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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Aug 04 2011 - 17:00:09 EDT
"But the humanitarian aid system works within bureaucratic structures that
are caught in a rigidity trap that prevents it from recognizing and
bolstering local capacities in a timely manner. So it’s the Somali people,
including in the Diaspora, who have been organizing themselves to prevent
and mitigate one crisis after another. Resilience is the capacity to
anticipate and judiciously engage with catastrophic events and experiences
(including periodic hunger), making meaning out of adversity and maintaining
normal function without fundamental loss of identity"
With famine in Somalia, a case of leadership (not compassion) fatigue
By Astier M. Almedom, Published: August 3
There’s a narrative that goes something like this: Emotive media images and
tired tales of famine-causing drought in Somalia have created “compassion
fatigue,” a type of onlooker’s paralysis that dulls the fury and utter
indignation that would otherwise motivate action.
That’s an insult, particularly with reference to the American public.
Think such images don’t resonate? This is a time of food insecurity, albeit
much less severe, in the United States as well. One in five children in New
York City reportedly goes to bed hungry while excess food goes to landfills.
The causes and consequences of hunger are complex, compound and
context-specific—but the lack of solutions, whether here or in Somalia,
isn’t the result of a dispassionate public. It’s a failure of leadership.
On July 20, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden,
waited for an assessment report to confirm that “acute malnutrition among
children” had reached “shocking” levels of 30 to 50 percent (and that the
crude death rate among children under five had risen to 6 per 10,000
children each day, and so on) in order to officially call for $300 million
for famine relief from bureaucratic donors. It is hard to imagine that,
until these statistics ticked in, Bowden was unaware of the warning signs of
mass starvation in Somalia. The onset of this crisis has been reported by
credible sources such as Mohammed Adow since way back in May 2007. That was
two years after the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
launched the Hyogo Framework of Action to reduce disaster risk and build
community resilience.
How far has such U.N. leadership gotten us? If I were a Somali mother
arriving in Dadaab refugee camp last week with my child, a bundle of bones
in my arms, I would have real trouble making sense of Bowden’s declaration
of emergency at this late hour. Once assured that my child was triaged as
worthy of “therapeutic feeding” with a good chance of recovery from
near-death, my thoughts would wander back to my home – rural Somalia.
My family and friends and I struggled for years to become “food secure,”
looking for pasture for our camels and goats. Hardly anything grows on the
scorched earth that’s been burnt by warfare; the aerial bombing and heavy
artillery have turned over the topsoil, obliterating its organic matter. We
tried fertilizing small patches of land for growing vegetables without
success. We sold livestock faster than we could replace them, as the price
of millet and sorghum rose.
My new baby didn’t grow much after his first year, having survived on breast
milk. I couldn’t produce enough milk for him, and he refused to take goat’s
milk as a substitute. His appetite deteriorated as he suffered repeat bouts
of diarrhea, fever and vomiting. A humanitarian aid worker delivered a large
can of DMK (powdered milk), which my neighbors and I shared – everyone
received some in a *finjal*, a small espresso-sized coffee cup. That’s how
we live: sharing everything and helping each other overcome hunger and
illness, a day at a time. We managed to survive the first year the rains
failed. The second year was tougher. Left with only few livestock, not
enough milk for the children, and certainly not enough money to buy cereals,
we began to contemplate abandoning our homes.
This is the fourth or fifth year of the slow onset crisis in Somalia. And
that’s if you don’t count the prior years that Somalis have endured
recurrent drought and periodic warfare.
And yet rural families in Somalia have always been quick to adapt and face
new challenges without losing hope. The women of the Horn of Africa are
particularly resilient: They are the pillars of the family, community and
nation. Humanitarian agencies’ help in drilling boreholes would have secured
their access to safe drinking water. Where there is water, there is life.
But the humanitarian aid system works within bureaucratic structures that
are caught in a rigidity trap that prevents it from recognizing and
bolstering local capacities in a timely manner. So it’s the Somali people,
including in the Diaspora, who have been organizing themselves to prevent
and mitigate one crisis after another. Resilience is the capacity to
anticipate and judiciously engage with catastrophic events and experiences
(including periodic hunger), making meaning out of adversity and maintaining
normal function without fundamental loss of identity.
A Somali mother living on the Kenyan border would do all in her powers to
make sure that her children and her sister’s and neighbor’s children do not
go hungry. She may even send the older ones to school in Dadaab camp where
some of her relations had taken refuge. It is not in the interest of Somali
mothers to see their children fight, so they excel in preventing and
resolving conflicts that arise. However, the insurgent activities of
Al-Shabaab, a militant group that has taken over larger parts of Somalia,
have eroded the people’s resilience. Of course the U.N. established a Peace
Building Commission in 2006, but its activities have not been evident in
Somalia.
We have inadequate and incoherent bureaucratic international humanitarian
systems, and beneath them equally inadequate and incoherent sub-systems. The
crude famine criteria cited by Mark Bowden in a slow, deliberate, killing
tone indicate leadership fatigue, not compassion fatigue – and with each
devastating photo or story out of Somalia, it’s this that should scandalize
the compassionate American public.
*Astier M. Almedom is the director of the International Resilience Program
at the Institute for Global Leadership and a professor in humanitarian
policy and global public health at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.*
*In this roundtable <http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership>:*
Sen. John Kerry: Amid budget crisis, a defense of foreign
aid<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/amid-budget-crisis-a-defense-of-foreign-aid/2011/08/03/gIQABVFdrI_story.html>
Astier M. Almedom: With Somalia,what should really scandalize the
public<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/with-famine-in-somalia-a-case-of-leadership-not-compassion-fatigue/2011/08/03/gIQAulkerI_story.html>
Bill Shore: A chronic political failure on humanitarian
aid<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/a-famine-in-somalia-and-a-chronic-political-failure-on-humanitarian-aid/2011/08/03/gIQAPaOgrI_story.html>
Stuart Diamond: U.S. foreign aid: Business skills
needed<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/us-foreign-aid-business-skills-needed/2011/08/03/gIQA9DZirI_story.html>
Robert Goodwin: A new strategy for solving America’s foreign aid
problem<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/a-new-strategy-for-solving-americas-foreign-aid-problem/2011/08/03/gIQAy9vyrI_story.html>
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