While the world marched to bring attention to the impacts of climate change on Saturday, in Africa, over 20 million people are starving because of a prolonged and devastating drought brought on by the very thing we want the world to acknowledge.
Almost two months ago, Digital Journal reported that four regions in Africa were singled out by the U.N. General-Secretary in a $4.4 billion appeal to avert catastrophic starvation and death. Populations in Somalia, northeast Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen have all been hit hard due to a prolonged drought, failed crops and internal violence.
Of the $4.4 billion needed by the international agencies, countries around the world have ponied up a paltry $984 million, according to UN humanitarian agency spokesman Jens Laerke two weeks ago.
"Many people have already died," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said at a briefing on the sidelines of FAO's Council - the executive arm of FAO's governing body. "Peace is, of course, the key to ending these crises. But even in times of conflict, there is much we can do to fight hunger and avoid famine... I visited Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria and saw myself how powerful agricultural support can be in a humanitarian crisis," he said.
While hundreds of thousands of people around the world marched on Saturday, a humanitarian crisis unlike anything we have seen since World War II is unfolding right under our noses. If we want world leaders to acknowledge that climate change is happening, all we need to do is have them look to the African continent.
Source: Digital Journal
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