Aid delay caused thousands of deaths

The international aid agencies say national governments and humanitarian agencies were too slow to respond to the crisis in Africa in 2011, because many donors wanted proof of humanitarian catastrophe rather than acting to prevent one, and that aid agency staff felt they had seen the problem many times before.

These factors contributed to a six-month delay in the large delay in the large-scale aid effort.

The UK Department of International Development estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 lives were lost between April and August 2011 – more than half of them children under the age of five. Another US government estimate is that more than 29,000 children under age five died in 90 days from May to July.

The report, A Dangerous Delay, says the first sign of an emergency was forecast in August 2010, but the full-scale response was not launched until July 2011, when malnutrition was beyond the emergency threshold and there was high-profile media coverage.

Save the Children and Oxfam are calling for a change in the culture of funding for food emergencies so that funds are sought and released as soon as crisis signs are clear rather than when an emergency is already occurring.

We can no longer allow this grotesque situation to continue; where the world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with TV pictures of desperately malnourished children. Save the Children Chief Executive Justin Forsyth

Save the Children Chief Executive Justin Forsyth said the warning signs were clear and that “with more money when it really mattered, the suffering of thousands of children would have been avoided.

“We can no longer allow this grotesque situation to continue where the world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with TV pictures of desperately malnourished children,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still at risk in Somalia, which remains the most acute food crisis in the world.

The cost of an emergency

The report also points to the added millions of pounds needed to cope with a food emergency, as opposed to putting preventative measures in place.

The cost of trucking five litres of water per day to 80,000 in Ethiopia, as a life-saving last resort, costs more than $3m for five months. This compares to $900,000 to prepare water sources in the same area for an oncoming drought.

“We all bear responsibility for this dangerous delay that cost lives in East Africa and need to learn the lessons of the late response,” said Oxfam Chief Executive Barbara Stocking.

“It’s shocking that the poorest people are still bearing the brunt of a failure to respond swiftly and decisively. We know that acting early saves lives but collective risk aversion meant aid agencies were reluctant to spend money until they were certain there was a crisis.”