Hunger: East Africa and the Horn of Africa

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for securing this hugely important debate. I declare that I took part in a cross-party visit to Kenya in January, and the details are in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

As we have heard from the powerful contributions this morning, the horn of Africa has experienced one of the longest and most severe droughts on record. Some 46 million people in the region urgently need food assistance, and more than 16.2 million people cannot access sufficient water. Those numbers are absolutely staggering. The persistent droughts and severe flooding are the result of climate change, and the cause of mass displacement and loss of life. The situation has been compounded by the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine, which caused prices for wheat, oil and fuel to skyrocket, rising by 300% in March 2022. Some 4.5 million people are now refugees as a result of the crisis, and 12.7 million are internally displaced. The drought has damaged people’s ability to grow crops, raise livestock and buy food, and 9.5 million livestock have died across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia alone. It is catastrophic.

In January of this year I joined a cross-party delegation that visited Marsabit, Kenya, where the crisis is rapidly increasing in severity. I would like to place on the record my thanks to CAFOD and everybody involved in that tremendous visit. Kenya declared a national disaster in September 2021 because of the drought, and UN figures estimate that the number of people affected by drought-driven hunger has increased from 1.4 million to 4.1 million in the last year. The fifth successive below-average rainy season has resulted in below-average crop production, poor livestock conditions and higher exposure to livestock diseases. I saw all of that when I went there. In turn, it has led to the loss of livelihoods and assets, and has increased food insecurity and malnutrition.

The drought has also had a devastating impact on children’s learning. Thousands of pupils have had to drop out of school due to the impact of food insecurity and climate-induced displacement. I will never forget the sights I witnessed, nor the magnificent fortitude of the people I met in Marsabit: the mothers who were distraught about how the crisis was threatening the education and futures of their children; the camels dying on the side of the road due to the unprecedented drought; and the communities decimated, with their standard of living disappearing before their eyes because of the loss of livestock.

I also saw how investment in people—in this case, water wells supplied by CAFOD—can transform and help the pastoralists to survive the drought and ensure they remain a key part of the future of Kenya, where they make up a fifth of the country. If Kenya loses those people and livestock, it poses an existential threat to the social and economic fortunes of the country and, indeed, of Africa.

As Action Against Hunger said in its briefing for this debate, in reality, millions of people are facing hunger and malnutrition and are losing their livelihoods due to a lack of political will to act. That includes the political will of this Government. I close my contribution by asking the Minister why the £156 million of funding committed by the UK in 2022-23 was only 20% of the amount committed to the region in 2017. Given the severity of the crisis we see before our eyes, I press the Minister to urgently increase funding now, for all the reasons that have been spoken so eloquently about today. Crucially, the Minister must ensure that the funding reaches local-led initiatives that have local knowledge and understand the short and long-term needs of the community. That is absolutely vital.

Furthermore, will the Minister commit to reinstating the aid budget to 0.7% of GDP as soon as possible? In addition to that immediate support, I urge the Minister to consult representatives from across the region to discuss what is needed to prepare for the future crisis, as well as long-term resilience building programmes, including climate adaptation, which is crucial for everybody.

Regarding the climate emergency, I am deeply concerned that the UK Government are yet to show the ambition required to avoid worsening catastrophic climate impacts. There needs to be an immediate change in direction to deliver on reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The UK must deliver additional funding for loss and damages caused by our contribution to the climate emergency.

The crisis across east Africa is now of immense proportions. As Action Against Hunger has said, famine is not a singular event but the result of a series of shocks that accumulate over time. With each shock, communities become less able to cope and another famine becomes more likely to occur. The UK need to provide immediate support as part of the urgent humanitarian response, as well as long-term support to prevent future crises and climate-driven displacement and that builds resilience in communities. I urge the Government to act with urgency.