growing children need protein) and skills (how to incorporate two eggs into
a family meal). But, of course, children won’t actually consume more protein
unless families can produce or purchase protein-rich foods. Training in poultry
management is what makes it feasible to include eggs in the diets of young
children from families of modest means. Once an AAMA participant receives
training in how to keep poultry healthy, she is given a gift of five laying hens so
her children can begin to benefit from eggs, a “renewable resource.”
In Nepal, AAMA is implemented by U.S. nonprofit Helen Keller International. Its staff, almost all Nepali, keep careful records and use them to determine how well strategies or activities are working. During the five-year project,
this region of Nepal improved by 42 percent to 92 percent in categories such
as “the percentage of children ages 6 to 24 months who eat four or more food
groups a day” and “the percentage of women and children who eat a plantsource food rich in iron and Vitamin A
every day.” That translates into many more
Humanitarian funding for Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya, May 2010 to
children who will be able to contribute
October 2011
fully to their communities.
UN Photo/Stuart Price
Source: OCHA Financial Tracking Service
In Mogadishu, Somalia, in July 2011,
women wait for the distribution of food
rations. They live in a camp for internally
displaced people, having come to the
capital city from other parts of Somalia in
search of food.
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July 2011: UN declares
famine in 2 regions of
South Central Somalia
Hunger Emergencies:
Hindsight Is 20/20
If there’s one time when prompt international assistance is urgently needed to save
lives, it is when famine strikes. The most
devastating recent example is Somalia in
2011. How did as many as 100,000 Somali
children die of hunger in just months? Will
the world be able to prevent future famines?
Development assistance has no power
to change many of the factors that contributed to the famine in Somalia. Two of
these are armed conflict and the absence of
a functioning national government; there
are others.
But this does not mean there is nothing
the global community can do to respond
effectively to hunger emergencies and
save many lives. One reason for hope is
progress on developing early warning
systems. U.S. development assistance
funds the Famine Early Warning Systems
Network (FEWS NET), which relies on
sophisticated methods of gathering and
analyzing data (trends in weather, food
prices, malnutrition rates, livestock mortality, and so on).
According to nonprofit development organizations Oxfam and Save the
Children, in the \