What We’re Reading: Donors’ slow response to East African hunger crisis ‘cost thousands of lives’

Jan 18th, 2012 12:57 PM UTC
By Emily Walker

Aid agencies: Donors’ slow response to East African hunger crisis ‘cost thousands of lives’ – Thousands of people, more than half of them children, “died needlessly and millions of dollars were wasted because the international community did not respond to early warnings of an impending food crisis in East Africa,” according to a new report by Oxfam and Save the Children. According to the report, “a food shortage was predicted as early as August 2010, but most donors did not respond until famine was declared in parts of Somalia in July 2011.” (AP)

Clinton takes democratic push to unlikely corner of W. Africa – Secretary Clinton’s whirlwind trip to West Africa, which wound up Tuesday, highlighted what US officials say “has been a resurgence of democracy in West Africa, long seen as lagging other parts of the continent.” The trip also indicates a determination by the US to “step up its engagement with the region, hoping to counter growing Chinese influence across Africa, shore up ties with important oil suppliers and build tighter security ties with governments.” (Andrew Quinn, Reuters)

Breakthrough in Saving Lives in Rural Africa – Community health workers (or CHWs) are “increasingly on the frontlines of disease control in rural Africa.” As doctors and nurses leave Africa for the US, Western Europe, and the Middle East, it is the CHWs who are now making up a critical part of the organized local primary health systems in Africa. The One Million Community Health Workers Report called for approximately 1 CHW for every 500 people, a suggestion that would cost the entire continent only $3 billion per year. (Huffington Post, Jeffrey Sachs)

Huckabee Slams GOP On Foreign Aid, Says Zeroing Out Would be ‘Outrightly Foolish’ And ‘Un-Christian’ – During a speech at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition in South Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said that “he doesn’t want to be associated with a party that would zero-out foreign aid.” Huckabee explained that “not taking action to help those living in poverty around the world ‘would be un-Christian,’” and that the US can “be far more effective when it delivers break than when it delivers bombs.” (Think Progress, Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron)

African growth? It’s complicated – A recent report from the Harvard Center for Economic Development, the Atlas of Economic Complexity, ranks countries by their GDP growth to 2020. Uganda, a small, land-locked country, came out on top, surprising many. In fact, thirteen of the countries in the top thirty for growth are from sub-Saharan Africa. As opposed to the traditional measures of growth like life expectancy, education, and political risk, this ranking utilized factors like population growth, industrial webs and networked knowledge. (CNN, Dayo Olopade)

Opinion: South Africa Must Recognize Its Role in African Union Problems – In an address to the U.N. Security Council, South African President Jacob Zuma accused the West of preventing close ties between the UN and the African Union. Citing the “intervention in Libya last spring, he accused NATO of running roughshod over the African Union’s preferences for how to prevent and resolve conflicts in Africa.” Although Zuma’s argument is largely accurate, he failed to address the AU’s and South Africa’s own shortcomings. (NYTimes, Eusebius McKaiser)

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