Dry crops affected by the drought as 27.1 East Africans need food aid
Drought conditions in eastern Africa left 27.1 million people in need of food aid, an official of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the UN said on Thursday in Addis Ababa.
Patrick Kormawa, FAO Representative to the AU and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), said this at a news conference jointly organised by FAO and the eastern African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Kormawa said countries needed to invest in programmes that would increase food production so as to reduce hunger.
He added that “given that almost a third of the world’s hungry population is in Africa, this means that approximately 80 billion dollars annually is required.”
Ethiopia, east Africa’s most populous nation, has 8.5 million people in need of food aid, or about 8.5 per cent of the country’s total population of around 100 million.
Parts of Sudan and Kenya are also facing drought conditions.
Parts of Sudan and Kenya are also facing drought conditions.
Armed conflicts have worsened drought-induced food insecurity for millions of people in Somalia and South Sudan.
