Dollar-for-dollar hope for the Horn of Africa

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

By Tim Costello
CEO World Vision Australia

Published on the ABC Online on Friday 14 October, 2011 

Media coverage has swirled around virtually every movement of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. Yet amid the substantial media coverage, last week there was one announcement that got rather scant attention. 

It was the Federal Government’s commitment to match the donations of individuals to Australian aid agencies responding the East African famine, dollar for dollar, during October and November. Mr Rudd told a media conference the government would match “however much is raised”. 

It is hard to underestimate the scale of the disaster that is unfolding in the Horn of Africa. I was shattered by the scenes I witnessed when I visited Dadaab, the massive refugee camp in eastern Kenya, close to the Somalia border just over a month ago. It is one of the most heart-wrenching humanitarian crises I have ever witnessed. 

There are moments in our history where the international community has the opportunity to act decisively to avert the loss of life on an unimaginable scale. There are times, to our shame, when the world has failed to act, there are other times when humanity triumphs. 

The situation in the Horn of Africa is clearly one of these critical moral moments in our history. 

Today there are 750,000 people at death's door and 3.3 million people need immediate life saving assistance in Somalia alone. The overall number of people affected by the drought and food crisis in the Horn is 13.3 million. 

Given the distance from Australia and the incomprehensible scale of this disaster it is easy to ignore it. It is easy to somehow think the suffering these people are feeling, is somehow different to our own. 

An African mother, who has lost a child, mourns just as deeply as our families do. I know, I spoke to a woman in Wajir South District in Ethiopia who had lost six children over recent years because of disease, drought and famine. Her pain was agonisingly visible. It was heartbreaking to witness. 

Her husband is blind. Her daughter attended the cooking pots of porridge and beans, unable to attend school. It is for women like this and their families that World Vision is there to help. 

The Australian Government must be praised for its response to this crisis. While Africa is further away from us than for other developed countries, Australia has recognised the depth of this crisis. The Australian Government is now the third largest donor to the emergency response. 
Of course, many individual Australians have already donated to this crisis. World Vision Australia alone has so far raised more than $3.6 million. 

World Vision has been responding to the emergency since February this year and has so far assisted 1.38 million people in the most affected countries of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Tanzania. 

I was present for the first distribution of 5,000 emergency kits for families recently arrived from Somalia. Most arrived with virtually no possessions, many having lost loved ones even as they fled their homeland. 

The Dadaab refugee camp was built in the 1990s with a capacity of 90,000 people. Today, more than 400,000 refugees are crammed in there, and more than 1,000 new arrivals pour in each day. 

The terrible scale of this disaster means there still remains so much more to do to help people who are literally at death’s door. The government’s new initiative to match donations dollar for dollar provides a unique opportunity for Australians to maximise their donations. Every dollar they give to help will now go twice as far. 

Australians are a generous people and this has been proved repeatedly in their giving when disaster strikes, especially when there is sudden devastation such as an earthquake or a tsunami. I believe the nation’s response to the 2004 Asian Tsunami is a high point in our history that we should be justifiably proudYet in a crisis such as is unfolding in East Africa. Where failed rains over several years has led to a slowly building crisis – a tsunami-in-slow motion – often the public response is much more muted. 

This has proved the case in the Horn of Africa. If it remains the case we are looking at a horrific loss of life – one in which the world will look back on in shame. It would have been a preventable catastrophe. 

Opinion Pieces, Poverty, Asia and the Pacific, Australian Government, East Africa, Foreign Aid, Kevin Rudd, Philanthropy, Tim Costello

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