as though I was the one being helped, not the other way round.

By an accident of birth I am Irish, but I could have just as easily been Kenyan or Ethiopian. Our spirits need love and acceptance. Our bodies need food, water and sleep. We share the same humanity. We are really not so different.

My lasting impression of Kenya and Ethiopia on my most recent trips was not the scale of their poverty, but the spirit of their people. Drought, climate change, hunger and physical suffering have not stolen their hope. They remain joyful when they have every reason to be depressed. You can hear hope in their songs: ‘The Lord will bless someone today. It may be you. It may be me. It may be someone by your side’.

Please Help

The capacity to help people in need is a measure of our humanity. War, hunger and famine are not abstract; they have a human face. I’m confident that with the support of Irish Aid and the generosity of the Irish public, we can make a hugely positive impact in the lives of some of the poorest people on our planet.

I understand that there are many urgent challenges for society right now. But if you can spare any amount, no matter how small, to support Self Help Africa’s work in East Africa, and its work in general, it all adds up to make a huge difference to the lives of people and children in East Africa and beyond. If you want to find out more about our work, please visit www.selfhelpafrica.org

To make a donation, or to buy a lifetime gift or find out more about the work of Self Help Africa with its work, and to “Act locally but impact globally”, you can make a credit or laser card donation by phoning (01) 6778880, or simply send whatever you can afford to Self Help Africa, Westside Resource Centre, Seamus Quirke Road, Westside, Galway.