31-10-2022

MoNdAY, sePTeMBeR 31, 2022
5
seAN suTToN
In the early hours of the
morning, before sunrise, the
refugees in Borama gather
around vendors selling bread
out of wheelbarrows, hoping for
handouts.
The nearby tea shops do what
they can to help, dishing out hot
drinks to hundreds of people
who have left fighting and
drought in Ethiopia for
sanctuary in Somaliland's
border city. At night, families lie
in rows on the pavements,
huddled under blankets.
In January, Anajow Abana
travelled 300km from Tigray, in
northern Ethiopia, to
Somaliland. She and her threeyear-old
daughter are living on
the city's streets, surviving on
the charity of local people.
"We fled fighting and
drought," she says. "The fighting
was so bad and they killed my
husband and two of my
children. It took us 12 days to get
here and was such a difficult
time," she says.
Mimi Tadasse is also living on
the streets of Borama. It took
her 14 days to reach the city.
"We got here a week ago," she
says. "It was a hard journey. We
had to go through areas of
fighting, and it was very
dangerous."
Tadasse is from the Amhara
region of Ethiopia, which has
been engulfed in conflict during
the war that began between
forces loyal to the Tigrayan
regional government and the
Ethiopian armed forces in
November 2020, and quickly
spiralled to include a number of
armed groups, regional militias
and the Eritrean military.
Mohamed Warsame
(Baradho), the mayor of
Borama, which is home to about
200,000 people, believes the
number of refugees in the city is
much higher than estimates.
According to immigration
officials, at least 10,000 people
arrived in the first two months
of 2022, he says, and many
more will have crossed the
porous border unofficially.
Many refugees travel on to the
capital Hargeisa and other
areas, rather than staying in
Borama. Some walk as far as
Bosaso on the coast and try to
get a boat across the Gulf of
Aden to Yemen. From there,
they walk to Saudi Arabia in the
hope of finding employment as
labourers or shepherds. People
arriving from the Somali region
of Ethiopia find it easier to
assimilate and set up a shelter in
the refugee camps, as they speak
the language; it is much more
challenging for those from
Tigray, Amhara or Oromia.
There are two refugee camps
in Borama, where it is estimated
more than 2,000 families
reside. Some have been in the
camps for more than 20 years,
others just a few days. There is
little infrastructure, but there is
a school built by Unicef, and
local and international NGOs
have assisted with latrines and
water points.
The plight of the refugees in
Borama is part of a growing
crisis engulfing the Horn of
Africa, where 16 million people
in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia
are in dire need of food.
Consecutive droughts have
exacerbated the effects of war,
leading to water scarcity,
livestock deaths, soaring food
prices and acute insecurity. A
poor start to the 2022 rainy
season coupled with the war in
Ethiopians escaping violence
face hunger in Somaliland
The Abdi Rahman family set up shelter after arriving at a camp for displaced people in Baligubadle.
Ukraine could have catastrophic
results, Save the Children
warned in April.
The mass movement of
vulnerable people over insecure
border areas threatens to
further destabilise the region
and harm communities, with
many migrants facing the
additional threat of unexploded
ordnance (UXO) and
landmines as they move
through unfamiliar territories.
The border with Ethiopia has
been heavily fought over since
the 60s, particularly during the
80s and 90s, meaning former
battle sites are heavily
Photo: Collected
contaminated with UXO.
Dayis Amin and his wife,
Suldan, are living in a refugee
camp in Borama with their eight
children having fled a disputed
area close to Harar, Ethiopia.
They say they were unable to
grow any crops because of
fighting and drought. Amin
says: "It is difficult here. Some
days we eat nothing.
"We had a good life before.
We had 20 cows and 30 sheep.
Then there was trouble, and we
couldn't get by. We couldn't
farm because of the fighting, so
when the drought came all the
animals died.
"There were also explosions
where we were, from the
fighting. About six months ago,
a group of children were playing
with a metal item just 150
metres from our house. There
was an explosion and five
children died."
Omar Mohammed, Somalia
country director for MAG, a
humanitarian organisation that
clears UXO and landmines,
says: "Moving across borders
into Somaliland to seek
humanitarian assistance or
better conditions is the only way
to cope for these people - while
the UXOs and mines litter both
sides of the border from
previous wars. The UN
estimates there were more than
317,000 newly displaced people
within Somalia in January 2022
due to conflict and droughtrelated
issues.
"We are doing our best to
keep people safe by advising
them of the risks of unexploded
ordnance and landmines in the
border areas, but they face
multiple other risks because of
the drought. Women and girls
are having to walk longer
distances to access water, for
instance, exposing them to
gender-based violence."
In the town of Baligubadle,
approximately 170km southeast
of Borama, refugees from
Ethiopia arrive on a daily basis,
along with displaced Somalis
seeking water and food.
"People are dying," says Abdi
Karim Mohamed, director of
families and livelihoods for the
local government, "We don't
have enough water and we need
help. Our reservoirs are dry. We
bring water trucks all the way
from Hargeisa, but that is very
expensive and we can't manage
to do that very often."
The Abdi Rahman family
have just arrived in the town
and are setting up makeshift
shelters. "We had to leave our
home because the animals were
dying because of the drought,"
says the family matriarch, Koos.
"We had 200 goats before, but
now we have only five. We have
one cow - we lost four. The first
animal died three months ago
and then more died as they
became weaker. We had lived
there for generations but every
year it became harder and
harder to survive."
Rein Paulsen, director for
emergencies and resilience at
the UN Food and Agriculture
Programme (FAO) says: "We
are most definitely now sitting
on the brink of catastrophe, time
is running out." "Harvests are
ruined," says Michael Dunford,
regional director for the east
Africa bureau of the UN World
Food Programme (WFP).
"Livestock are dying, and
hunger is growing."
Should the rains continue to
fail, it will be the first time in
more than 40 years that four dry
seasons will have occurred
consecutively. For people like
Abana, and the millions of
already vulnerable people in this
part of the world, that is a
terrifying prospect.
Kenya needs tourists for wildlife's survival
Cassava flour on sale at a market in Bariga district, Lagos, Nigeria.
Photo: Temilade Adelaja
The demand of cassava soared
amid wheat shortage
Chiedozie egesi
Growing up in Nigeria, a staple of our
family dinner table was a doughy dish
called fufu. In the US or Europe, fufu
would be called a dumpling. The
difference is that dumplings, typically
made with wheat flour in the
northern hemisphere, in Nigeria are
made from cassava flour.
I think about this crucial difference
as the escalating food crisis in
Ukraine exposes a dangerous global
dependence on a single commodity:
wheat. Nigeria, for example, is the
world's sixth largest wheat importer,
with a significant portion coming
from Ukraine and Russia. Like many
African countries, Nigeria is bracing
for the impact of surging wheat
prices.
In response, the African
Development Bank has ear-marked a
whopping US $1 billion to boost
wheat production across Africa. But it
would be wise to spend a significant
portion of this money on the
continent's most reliable crop,
cassava.
Nigeria is the world's largest
cassava producer and it is playing a
huge role in a revolution of sorts. This
shrubby, hardy root crop looks
nothing like wheat, though cassava
flour is often used as an alternative to
wheat flour and has a wide range of
other uses. There's even cassava beer.
Moreover, if you think of wheat
dependence as the food equivalent of
oil dependence, cassava can help the
world address a longstanding need
for different sources of caloric fuel -
because the food crisis we are now
experiencing did not originate with
the war in Ukraine. For the past
decade, the combination of food
production challenges from the
climate crisis, severe crop diseases,
armed conflicts and the Covid
pandemic have caused a steady
increase in hunger and poverty.
Cassava can make an important
contribution towards shock-proofing
global food systems. Especially in
sub-Saharan Africa where it is already
the fourth most important source of
daily calories. Cassava can produce a
good harvest in hot, dry conditions
that kill off other crops. That makes it
ideal for adapting to stressful growing
conditions caused by the climate
emergency, such as the series of
droughts now impoverishing millions
of agriculture-dependent people in
east Africa.
While it is one of the most world's
most sustainable food crops, cassava
also has been one of the most
neglected. When I started my career
as a crop scientist, I had little interest
in it. My parents grew cassava on the
small farm they kept to supplement
their teachers' salaries and I had
enormous respect for the crop, seeing
how, in years when our maize crop
was poor, our cassava never wavered.
So when I was offered a position as a
cassava breeder with Nigeria's
National Root Crops Research
Institute (NRCRI), I took it.
Now, I consider myself a cassava
evangelist. I have been fortunate to
arrive on the cassava scene when
support has finally started to increase.
Cassava breeders in Africa now have
access to advanced tools that can
screen varieties to quickly identify
plants with valuable genetic traits,
such as resistance to disease or
improving a particular taste or
texture.
I have also seen a global network of
cassava enthusiasts emerge. There
are now more than 1,000 - including
experts from South America, where
cassava originated, and Asia, where
there is significant interest in the crop
- interacting through an open data
platform called CassavaBase. It's a
virtual community that explores the
results of field trials and contributes
to a data bank cataloguing cassava's
genetic diversity. Cassava breeders
are also moving beyond the science
world to develop partnerships with
farmers and social scientists. For
example, a significant portion of
cassava producers in Africa are
women and we're learning that the
qualities they value in cassava can be
different from men.
I'm not claiming that cassava is the
cure for all that ails the global food
system. However, I do believe it can
contribute to much-needed diversity.
Outside Africa, many people only
encounter cassava hidden in a dessert
- it is the main ingredient in tapioca
pudding - or in gluten-free products.
But I would encourage more people
to enjoy cassava in their daily diets - it
could be a crucial step towards
shaking the world's destabilising
dependence on wheat.
PeTeR MuiRuRi
Every day, for the past 20
years, Joyce Naserian has laid
out her handmade curios
near an entrance to the Masai
Mara park to sell to passing
tourists. Her earnings have
helped the 46-year-old feed
and educate all four of her
children.
In northern Kenya, about
1,200 semi-nomadic women
earned more than 9m
Kenyan shillings (£62,000)
selling beadwork to visitors at
43 community wildlife
conservancies in 2020. Just
as it was Naserian in the
Mara, selling the beadwork
was a solid money earner for
these women. But that was
before Covid.
The collapse of eco-tourism
during the pandemic has
spelled disaster for
conservation initiatives and
livelihoods in Kenya and
beyond. Cuts to budgets and
staff, reduced salaries and
stalled development and
education projects have
plunged communities into
poverty, leading to a rise in
poaching and the illegal
wildlife trade.
Reuters reported that in the
first three months of 2020,
the African continent lost
$55bn (£44bn) in travel and
tourism revenues - funds that
go towards running
conservation programmes
that benefit local
communities.
Kenya's government has
relaxed a raft of travel
restrictions, but the return of
international tourists has
been slow, while concerns
about carbon emissions from
long-haul air travel may be
putting people off flying into
conservation areas.
"It is a real struggle for
survival," says Daniel Sopia,
head of Masai Mara Wildlife
Conservancies Association.
"Women who relied solely on
beadwork were badly affected
as there was not a single
tourist coming to the Mara at
the height of Covid-19
restrictions. Household
income dropped significantly
and they had to rely on food
from well-wishers."
The 15 wildlife
conservancies that Sopia
heads comprise individual
blocks of land owned by
Maasai people. The
landowners lease the land,
covering 14,0426 hectares
(347,000 acres), to safari
camps and lodges, which pay
fees that fund projects
providing water, healthcare
and education, as well as
setting up small businesses.
In return, the 14,500
landowners protect
biodiversity within the Mara
ecosystem while preserving
their traditional lifestyle.
Four years before the
pandemic, the conservancies
contributed almost 120m
Kenyan shillings to social
programmes in the region.
Two years ago, payments to
landowners fell by 50%,
forcing conservancies to scale
back operations and focus on
priorities such as allowances
to wildlife rangers. Sopia and
his team had to scramble to
prevent the total collapse of
conservation programmes.
"Conservancies remained
operational throughout the
pandemic despite the lack in
tourism income," says Sopia.
"We were fortunate to
mobilise some resources
from development partners
and private foundations.
These helped to cover
rangers' salaries, food rations,
fuel, and vehicle
maintenance.
"We hope the arrangement
will be in place till June 2022
as we slowly wean the
conservancies off such aid,"
he says.
Some foreign organisations
are now making a comeback
after a two-year hiatus. In
March 2022, UK charity Tusk
brought together
conservation professionals
from across Africa for a
symposium in Masai Mara to
help organisations diversify
fundraising and build
resilient units.
Since 1990, Tusk has raised
more than £80m towards
conservation projects across
more than 20 African
countries and helped to
protect more than 40
threatened species. Tusk's
upcoming Wildlife Ranger
Challenge seeks to raise
money for rangers whose pay
was slashed in the pandemic.
"The last two years have
been extremely tough for
everyone. The conservation
sector in particular has had to
endure huge losses, dramatic
cutbacks in operating
budgets, and, sadly,
redundancies," says Charlie
Mayhew, Tusk Trust chief
executive.
Wanjiku Kinuthia,
strategyhead at Maliasili,
hopes the renewed interest in
broadening discussions
about African conservation
will boost small organisations
that are often left out of big
decisions, despite being
closest to the vulnerable
communities bearing the
brunt of a collapsing
environment.
"They often miss out on
global dialogues," says
Kinuthia, whose group
supports about 20 other
organisations in seven
countries, including smaller
ones that lack the networks to
make their voices heard.
"They do not understand how
the media works or how to
tell their stories. We can be
catalysts of change for such
grassroots organisations."
Involving communities in
conservation would
safeguard the 65% of wildlife
that lives outside protected
areas, she says. "All people
need are tools to help them
coexist with animals in the
21st century while benefiting
from conservation."
However, some
conservationists say the only
way to sustain conservation
programmes and avoid
disruption is by governments
increasing budgets to the
sector, a challenge
considering the current low
levels of state investment.
Dickson Kaelo, who heads
the Kenya Wildlife
Conservancies Association,
says African countries
depend on foreign donors to
fund development and
conservation is no exception.
"There is no single answer
to cutting off foreign aid,"
says Kaelo. "There are no
government incentives for
setting up a conservancy to
protect an elephant that
walks all over destroying life
and property.
A Maasai man wears traditional beaded bracelets. Photograph: eric Lafforgue