FIGURE 2 Number of people adversely affected by droughts in the Horn of Africa, 1970–2010


10 12 14


0 2 4 6 8


Ethiopia Kenya Somalia Djibouti


Source: EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database (Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, 2011), www.emdat.be. Notes: The estimates here are only approximate. In addition to the problems of identifying affected people, there are degrees of impact that are not recorded, as well as possible omissions in earlier periods due to less effective measurement, poor governance, and so on. Also, these data do not distinguish between pastoralist and nonpastoralist populations, particularly in Ethiopia, making it difficult to gauge the impacts of droughts in pastoralist areas specifically.


increased over time. In Kenya, droughts accompa- nied by food emergencies occurred in six of the past eight years. But what explains this disturbing trend? Is it because droughts and floods are more frequent, because people are more vulnerable, or both? Tere is not yet evidence of widespread climate


change in the Somali region of Ethiopia,1 but rain- fall in Kenya appears to have declined substantially, and some observers predict that climate change will soon increase drought frequency in the region. Even so, most experts on the region see the


apparent increase in food insecurity as a function of socioeconomic factors as well as climatic events. Tis thinking partly reflects previous research on famines and food insecurity, stemming from the seminal work of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.2 Sen hypothesized that people starve not because of aggregate food shortages, but because they cannot get access to food. But other observers argue that famine also has deeper social and political causes, such as conflict, corruption, and other forms of economic and political mismanagement.3 In the most recent crisis, most people agree that a major reason that southern Somalia alone was


30 DÉJÀ VU IN THE HORN OF AFRICA


gripped by famine was the conflict in that region (Figure 1). Te conflict has likely increased food insecurity through several channels. First, with- out an effective government, southern Somalia has not been able to develop the kinds of disaster risk management institutions and social safety-net programs found in other countries in the region. Second, Al Shabab has excluded the World Food Programme from the areas it controls, greatly inhibiting the supply of emergency goods and ser- vices (Box 4). And third, conflict has significantly constrained people’s mechanisms for coping with drought, such as their ability to move their herds and to engage in trade to sell off livestock and get access to affordable food supplies. Local conflict has been shown to inhibit herd mobility in various regions of Ethiopia and Kenya.4 Not only can conflict amplify the effects of


drought, but drought can cause conflict by exacer- bating competition over scarce grazing lands and water supplies. For Somalia a recent study argues that rainfall shortages push down real livestock prices (and therefore household incomes), which in turn leads to more frequent conflict as young men


Estimated number of people “affected” by drought (millions)


1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010


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