Devex Dish: Former WFP Ethiopia head says no evidence for famine in Tigray

Was there famine or near famine in Tigray? Former World Food Programme Ethiopia Country Director Steven Were Omamo says we may never know. Omamo wrote a book about his time in that role during the civil war in Ethiopia's northern region, and my colleague Sara Jerving spoke with him about his insistence that the evidence was not there to know whether or not famine existed in Tigray. Instead, he speculates the international community was using alarmist language to tap into the “multi-billion-dollar hunger industry.” “Without doubt, there was deep food insecurity in Tigray. But there was no evidence of famine,” wrote Omamo, who has been criticized by some for being too close to the Ethiopian government. Sara spoke with several other aid workers who were involved in the response, and they all agreed there were gaps in the data required to verify famine. Field visits were challenging due to security and lack of fuel, and health systems were systematically destroyed, leaving health workers little ability to collect or phone in data. Meanwhile former United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock, who had previously said the Ethiopian government blocked a famine declaration for Tigray, confirmed to Sara his insistence that famine was present in the region during the war. Dive into Sara’s story for the full account of this incredibly complex topic, and then let me know what you think. Does the aid sector have an incentive to inflate hunger numbers? Is the system, which requires cooperation from governments, fundamentally flawed? Write me at dish@devex.com. Read: Tigray 'famine' was 'overt politicization,' says former WFP official More bad news Haiti has reached an unprecedented level of crisis, as cholera sweeps the country amid ongoing gang violence and rising food insecurity. Last year famine was found in a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, the first time the most severe form of food insecurity has been officially recognized in the Western Hemisphere. Medical teams and NGOs are struggling to respond to 1,742 confirmed cases of cholera and another 24,000 suspected cases nationwide. A population without proper nutrition is extremely susceptible to the disease. “Imagine having a child who is malnourished, [who] is already very weak and not having a strong immune system,” Roseval Supreme, Action Against Hunger’s country director for Haiti, tells me. “You have within six to 10 hours to make sure you bring them to the proper care and make sure you can rehydrate them.” Meanwhile, the price of imported food has shot up 43% in the last year, while local produce costs have risen 23%, according to Kwanli Kladstrup, Concern Worldwide’s country director for Haiti. The organization is using electronic vouchers to provide food assistance and working with vendors to help improve supply chains. The idea is to expand access to fresh produce and promote more nutritious diets. Read: Haiti's hunger intensified by cholera, gang violence, Ukraine war ICYMI: Last year, I visited Mexico to document the plight of Haitian migrants and asylum-seekers in the country. Explore the visual story. + Devex Pro members can read what the global food crisis means for Latin America and the Caribbean and how WFP is responding to it in the region. Not gone Pro yet? Start your 15-day free trial today to read the piece. A mouthful “With our eyes now fixed, and our determination now so strong, and with great resolve, we will feed Africa.” --— Akinwumi Adesina, president, African Development Bank Adesina spoke at the conclusion of the Dakar 2 Summit, where African countries and development organizations last week pledged $30 billion to increase food production in Africa, including $10 billion over five years from AfDB. The event was focused on ensuring that the continent can not only feed its own population but also become “the world’s breadbasket.” Governments committed to establishing “high-level advisory councils,” chaired by country presidents, which will oversee Food and Agriculture Delivery Compacts. Those documents “convey the vision, challenges, and opportunities in agricultural productivity, infrastructure, processing and value addition, markets and financing that will accelerate the implementation of the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program,” according to the Dakar Declaration adopted at the event’s conclusion. In the declaration, governments agreed to allocate at least 10% of public expenditure to agriculture. They also called on AfDB and the African Union Commission to raise additional funding from development partners to complement the $30 billion. Number munching 50% --— That’s the amount by which the share of exports affected by restrictions has fallen since May 2023. A new analysis from the International Food Policy Research Institute shows that the impact of food export restrictions imposed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine “appears to be less consequential than many anticipated.” It also finds that global food price declines cannot solely be attributed to the removal of such measures. But still, prices are expected to remain volatile, the analysis finds, as the war shows no sign of ceasing and drought in South America persists. In a separate IFPRI analysis also released last week, researchers found that although food price inflation has moderated somewhat, there are still eight major concerns for global food security. The World Bank’s latest food security update found that from September to December 2022, 83.3% of low-income countries, 90.5% of lower-middle-income countries, and 91% of upper-middle-income countries suffered from inflation above 5%. ICYMI: IFPRI’S David Laborde laid out exactly what he’s watching when it comes to food availability in 2023. Chew on this Five billion people globally are still exposed to trans fat, putting the world on track to miss the World Health Organization's target to eliminate industrially produced trans fat by 2023. [WHO] Saliva influences the flavor of food and could shape which foods people like to eat, research shows. [Knowable Magazine] More than 8 million people will likely experience acute food insecurity in Somalia from April to June 2023. [ACAPS] Sara Jerving contributed to this edition of Devex Dish.