Posted April 2001
The Horn of Africa is one of the most food-insecure regions in the world: indeed, it has been estimated that around 70 million people suffer from food insecurity.
In April 2000, the UN Secretary General launched the UN Inter-Agency Task Force to help the region break out of the cycle of hunger and to develop a strategy for long-term food security in the Horn of Africa's seven countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Since then the Task Force - comprising 10 UN agencies and programmes1 - has been working in partnership with national governments, UN agencies regional organizations, NGOs and bilateral agencies to build a consensus for a strategy: country visits, consultations and workshops have been undertaken at the country, regional and international level, and a final Task Force Report was prepared for and endorsed by the UN General Assembly in October 2000.
The report, Eliminating Food Insecurity in the Horn of Africa: A strategy for concerted government and UN agency action includes an analysis of some of the main underlying causes of food insecurity - drought, conflicts, poverty and population growth - and focuses on finding lasting solutions. It proposes ways to protect rural people from external shocks by broadening their livelihoods and enhancing their resilience. It also recognizes the crucial need to improve the environment in which they operate - their health, education and access to information and markets - and the way governments perform, especially in guaranteeing the rule of law.
The report presents a concrete strategy for action. It recommends that each government in the seven countries of the Horn of Africa formulate a Country Food Security Programme (CFSP), building on the recommendations of the World Food Summit Follow-up Strategies, as well as existing national food security initiatives and Poverty Reduction Strategies. The CFSPs will have two main thrusts: one to eliminate famine; the other to tackle chronic food insecurity. In addition, the Task Force report called for preparation of a Regional Food Security Programme (RFSP) to address broader issues such as conflict resolution and trade.
The immediate focus would be on enhancing the livelihoods of small resource-poor farmers, through a combination of agricultural technologies and support services, access to markets and credit, along with rural enterprises and agroprocessing. Such farmers, as well as pastoralists inhabiting the arid and semi-arid parts of the region, and the urban food insecure, are the principal targets of the programme.
It is hoped that the national Thematic Groups affliated to the ACC Network on Rural Development and Food Security will play a pivotal role in helping national governments prepare and implement the CFSPs and RFSP. The Thematic Group brings together a cross-section of partners - from UN agencies, government bodies, civil society and donors - and would represent an effective mechanism for discussion; advocacy; information collection, dissemination and exchange; programme support; resource mobilization; and evaluation and monitoring.
As the Task Force report contends, it should be possible to eliminate famine and bring about significant reductions in all manifestations of food insecurity through the combined efforts of the people of the region, the concerned governments and the UN system, and it underlines that "it is essential to secure the commitment of governments, regional organizations, UN agencies, donors and civil society, all of whom have key roles in translating common policies into concrete and concerted action."
With this in mind, a two-day donor meeting was recently held in Rome to reach agreement on a follow-up mechanism for the implementation of the Task Force strategy and to obtain indications of funding. Convened by the World Bank and hosted by FAO, the meeting was attended by representatives from other UN agencies, member states of OECD, the European Union, some African countries and officials from the African Development Bank and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Regular updates on the Horn of Africa Initiative and the ACC Network's involvement will be posted on this site in the future. For more in-depth coverage of the Task, visit the Horn of Africa Website.