Hunger: East Africa and the Horn of Africa

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady]

Well, that must be rectified in the near future, Mr Gray. [Laughter.] It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, especially given your family’s heritage in Glasgow North. I am grateful to all the Members who have come today and to all those who sponsored the bid at the Backbench Business Committee—not all of them are able to be present, but I am grateful for the cross-party support for the debate.

The Backbench Business Committee has granted 90 minutes for this debate. Hunger and malnutrition kill people in the east and horn of Africa at the rate of one person every 36 seconds. In the time we have for today’s debate, 150 people in the region will lose their lives because their basic right to food has been denied them for entirely preventable reasons. One of the most important things we can do today is make sure that this scandal no longer goes unnoticed.

Christian Aid’s research has found that only 23% of the UK public are aware of the hunger crisis in the horn of Africa, compared with 91% who say they are aware of the crisis in Ukraine. The presence of so many Members here today, the correspondence we have received from constituents and the discussions we have had with those who have come to see us at our surgeries or at the mass lobby in February sponsored by the right hon. Members for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) and for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), show that when members of the public do develop an awareness and understanding of the situation, they demand urgent action to deal with the acute crisis on the ground and long-term action to build resilience and prevent future crises.

Countries in the horn and east of Africa, including Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea, are entering their sixth consecutive season of below-average rainfall. The worsening food security situation also extends to Djibouti and Uganda. The World Health Organisation estimates that around 46 million people in the region currently face what the integrated food security phase classification system describes as crisis levels or worse, meaning households have

“food consumption gaps that are reflected by high or above-usual acute malnutrition”.

Within that number, many now face catastrophe or famine levels where there is

“an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs… Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition are evident.”

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for securing this debate. In February I visited Turkana county in Kenya with the Tearfund charity and I saw the devastating consequences of four years of no rain at all. To tackle the famine in 2017 the UK Government contributed £900 million. So far in the current crisis we have contributed £156 million. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to do much more?

[Patrick Grady]

The right hon. Member is exactly right, and I think that key theme will emerge throughout the debate.

On Friday there was a virtual roundtable of aid and development agencies that work in the region, and those of us present heard directly from representatives of Tearfund, among other aid agencies, in Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan, who described the reality of the situation on the ground. We heard from Manenji, who works with Oxfam in South Sudan, about the dead livestock that robs families and communities of their sources of income. We heard from Alec, who works with World Vision in Somalia, about the children who are losing out on education because their families have been displaced. We heard from John, who works with Action contra la Faim in Kenya, about how diseases such as cholera spread because there is inadequate sanitation. And we heard from Catherine, who works with the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, also in Kenya, who explained that some rains are arriving, but in quantities that are causing floods and damaging crops even further. Those extremes of weather are further exacerbating the situation—that was perhaps the clearest message from all those who contributed.

The hunger crisis is a climate crisis, and weather patterns have changed beyond all recognition, exactly as the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) said, becoming more extreme and less predictable. All the evidence shows that that is a result of pollution and carbon emissions pumped into the atmosphere by decades of past and ongoing industrial and commercial human activity in parts of the world that are not experiencing such extremes, or at least not experiencing their devastating consequences—in other words, so-called developed, western countries. The people who are most affected by climate change are those who have done least to cause it. That is the basic principle of climate justice, which is a concept, like that of climate emergency, that the UK Government do not appear to be willing to accept, let alone embrace or act on.

Other important structural causes have led to the hunger crisis, but they are also the result of decisions and actions taken by people—often by Governments—so they can be changed by making different decisions and taking different actions. The crisis in Ukraine has led to food price inflation around the world. In the UK, we have experienced inflation rates of about 10%, which has caused great and undeniable hardship to many of our constituents and among the poorest and most vulnerable in society. On Friday, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund told us about the effects of the inflation rate in Ethiopia, which is 30% and which affects people who are already trying to get by on the most basic of incomes and subsistence lifestyles.

Difficulties in ensuring the physical supply of grain, even grain delivered in the form of food aid, have also had a significant impact on the hunger crisis, which is why it was encouraging to hear from British International Investment about its investment in Somaliland to improve capacity at the port of Berbera.

The conflicts across the region compound the food crisis and begin to lead to a spiral, becoming both a cause and an effect of hunger. That has been particularly evident in Ethiopia in recent months. Decades of oppression in Eritrea, as we heard from Eritrea Focus, mean that information on the food security situation in that country is almost non-existent, although we can extrapolate from what is happening elsewhere. In recent days, the escalation of violence in Sudan has become a huge concern to us all, and the withdrawal of many aid agencies will simply drive more people to starvation. We must hope that the attention now being paid to what is happening in Sudan leads to long-term resolutions with respect to conflict and to food and nutrition systems.

In all this, gender is a critical factor. ActionAid has spoken of the importance of supporting women-headed households and the role that women play as key leaders in their communities, but they are also at risk of violence and exploitation; indeed, Tearfund referred in particular to child marriage, early pregnancy and prostitution. However, all those challenges are entirely the result of decisions and actions taken by individuals or Governments. There is nothing inevitable about the food crisis, and the stories we have heard, as well as the ones we are likely to hear during the debate, will demonstrate that. The crisis was entirely preventable, and it is eminently resolvable. Future crises are equally avoidable.

The UK Government and the international community need to take urgent action to respond to the acute emergency and to build resilience against further emergencies. First, the UK Government must simply up their game. The risks and dangers that were warned about when the Department for International Development was abolished and the aid budget cut are becoming a reality. As the right hon. Member for East Ham said, in 2017 the UK Government were able to provide more than £800 million to east Africa, which helped to stave off many of the worst impacts of looming famine and saved thousands of lives. There have been warnings about this crisis since 2020, but in the last financial year the UK’s contribution was just £156 million—a cut of 80% from what was made available last time round. That is completely disproportionate with respect to the overall cut in the aid budget.