The role of the individual administrator in famine relief: Three case studies

A series of hypotheses on the role of the individual administrator in famine relief are proposed and three are examined with respect to case studies of famines in India (1896 and 1906–1907), Uganda (1908) and Lombok (1940). While the evidence is not conclusive, the focus upon the role of the individual administrator offers additional insights into the compexities of official response to famines.     

Drought and famine relief in Ethiopia

This item was filed by an independent observer in March 1983. The overall context given of the relief operation remained valid up to at least the mid-year point, with one well-publicised exception. Late in April, the town of Korem, in northern Wollo region, was seized for several days by the Tigray People's Liberation Front. The famine relief operation was completely disrupted, and the shelter population dispersed. The official relief programme resumed slowly after some 6 to 7 weeks; of the relief workers captured by the TPLF, the expatriate contingent was released in Sudan in the second week of June.     

Reducing vulnerability to drought and famine: developmental approaches to relief

In this paper we present salient lessons learned through the International Relief/Development Project about the relationships between disasters and development. We discuss approaches to famine response and prevention, including the impact of global food distribution efforts on the capacities of people affected by famine and offer criteria for planning famine relief so that it will promote systemic, long term development of these capacities. We first describe a collaborative research project which showed that it is possible for international famine assistance either to promote the capacities of people who suffer from famine so that they are better able to handle future food crises, or to leave those it purports to help worse off and even more vulnerable to subsequent disasters. We then illustrate alternative strategies for promoting development in the midst of crisis by presenting information about a number of famine response programs and analyzing their impact on capacities and vulnerabilities.     

Operational value of anthropometric surveillance in famine early warning and relief: wollo region, ethiopia, 1987-88

In this article I examine the operational implications of the findings reported in 'Entitlements, Coping Mechanisms and Indicators of Access to Food: Wollo Region, Ethiopia, 1987–88' (Kelly, 1992). The usefulness of anthropometric and other indicators for early warning and relief planning in Wollo is assessed by comparing the findings of Save the Children Fund's nutritional surveillance programme with those of the Early Warning and Planning Service of the Ethiopian government's Relief and Rehabilitation Commission. Case studies are used to illustrate the value of anthropometric and other indicators for targeting relief food and monitoring its effects. The costs of monitoring various indicators are then considered, and the cost of the Save the Children Fund programme is compared with that of other programmes. It is argued that in Wollo, anthropometric surveillance is a cost-effective means of improving early warning, planning, targeting and monitoring.     

The role of research institutions in seed-related disaster relief: Seeds of Hope experiences in Rwanda

The article describes the efforts of a coalition of agricultural research centres, Seeds of Hope (SOH) in the rebuilding, of Rwanda, after the genocide and war of 1994. Research involvement in emergency relief and rehabilitation was unusual at the time and SOH had to forge its unique complementary role. Focusing on crop and variety development and conservation it: provided technical advice to relief agencies on seed procurement; used its baseline ken to assess the effects of war on seed diversity and seed security; made preparations to restore specific germplasm (which, fortunately, proved unnecessary) and spent substantial effort on rebuilding human resource capacity in research as well as basic scientific facilities. The involvement of SOH highlighted the critical, yet very different, roles for research during emergency versus rehabilitation periods and demonstrated the cost effectiveness of building in a diagnostic component--before massive seed or germplasm distributions are programmed.     

Archetypes of famine and response

Famines have long been characterised by rapidly shifting dynamics: sudden price spirals, sharp increases in mortality, the media frenzy that often accompanies such spikes, the swift scaling up of aid flows, and a subsequent decline in interest. In arguing that these aspects of famine have been largely ignored in recent years due to attention to the famine process', this paper attempts to make these dynamics more explicit by applying systems thinking. It uses standard archetypes of systems thinking to explain six situations—watch, price spiral, aid magnet, media frenzy, overshoot, and peaks—that are present in many famine contexts. It illustrates their application with examples from crises in Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, and Sudan. The paper contends that the systems approach offers a tool for analysing the larger patterns in famines and for pinpointing the most appropriate responses to them, based on an awareness of the dynamics of the crises.     

The persian famine of 1870-1872: prices and politics

By whatever definitions one cares to classify food shortages and deaths resulting from lack of food, there can be little semantic difficulty in recognising a catastrophic famine in Persia (Iran) in the early 1870s. This paper briefly examines the famine in its natural, political and socio-economic context. Fluctuations in prices and in the supply of essential commodities responded primarily to weather conditions, but this response was exaggerated and in some instances triggered directly by actions in the political and economic sphere.     

The resilience of households to famine in el fasher, Sudan, 1982-89

This paper examines issues related to famine resilience and describes the results of a survey of households who migrated from famine affected rural communities in Northern Darfur to the provincial capital, El Fasher, in western Sudan. It reveals that asset wealth did not enhance household resilience to famine; rather, the data indicate that households who reportedly practiced more numerous survival strategies before migrating to El Fasher were on the whole able to stay longer in their villages before migrating. The data also suggest that some households might have been better able to endure the deteriorating rural conditions by participating in intra-communal practices of sharing resources. An additional issue influencing the timing of migration to El Fasher is previous familiarity with the economic opportunities in the provincial capital.     

Diagnosis of famine: a discursive contribution

This paper recommends the incorporation of an additional discursive dimension in famine diagnosis that draws on the number of reports referring to famine in the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)'s ReliefWeb database. Present‐day diagnostic tools already apply the principle of triangulation with multiple indicators; the addition of a discursive diagnostic dimension would enable even more refined analysis, allowing more forcefully for the incorporation of the aspect of change. The newly devised discursive famine indices are used both to identify famines—in Ethiopia (2000), Malawi (2002), and Somalia (2011)—and to analyse key socioeconomic determinants of famine. The study finds that income (or poverty) together with state fragility appear to be the major determinants of cross‐country variations in famine reporting, while political regimes do not appear to have any independent effect. The indices appear largely robust with regard to concerns about cross‐country, semantic, and temporal biases.     

Recent trends in the international relief system

Since 1991 the international relief system has been undergoing a process of rapid and fundamental change associated with the end of the Cold War period. The principal changes concern (i) the international community's approach to national sovereignty and the 'right' of armed intervention in support of humanitarian objectives, and (ii) organisatwnal changes aimed at improving the coordination and effectiveness of the response by donor organisations and the United Nations. This paper describes these changes and attempts to place them in the context of earlier trends within the international relief system, notably the enhanced role of non-governmental organisations, which occurred during the 1980s.     

Does nutritional surveillance have a role to play in early warning of food crisis and in the management of relief operations?*

A major area of investment in data collection in developing countries has been that of nutritional surveillance and monitoring. From recent debate it is clear that there is currently no consensus on the potential role of nutritional status as an early warning indicator. The author presents a synthesis of the broad spectrum of views on the role nutritional surveillance could or should have in early warning. Conceptual problems and technical difficulties are reviewed in the light of recent experiences in Africa and Asia. The author raises a number of issues for future discussion in this ongoing debate.     

The United nations and disaster relief in the sahel, 1973-75

This research is part of an extensive study entitled 'International Disaster Response: The Sahelian Experience', which was made possible by a grant number 1711–520147 of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State. The opinions expressed are solely the responsibility of the researcher and do not necessarily represent the views of the organizations studied or the sponsoring institutions.