Relief aid 'no solution to Africa drought'
2011-07-19 09:01
Nairobi - The emergency response to the Horn of Africa's drought that has now left some 10 million people facing starvation will not solve the recurrent humanitarian crisis, a senior UN advisor warned on Monday.
The UN secretary general's special advisor on Millennium Development Goals Jeffrey Sachs said rushing relief aid to the affected population was not addressing the underlying causes of the drought.
"We've been warning, almost day in and day out, of the growing calamity of the dry lands of Africa, and most of this has fallen on deaf ears in Europe and the United States among people who should know better," Sachs told reporters in Nairobi.
"Now there is a scramble to do something."
Sachs said the Horn of Africa's cyclical drought, now occurring more frequently, was due to the effects of climate change and extreme poverty that has stunted development.
He called on donors and the affected countries to boost development in the arid areas across the region, inhabited mainly by pastoralists and often neglected by governments.
"We can never address these problems through emergency response. We have to solve these problems through prevention," Sachs said. "Prevention means development, especially sustainable development.
"If we go on to responding to droughts and crises like this, there will be no end and there will be no solution, and the relief will always be too little too late."
"I hope a crisis like this will open the eyes to whatever we haven't been doing," Sachs said.
Western governments have pledged funds to help the victims of the drought, described as the region's worst in decades.
Britain and Germany at the weekend promised millions of dollars in aid as relief groups warned that the plight of the affected population could worsen in the coming months.
- SAPA