USG funding for hunger in East Africa

David Miliband, President and CEO of the IRC, said: “The IRC welcomes today’s announcement of additional $1.2 billion in vital US humanitarian funding to support urgent emergency needs in East Africa. This announcement comes not a moment too soon and the money needs to get to the frontline fast: the alarm bells of famine are ringing and too few members of the international community have been listening. As we will show in our Crisis Alert update to our Emergency Watchlist being published tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk, mostly those of young children.

Today’s funding announcement is an important first step- but it cannot be the last step. Once fulfilled, US funding would bring funding levels on par with the 2017 drought and fund the humanitarian response to the tune of nearly 40% – but this year’s drought is far, far worse, as twice the number of people across the region are going hungry.

A full, systemic scale-up of the humanitarian response is needed to mitigate the worst impacts of the drought, activating the widest range of partners to ensure those with the greatest need and least access receive life-saving assistance. Other countries must immediately follow the US’ lead, fully funding the region’s humanitarian responses. Funding also needs to move quickly and to NGOs already working on the ground: people are already dying, and humanitarian actors need to act immediately to meet the full and growing scale of needs. Once famine is declared, it will be too late.”