Background

Though rain has started to fall, the effects of a severe drought—in some places the worst in 60 years—are gripping East Africa and helping to trigger a food and livelihood crisis that has snared countless people. Hardest hit are northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and south-central Somalia, where years of conflict are compounding the crisis for untold numbers of families.

Many of the people who live in this region are herders who depend on their animals—camels, cows, goats, and sheep—for both food and income. The crisis, aggravated by entrenched poverty and years of marginalization, has affected them deeply, and in some parts of Ethiopia more than 60 percent of the herds have died. But farmers, particularly in southwest Ethiopia, are also suffering.

In south central Somalia in July 2011, the price of sorghum had rocketed 240 percent higher than it was a year ago. In Kenya, the price of corn had climbed 40 percent higher in the same period. In northern parts of the country, milk is rarely available—and three times its normal price—leaving Kenyan children with less than a quarter of their usual intake.

In July 2011, more than 9,000 Somali refugees a week were arriving in the Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya—the largest refugee camp in the world and severely overcrowded with more than 360,000 people. And the UN is reporting that almost half the Somali children streaming into refugee camps in Ethiopia are malnourished.

Emergency conditions could persist well into the first quarter of 2012 in southern Somalia, and recovery may not start until the next harvest in August 2012.