Aid ineffective says Somali official

Dispatches of aid to Somalia are proving ineffective announced officials on Thursday and donor efforts should focus instead on improving the country’s ability to handle crises.

Famine has spread to six out of eight regions in southern Somalia, with 750,000 people facing imminent starvation, the United Nations says, and hundreds of Somalis are dying each day despite a ramping up of aid relief.

"It's (aid) not really as effective as we expected. The reason is we need institutional capacity for us to be able to manage and coordinate the aid," explained Deputy Finance Minister Ali Dirir Farah in Addis Ababa.

Sale of food aid
Somalia is among the world's most corrupt nations and in past weeks has been dogged by allegations that food aid intended for famine victims was being stolen and sold for a profit.

The rest of southern Somalia is expected to slide into famine by the end of the year, the UN says.

The lawless country has been without an effective central government since the dictator Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, after which first warlords then Islamist insurgents stepped into the power vacuum.

Large swathes of the Horn of Africa nation remain under the control of Islamist rebels who are fighting to overthrow the UN-backed government and have severely restricted relief efforts in their territories.

"We would like aid to be guided by exactly what is needed in the country, not from what donors and experts far away are thinking," Farah said of the response to the famine.
al-Qaeda
The Somali government blames the famine on the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab rebels, who seek to impose a strict version of sharia law on the nation and are bent on striking the region's main economies.

At a regional conference in neighbouring Kenya, Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said the militants had systematically looted grain stores, extorted food and taxes from farmers and prevented starving people from reaching help.

"As a region, we cannot afford the luxury of allowing al-Qaeda an opportunity to establish a firm presence in the Horn," Ali told the conference.

Aid agencies say they are only able to get food aid to 1 million of those in need because the al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel group, al Shabaab, which controls much of the south, will not allow food shipments in.

Instead, agencies are using food and cash vouchers which hungry families can exchange for commodities in local markets.

Famine exists where at least 20 per cent of households cannot access enough food, over 30 per cent are acutely malnourished and two people per 10,000 die every day, according to the UN.

Source: Reuters