Looking Back – Millions face starvation in africa

The Herald

31 December 1985

MILLIONS of Africans face starvation again 1986, despite massive donations of food and supplies during 1985.

“If an international relief effort is not sustained, we can go back to zero,” said Cde Berhanu Deressa, deputy head of Ethiopia’s relief and Rehabilitation Commission.

“The same pictures of malnourished and starving people will come back again”.

Last year, 21 African Countries were on the UN food and Agriculture Organisation’s “Danger list”. An estimated two million people, half of them in Ethiopia, died as result of drought and famine.

Only six countries remain the list. Ethiopia Sudan, Angola, Botswana, Mozambique and Cape Verde. But the emergency is not over. Even those countries off the list will need food assistance, and in some countries like Ethiopia, the situation is severe.

During the past year, nearly 7 million tons of emergency food poured into Africa for famine relief.

There are stock piles of relief food in areas where a year ago scores of people were starving to death every day.

The best rains for many years fell throughout Africa this season according to the FAO, promising record harvests in many areas.

In 1986, the 21 drought-hit countries will need less than half the seven million tons of food aid they required in 1985, the FAO said.

“The transformation of the drought of stricken countries has been spectacular,” Mr Edouard Saouma, director-general of the FAO said in his year end statement on the Africa food situation.

But Saouma warned that the return of the rains did not mean an end the food crisis. “Good weather alone will not break the back of hunger in Africa,” he said.

Lessons for today:

• The passage teaches that fighting hunger requires more than aid, it demands systemic change, climate resilience, and global collaboration. The crisis revealed that short-term food aid alone was not enough. Donors began emphasising long-term solutions like agricultural development, irrigation projects, and rural infrastructure to reduce dependency on aid.
• The repeated famines led to the establishment of monitoring and forecasting systems (e.g., FEWS NET) to detect drought and food insecurity early, enabling proactive responses instead of reactive ones.
• Aid policies started promoting capacity building, local food production, and sustainable farming practices to make communities less vulnerable to climate shocks. Agencies adopted a “linking relief to development” strategy, combining emergency food aid with programs for health, education, and economic empowerment.
• The scale of the famine pushed organisations like the UN, FAO, and NGOs to improve coordination mechanisms, reducing duplication and ensuring aid reached those most in need. Donors began tying aid to good governance and accountability, recognising that corruption and mismanagement worsened famine impacts.
• These changes laid the foundation for modern humanitarian frameworks, emphasising resilience, sustainability, and early intervention rather than perpetual crisis response.