lead. in july two thousand and eleven the horn of africa was struck by a wave of famine. again our screens were flooded with images of m a c that africans.

over thirteen million people in somalia kenya ethiopia eritrea and djibouti are once again threatened by famine. the u.n. approaches the international community for immediate food aid.

you know the only thing you notice are children from the most horrific that we've seen in years and. we grew up learning about africa's hunger problems. that the african people always suffer from hunger and the so-called developed world

always sends food. is there perhaps something wrong with the food aid mechanism. if you're looking at all this money that has been pumped in the fifty's and you're still starving. then it means that something's not right in problems of the interest of those who are poaching to be assisted in kenya or any other african country to improve their food security one of the hate public. will be pumped. and you can see it even to be many ways because it becomes almost like. a business. to do what. it gives once you can put together speaking we're looking at a very wealthy continent which has been now sustained into public teat just before

the aid industry and that's why we need to put two and. these approach both language aid as i would you know changing the predicament. african people. yeah.

perhaps. northern kenya was one of the regions affected during this recent famine wave. the land is arid and barren. that was. how i never. am carried here that was written i am the turkana are this region's inhabitants one of kenya's most traditional tribes that were never. forgotten my. dad did that with. their nomadic pastoralists. for centuries they have learned to survive on this harsh land depending on the rain periods. i. have never yet.

i. but in recent years the ongoing droughts threaten their very existence. i give that yet we. are in northern kenya and we had a year with basically no rain at all to qana region as seen. successive droughts of the past few years and what we're seeing is these trucks are getting more and more frequent and the rain is becoming less less common. to traverse left many of the enemy was very very weak so people didn't have that didn't have the usual income. of. manu titian level is really short term. not what the global acute malnutrition rate is fifteen percent in some areas of true country it was up to fifty seven percent that is more than

double. the. yard work i had to go to. i mean to go to not five and they all died. even then we couldn't eat them. yet out of all my small field it was of no help the seeds died before they could sprout. a year young it was a bad year without trained we couldn't plant anything. there was great hunger. even the wild fruit became rare.

rule when my sister died last year during the long drought. when she was old and as there was no food. she died and i came to take care of her children. there was no food or water because it was too dry and a lot of the. animal in the way. you probably know how bad it was last year on the way most animals died. you get this is a man's tomb and the other two are women. they

died of hunger or that there was no food and the government didn't help. if hope would come sooner with these people have been saved a year old they guessed they would be alive and these tombs wouldn't exist yet gone . up she was complaining that she was hungry and thirsty for a while arguably. all of the above with she couldn't sustain herself. there weren't enough but everybody knows we need food and water to live. he put it in. how long after her death did the food arrive.

after five months. it is chilling to say the least to hear that the two thousand and one drought had been predicted and that lives could have been saved if the system functioned differently the drug does not happen just like switching on and off of electricity drugs is something that comes with being a period of time. after

ethiopia's famine in one thousand nine hundred fourteen one thousand nine hundred five which left one million victims the us created a forecast system for dangerous droughts in order to avoid similar tragedies in the future. in two thousand and ten this system had already warned of things to come. yeah we saw it coming and we've been warning for months before you know people were paying attention death sometimes to problems you know the problem often with the world attention is that sometimes. people only play pay attention if you see the dying children. but i will warning systems nowadays our knowledge is

so sophisticated that we know months in advance we've been warning about this since the for the before the crisis happened because we could see that the rains weren't good enough. but people were left to starve. they had to die before the international community was mobilized. to speak your language. or programs and documentaries in arabic

it's all here on. reporting from the world talks about six of the r.p. interviews intriguing stories for you. in trying. to find out more visit our big don't all t.v. dog called.

the problem is that it's government space national and international journalists and also the fish monitoring community. during its always act as quickly as they can. and it takes unfortunately it takes you know those pictures on t.v. screens to really mobilize public opinion and get governments and politicians interested in the crisis. when it

becomes of more interest to the international media then you tend to get a very strong public response which is extremely helpful which pushes the politicians into action because when the public cares about it then the politicians know they need to respond because. their public expects them to do so. unfortunately you know action could have been taken at the start of two thousand and eleven or earlier in the year. pictured really of stopped it becoming such a big crisis but unfortunately. far too often the action isn't taken until it's too late and so people are already suffering.

and it's not the first time that the turkana people receive help. international organizations and n.g.o.s have been visiting their area for the last fifteen years . and they always welcomed them with joyous song. ok. i am. ever. yeah. yeah. yeah. i did.

not violate no no no no no you mother me i'm not your mother no you're not. i don't know they provide them with food that accident the children and check them for signs of malnutrition. on the way that you come from to from the tell of. how far is motel of. many hours away which means that i left with the sunrise. for decades to turkana have been living in a constant state of hunger. they belong to one billion people around the world who

have no access to their daily nourishment while at the same time more food than ever is being produced on the planet. contrary to crisis periods this chronic hunger phenomenon rarely reaches the evening news. never the less it is deadly. it kills over fifteen million people yearly. three times more than those killed during the gear of the second world war. approximately six and a half million of them are children eighteen thousand die every day.

to fight hunger the international community decided to distribute food to those in need. however since its birth in one nine hundred fifty four and until today food aid has never been a matter of sheer humanitarianism it's been a matter of economic and political correlations with the u.s. playing the leading role the simple reason everyone focuses on u.s. food aid policy is us accounts for more than half of all the world's food aid so as goes the united states so goes the global food aid regime you know the united states is providing fifty to sixty percent of the world's food aid any given year all of europe combined only provide fifteen to twenty percent. of the.

we have given much to the impoverished peoples of europe one simple thing about i'm sorry. but as a countermeasure against the attempt by the soviet union to come you know if you're up the american people sharpen the strategy for cooperating with the non communist countries in a comprehensive bipartisan european recovery program. after the success of the marshall plan which delivered tons of food to western europe. in one thousand nine hundred eighty four president eisenhower signed the famous public law for eighty whatever. the new laws purpose was to distribute the u.s. is agricultural surpluses serving at the same time as a tool for economic and foreign policy which would help promote the country's interests. according to the president's own words

the new law lays the basis for expanding our exports of agricultural products with a lasting benefit to ourselves and peoples of other lands. said oh it's great both and the deleterious effect on our football. team are going to break the bonds of their very we play our best effort to help them help them. all whatever period is required not because the communists may be going it not because we think they're both but we are getting it right in one thousand nine hundred eighty one president kennedy acknowledged public love for eighty as being a fundamental importance to the united states and renamed it food for peace. so the primary objective of food aid policy was surplus disposal but it had a secondary objectives the hope that it would also build future export markets for

u.s. agricultural commodities and that it could achieve humanitarian objectives associated with reducing hunger and under-nutrition and that it could perhaps with some our allies abroad. with the same law kennedy founded usaid the u.s. organization responsible for international development which would administer civilian foreign aid. is. the u.s. government for spreading the american foreign policy through human kind. systems. during the cold war large quantities of food were sent to countries of strategic importance to the united states like india indonesia and pakistan. likewise

large cargoes were sent to eastern asia during the korean and vietnam wars. during the seventy's a large bulk of food aid went to the middle east. during the ninety's after the fall of the berlin wall today it was directed to countries the former eastern bloc the same pattern was repeated in afghanistan and iraq during the war on terror. if you have took aboard diplomacy it's a very subtle way of pushing a national agenda. to another country you know because if you if you've seen even more so because of training elephants for their training in japan since they use food in that if you don't train much but you can dance like a human being you keep rewarding it with a little biscuit or something so next time vindictive you jump up american people saying jump up you jump up see what i mean.

from very early on africa became the focus of attention as the u.s. and soviet union were trying to gain zones of influence countries like somalia ethiopia and kenya received help. there's a lot of pieces that the u.s. would be easy to prove to them or the police's doesn't mean that the united states is doing business to actually be providing you know the same time the. there's no

politics behind it it's going in there we're trying to do things in a way that is most effective way to save lives so i don't think that criticism really holds true. i'm honored to work for this organization i think we do fabulous were partners in the united nations and it's really inspiring. when the bugout riots with a number complied don't need to from the american people. if they're the first thing is this appreciation of the american people because if somebody helps you then you have to appreciate the. country that assists your people in this tough in the approach you to bring in that invest. you see the be very much willing to tell them that them come and if you're not just doing the the funding in the hole

in last year. the child needs to study what their wisdom comes with doing the chinese also for the first time brought them food aid completely trucks there was almost as much as that wait a minute this food aid thing is not just the tusk another soaked up torch in terms of winning over a country to dominate over to push their value such across the globe. apart from helping foreign policy food aid also had other benefits and help with internal affairs and lead a large american agribusiness and shipping companies. but there are other important beneficiaries lurking in the shadows one are agribusinesses and i emphasize agribusinesses rather than for. farmers because very little food aid is sold by

farmers directly that sold by large firms the great hidden beneficiary for u.s. food aid and this is distinct from any other food aid program in the world are the shippers. yes social interests of the surface are severely obese along with their civilian you. thanks thanks. thanks. amy amy.

i'm sure your job if you want to be was do you think you know who it was or the force or. six. six. six. six. six six six six

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