Learning about Famine

As the leader of a respected international development organization with substantial operations in Africa, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I don’t know a lot about drought or famine or the situation in the Horn of Africa right now. I’ve read Amartya Sen’s essays on the subjects, and so I know the basics that droughts are neither necessary nor sufficient for famines to happen, and that these crises are about the ability of people to access to food (availability, access to money, effectiveness of markets and governments, etc), but my knowledge of the present situation in the Horn of Africa is limited. And I have no on-the-ground knowledge that will help me, which always makes me less able to engage.

EWBers have engaged with this issue in a typically rich debate on MyEWB. But I haven’t waded in because I really didn’t know a whole lot.

So I decided to do some reading and scraping around for some of the best writing and ideas on the current situation. I’ve posted some of these below.

From ODI.org:

“Here we go again: famine in the Horn of Africa”

“Famine forecasting: Prices and peasant behaviour in Northern Ethiopia”

“Archetypes of famine and response”

From the Duck of Minerva Blog (great series):

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

One.org:

Famine in Somalia: Never again, again

Foreign Policy:

Famine is a crime

Open the Echo Chamber Blog:

Drought does not equal famine

Globe and Mail:

K’naan returns from Somalia with hope rather than despair

Any other great reading you can suggest?