Somali famine; Canada should gear its contribution towards long term political solution in Somalia

Somalia is suffering of a massive famine which is impacting the lives of close to 4 million people across Somalia, 3.2 million in need of immediate lifesaving assistance.

More than 29,000 children under the age of five have died in the last 90 days in southern Somalia alone, according to U.S. estimates. The UN says 640,000 Somali children are acutely malnourished; suggesting the death toll of children will rise.
Mortality rates are up in the agricultural areas of southern of Somalia. There is evidence of severe food shortage and water, leading to acute malnutrition and high mortality rate in all these areas. So, refugees flee from Somalia for Dadaab in Kenya to a camp of more than 400,000, nearly 5 times its capacity, stretching farther into the Kenyan countryside by the day.

Some argue that the current famine is as a result of a prolonged drought that led to crop failure, increased livestock mortality and increased food prices. Rashid Abdi, a Nairobi-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, calls the crisis in Somalia "a collective failure of the international community," which failed to act on early warnings of a crisis, or to invest in sustainable agriculture to make local communities self-sufficient.But the Somali people have been adapting to cope with the reality of decades of the tragedies of war and challenging political and economic environment that lacked institutional capacity and resources. There is a general consensus on the causal relationship between wars and famine, for instance the devastating 1998 southern Sudan famine is blamed on the protracted civil war in that country and as such the current famine in Somalia is rooted to the civil war in that country. This relationship is rightly articulated in a research study by Dr. Kiros and Dr.Hogan for the International Journal of Epidemiology.

This relationship as argued in this article states that
“War often adversely influences the ability of famine prone countries to escape mass starvation. It typically destroys food production and distribution, dislocates mass populations, and forces the relocation of refugees. War also undermines social services, in particular health services, as meager government resources are taken away from social services to finance military build-ups. Deliberate diversion of food supplies by various armed factions as well as the disruption of transport and marketing and economic hardship often cause severe food shortages”.

In the case of Somalia, the lack of governance system and the reliance of international community for more than 20 years due to the more than two decade civil war undermined any possibility of minimizing the impact of the drought on the population; notwithstanding, FEWS net’s prediction of this looming famine a year ago. Additionally, al-Shabaab, an Islamic militant group which controls most of southern Somalia, had banned several international aid groups from the region in 2009.

From a Somali Canadian perspective, Canada has exceeded our expectation and became a leader in the campaign of saving lives in Somalia by contributing more than other western donors, and Canada continues to match dollar for dollar for all donations to Somalia till September 16, 2011. However, the efforts and contributions made by Canada and other donor countries to alleviate this humanitarian catastrophe will only be short term bandage solution and what Somalia needs in order to prevent recurrence of droughts is a long term political solution.

This is where Canada can take a leading role in facilitating such endeavor. Canada is known in the international arena as peacekeeping state and Canada should leverage its image to initiate a long term political solution for Somalia. In addition, Canada has large Somali Canadians of over 200,000 who call Canada home.

Organizing and initiating such long-term political solution will be positively received by many in and outside Somalia. Conversely, the USA, IGAD and Neighboring countries are implicated in the protracted civil strive in Somalia and all have vested interest in the outcome of any negotiated political settlement, and more than anything else this has been a major impediment in resolving the political conundrum in Somalia. Now is the time for Canada to invest politically and economically in order to resolve this political quandary in Somalia.

Abdirizak O. Mohamed, MES
Immigrant post; Contributor

Is an analyst who writes extensively on Somali issues,

He can be reached at email: abdirizakom@gmail.com

Immigrant post magazine, Toronto, Canada