Addis Ababa( The guardian.co.uk):- AU summit in Ethiopia falls short of expected funding pledges amid warnings that crisis stretches beyond hunger to encompass health, security and livelihood
African governments have pledged $46m for the crisis in the Horn of Africa amid warnings that the emergency stretches far beyond hunger to encompass health, security and livelihood.
The pledges came at a poorly attended summit meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, with only four heads of state making an appearance at the event – postponed from earlier this month. The figure fell short of the $50m expected by NGOs, which did little to conceal their disappointment. However, the African Development Bank announced a $300m donation for long-term development in the Horn of Africa.
“We are disappointed that the pledges are less than the minimum of $50m that Africans Act 4 Africa set as a target,” said the pan-African fundraising group. “If Andrew Adansi-Bonnah, an 11-year-old Ghanaian boy can miss school and travel to Addis Ababa to demonstrate his commitment to raising funds and adding his voice, why couldn’t more African leaders have done the same?”
Three African countries provided nearly half of the pledges – Algeria ($10m), Angola ($5m) and Egypt ($5m). Gambia, Mauritania and Congo-Brazzaville gave more than their proportional share, while Nigeria gave only $2m – less than some of its neighbours with smaller economies. South Africa was also tightfisted, with Oxfam pointing out that only $1.3m of its pledge came from government sources (the rest came from individual donations), about the same as from South Sudan, Africa’s newest state.
The AU has come under fire for moving at a snail’s pace in coming up with money to help its own. Until today, it had pledged only $500,000.
“If we truly believe in ‘African solutions for African problems’, we need to demonstrate this very clearly, not just in words but in actions,” said Africans Act 4 Africa. “We need to ensure this is not just another talk shop where AU leaders spend a lot of money on travel, protocol and their entourages.”
Jean Ping, chairman of the AU commission, struck a defensive note at the start of the meeting, claiming that the AU’s initial pledge had encouraged other countries and organisations to step forward. He singled out for praise Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti for opening their doors to refugees. Famine has been declared in five regions of Somalia, the country hardest hit by drought, compounded by a long-running civil war. The UN says about 12.4 million people in east Africa are in need of emergency help and is seeking contributions to plug a $1.1bn funding shortfall.
Last week, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries pledged $350m in aid for Somalia at an emergency summit in Istanbul. Its secretary general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, said he hoped to soon raise the commitments to $500m .
Asha-Rose Migiro, the UN’s deputy secretary general, told the Addis conference that the future of an entire generation hung in the balance. “If we do not respond, the consequences will reverberate for years,” she said. “We will be asked how we stood by and watched a generation die, how we allowed a crisis to become a catastrophe, when we could have stopped it.”
Migiro stressed that the crisis was about more than food shortages – covering public health, with cholera and measles threatening to spread throughout Mogadishu.
“This is also a protection crisis, where women face the threat of rape in overcrowded camps, where orphaned children are lost and scared, with no sense of future, where refugees are being preyed upon by armed gangs and bandits during their long walk to safety,” she said. “It is also a crisis of livelihoods, with thousands of households having sold their assets to keep themselves alive. Pastoralists have lost their livestock: they will only be able to survive future environmental or economic shocks if they can rebuild their resilience.”
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that efforts to support farmers and pastoralists, prevent the crisis from worsening, and help recovery are not being adequately funded.
Support for activities outlined in the FAO’s “road map for recovery” – a $161m package designed to restore livelihoods and build resilience in the face of climate and other shocks – has so far been insufficient, with only $57.3m paid up or in the pipeline to date, the agency said.

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