Saturday, July 23, 2022

Turkana, Kenya

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: First of all, just let me thank you all for coming.

Part of what we are trying to do here is draw global public attention to this unprecedented humanitarian emergency that is occurring in the Horn of Africa, that is occurring here in Turkana, in northern Kenya, that is occurring in many, many communities in the region. There are 19 million people now in the Horn of Africa, dependent on emergency humanitarian assistance. Think of every one of the individuals that are part of that 19 million and how important it is that they be able to receive that assistance. 

Here in Turkana, I was able to meet with mothers and their young children who had had their arm circumference checked as one does to check malnutrition, and had been diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, and then given the therapeutic formula feeding that UNICEF provides, and USAID supports, that has kept those children alive. But not every child in need of therapeutic feeding is going to be able to get it unless more countries around the world step up to provide assistance, unless governments as well find ways to support their communities with an influx of resources, even though these are very, very difficult economic times for every government. 

We had the chance to see a World Food Programme distribution and the families who have been deemed eligible in their own communities coming with their cards to take away what will have to last them for two months. And remember that the people that we saw were the people who had been declared eligible because they have exceptionally vulnerable family members or because they have lost all of their livestock. But one of the things that was interesting about talking to the representatives of the communities is how many people need food, need medicine, but who are not eligible because there is not enough to go around, not because they don't have needs. And so what's happening is families that are coming and getting the distribution are going back and because they are good neighbors and good relatives, they are sharing the distribution, so the distribution is not going to go as far and it's not going to last the two months that it is meant to last. 

We then came here, and this really brings home I think the scale of the crisis as well, which is to just talk to pastoralists who if I had come here three years ago, had 300 - 400 goat, cattle, camels, and now they either have zero, or if they're lucky, they have two or three. And that was the story of each of the pastoralists that I met with. The mothers that we met with who had the acutely malnourished children, all of their livestock had been wiped out, decimated by this drought. So we are talking about the massive loss of livelihood and the risk of the massive loss of life. 

And that is why again, the United States has come forward. We are providing $1.6 billion in financial support to our partners who are doing everything from building boreholes or repairing boreholes so there can be some source of water, to providing food, to providing medicines, protection for women and girls. The further that women and girls have to walk to get firewood, to be able to make just ends meet, to be able to have just a small source of income, the farther they go, the more of a protection risk. That is and so that also is part of what we have to support as a global community, but the needs here are so much greater than any one country can bear. The stakes really around mobilizing individuals, the private sector, national governments, and the broader donor community, the stakes are as we've seen here today existential. With that, happy to take your questions.

MODERATOR: Anyone have a question? 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Yes, please. 

REPORTER: You've talked about the need and it's urgent, we can see people need to eat. Is that sustainable? Are you also having conversations about sustainability - what happens next year, and is that conversation also about perhaps even changing their way of life? Pastoralism, is it sustainable given the recurrent droughts?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, you know in the end individuals, families, communities are going to be making decisions for themselves. I think you're absolutely right that we can't only focus on the emergency without recognizing that because of climate change, we are likely entering into a phase of recurrent emergencies. And the individuals who are facing these acute needs right now, they know that too. They have heard also now, and can sense in a way that I certainly can't, even just from the winds that even the fifth season that everybody had hoped, finally the rains would come. But now it is likely that the rains will be insufficient for a fifth straight season. That's on top of the fourth straight season without sufficient rain. And that was the first time in recorded history that there had ever been four consecutive drought seasons in a row, and now maybe a fifth. And they know that, they reported that. They are bearing that in mind. So, we absolutely have to think about, and mobilize resources as well for this larger resilience. In farming communities, there are resources that are being brought to bear. For example, drought resistant seeds, helping farmers get access to meteorological data sooner. The fertilizer that they might have to be planting to make sure that they're targeting that fertilizer and not wasting it. Food storage solutions. There are a lot of places to go. I think here in communities like this one, some of the resilience programs work with the pastoralists to get their livestock to market far sooner than they are accustomed to bringing them to market. So basically while they are still healthy, moving them to market sooner, and then ensuring that they have those resources so they can reinvest again. 

But, I think as a global community, this is why the cry globally for adaptation resources is just getting louder and louder, because there is not enough money in the world to meet every emergency humanitarian need that is going to come out of climate change. Communities are going to have to make really hard decisions about how they will adapt. And we as a global community, especially those of us who are responsible for such a large share of the emissions, are going to need to collectively mobilize resources to build in that resilience and to help those for example, who wish now to send their kids to school, because they recognize that maybe the pastoralist life in this area is going to be very difficult in the years ahead. Maybe it's better to give the child an education and for them potentially to be able to pick up some skills and bring other skills besides their pastoral skills to bear. We want to be in a position again as an international community and working with the host governments to be able to embark on that arduous but urgent development journey as well.

REPORTER: You mentioned that other countries need to step up and provide more aid to the region. Can you be specific? Who's falling down on the job?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I mean, let me just say that the Ukraine war is devastating for the people of Ukraine as we all know, and the brutality of that. But it also has meant that many European governments who have opened their doors to Ukrainian refugees, provided education, health, social services, have less money now to spend further afield. They're still supporting humanitarian drives here in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere in Sub Saharan Africa where there are acute needs, but it's all coming out of a kind of a fixed top line. And what we have done in the United States, thanks to a rare and important show of bipartisanship between Republicans and Democrats, is mobilize additional resources $7 billion additional humanitarian resources, on top of our pre-existing budgets. Now those additional resources have to go toward the people who are suffering terribly brutal attacks as well as brutal humanitarian conditions in Ukraine, and also supporting the refugees who are flowing from Ukraine into neighboring countries. But I think our appeal is for everyone to try to, who is generous in providing humanitarian aid as our European friends remain very generous, but to find additional resources on top of their fixed top lines. Then there are countries that are benefiting from higher fuel prices in the Gulf and beyond, who potentially are in a position to do more. Some are contributing, for example to meeting food insecurity needs in a country like Yemen. Saudi Arabia is an example of that. But the needs in Yemen are overwhelming and the United States is by far the largest donor to the humanitarian appeal in Yemen. 

And then the last thing I'd say and really, perhaps the most, the most notable is USAID right now has spent almost $4 billion this fiscal year on humanitarian assistance globally, thanks to the generosity of the American taxpayer. I should say sorry, $4 billion we have provided to WFP, which is just a subset of our larger humanitarian assistance spend this fiscal year, which is $11 billion, but which is 40% more than last year. But that, that nearly $4 billion that we have provided to WFP, a large share of which is coming here to the Horn of Africa. If you look at a country like China, which has made a lot of investments on the continent of Africa, their contribution right now to WFP is $3 million. So just the juxtaposition of $3.7 billion given by USAID, and $3 million given by the People's Republic of China. We would love to see those numbers go up and if it isn't to WFP if it's through some countries on the continent that need debt restructuring, or to revise the calendar in which debt payments need to be made, so they can provide some social safety nets, that's a way to contribute. The FAO is an incredibly important food development agency and there's a Chinese national who's the leader of FAO. That is a terrific place to contribute resources. There are many, many ways right now to contribute. But every country that has the capacity to stave off the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our lifetimes, I just appeal to citizens in those countries - to the leaders of those countries - to dig deep, to find additional resources, to support people who have lost everything through no fault of their own. Thank you.

MODERATOR: We have time for just one more question.

REPORTER: Okay. I would like to know, what are you able to do in terms of nipping the problem in the bud, that is in terms of combating climate change? Because obviously, the situation here has been made worse by climate change.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I think climate change is a huge part of the reason that families are facing this level of destitution. I mean, they were never living large in luxury here in these communities, but they were living and they were surviving. And the patterns, they would vary from time to time, but they were largely predictable and they could plan their movements with their animals accordingly. So, we're in a race against the clock to limit the temperature increase. But, that is about limiting things getting worse, that is about preventing further temperature increases that are just going to compound what are already the lived effects of the increases in temperatures annually. And in all of our respective countries, it feels like every summer in the United States breaks a record from the summer before. Either in terms of temperature in terms of wildfire, in terms of flooding, for our farmers also in the United States, who have much more to fall back on then farmers living on the edge. The droughts and how that is affecting, so all even in developed countries like mine, we are seeing right now the effects of climate change and the effort to transition economies to renewable energy, is essential to prevent not just the fifth straight season without sufficient rains, but maybe in the future, the six the seventh, the eighth. That's what we are working so hard to prevent, but obviously the pace in which those transitions need to occur have to be accelerated. And the great tension that so many countries and communities are living with right now is the food crisis. I mean look right here at how much more firewood is being chopped down so people who've lost their livestock now have a means of selling firewood so they're moving into the firewood business. Now they're cooking humanitarian aid that comes in these sacks so they need firewood in order to heat that and turn it into meals for their family. So we have to do everything at once, we have to meet emergency needs, help countries adapt - for example some humanitarian organizations provide solar powered stoves so that there's less damage to the environment. Our attention to the transition to renewables needs to be embedded in our humanitarian response. But right now in some parts of the world they’re in tension with each other and we're seeing backsliding on the transition to clean energy. Hopefully that's a very temporary phenomenon. But we absolutely have to accelerate and not, and not pause that effort to halt warming that we've all committed to in the Paris Agreement. 

Thank you. 

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Administrator Samantha Power Travels to East Africa

Samantha Power 2022 Global Food Crisis Administrator Samantha Power Travels to East Africa
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