In 1984, Ethiopia suffered one of the worst famines in its history -around one million people starved to death.Today, 25 years later, Ethiopia and the rest of Africa continues to suffer from severe food shortages and failed rains.

Nick Martlew, the author of a new Oxfam report, writes from Ethiopia about what can be done to change this cycle of hunger.

As we drove through eastern Ethiopia just a couple of days ago, my eyes were drawn for miles through dramatic valleys and up stony mountains. One of my colleagues had just arrived and her camera was snapping away happily from the backseat.

But in the foreground of her photos, right alongside the road, there is an image that would worry any farmer. The crops are tall, but many of the plants are drying up before they have produced the maize that is the staple food here.

This is the sign of very difficult months ahead for millions of Ethiopians.

We were travelling between the towns of Jijiga and Dire Dawa, but similar scenes are to be seen all over the country at the moment. For many Ethiopian farmers and herders, this is far from the first time they have faced drought.

I remember a woman I met when visiting an Oxfam project way up in the north, in Tigray. Heymanot is a farmer who has had to look after her family and fields on her own since her husband died.

“The past three years the rain has come late and stopped early. People’s problems accumulate, they pile up year after year,” she said.

The problems pile up. I have been living in Ethiopia less than a year but have watched with others as the rains have failed and the hunger has grown. I cannot imagine what it is like for farmers to see drought coming year in, year out, to see the cycle repeated and for the problems to get bigger each year.

When this happens, the stock response of the international community is to ship in emergency food aid. This saves the lives of people facing hunger now, but it does almost nothing to reduce the need for food aid next year. And it smacks of being taken by surprise.

But there is nothing surprising about drought in Ethiopia. It happens regularly, and with the climate changing, they are likely to happen even more in future. Abnormal events such as droughts are gradually becoming the norm here.

That is why we need a new approach to disasters, an approach laid out in Oxfam’s new report - “Band Aids and Beyond”. Ethiopians do not want to have to wait for food after a drought hits; they want help to prepare for drought in advance, to make sure that a dry season does not mean a disaster.

Take Heymanot’s village, Adiha. A few years ago, her community only had enough food for nine months a year. Oxfam intervened with our partner, a local organisation called REST. In exchange for food, the community worked to build a dam that now provides irrigation to the whole village.

Before, they did not have enough to feed themselves. Now, the villagers have enough - and enough extra to sell and pay for their children’s education and health care.

Preparing in advance rather than waiting for disaster - this is not a complicated idea, it is pure common sense. So why is it not common practice? Only a tiny fraction of the money that international donors spend on food aid is spent on these kinds of projects.

Not only is it common sense, but projects that build the bridge from humanitarian relief to development are also much better value. For every $1 of US food aid, it costs up to $2 to package it and ship it over to Ethiopia. And when it gets there it does little to help development or avert the next drought.

If the US and other governments are concerned about cost-effectiveness in this time of economic turmoil, then there are plenty of savings to be made here. Other countries can also improve the way they give aid to Ethiopia.

Donors such as the UK and the Netherlands too often see the problems in terms of a simple split: They see disasters, and they see long-term development. But what about the bit in between?

Tackling the risk of disasters, preparing communities to deal with drought and flood - this makes sense for finance ministers in rich countries, but most importantly it is what Ethiopians are after. It is more dignified and more sustainable.

As Tsegay, another farmer in Adiha, told me: “We get the sense that everyone wants to focus on giving out food - but it’s our development.”

The farmers who work hard to grow crops, only to see them wilt under the scorching sun, do not want handouts. They want a hand up.

Let us make their vision our own and put an end to the cycle of disastrous droughts.

Donate now to the East Africa food crisis response

Tags: Africa, drought, Ethiopia, famine, food, Nick Martlew, Oxfam

This entry was posted by Nick Martlew on October 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 am and is filed under General, Humanitarian, News Blog, You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.