Hope for the Horn of Africa

The picture of a starving child is one of the most hopeless, disempowering images that possibly can be conveyed. Yet consistently this is the image that has come to represent the frequently famine-ridden Horn of Africa.

What the pictures don't tell you is that for every one of these children who is emaciated and victimized, there are three kids who are not. For every one camp of refugees, there are 10 villages where people are preserving their ways of life and trying to build for the future.

These are the best of times and the worst of times in the Horn of Africa, an area that includes Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, and the declared Republic of Somaliland (formerly northern Somalia). Two of the world's most brutal dictators have been overthrown in the past year and a half. Movements for self-determination have emerged, and one of the world's longest wars has ended. Local reconstruction has begun throughout the region.

Yet at the same time, 23 million people are at risk of starvation this year in the Horn. Hundreds of thousands more have taken refuge in northern Kenya in recent months due to continued fighting in southern parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. At least a hundred children are dying in these camps every day from malnutrition and related diseases.

Cycles of crisis could have been ameliorated if Horn governments had pursued more participatory political and economic policies. But certain factors have conspired to block the aspirations of Horn residents to move toward democracy and development.

War has been the primary cause of frustrated development. Externally supported dictators have created or inflamed local conflicts in classic divide-and-rule fashion. These dictators retained power by repressing rights and suppressing dissent, utilizing brutal methods.

People in the Horn were dragged into the Cold War due to the strategic importance of the Red Sea, which runs along the northern coast of the Horn. Up to 15 percent of the world's commerce transits this sea lane. The dictators in Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia exploited U.S.-Soviet tensions and received exorbitant amounts of arms and money from both sides. Now that the superpowers have disengaged from the region, Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt have stepped into the arms merchant role.

An additional historical factor has been that regimes and their external donors have done little to encourage food production for local consumption by small farmers. Instead, rulers and donors have favored large-scale, capital-intensive, import-dependent, export-oriented agriculture. Little support has gone to the development and expansion of domestic markets or regional trade. Consequently, a small number of merchants and the state have controlled local grain trade.

Export agriculture has earned foreign exchange for Horn regimes to buy weapons and cheap goods from Western and Middle Eastern markets. This type of agriculture has contributed to chronic food shortages, deforestation, and declining soil fertility.

With an American public growing increasingly hostile to foreign aid, it is quite tempting for the United States--for financial, strategic, and possibly racial reasons--to turn its back on the devastation it has helped spawn. But this would be a tragic error. Local movements toward democratization and grassroots development require supportive resources at the outset to solidify these processes. Just as with the Commonwealth of Independent States, newly emergent grassroots initiatives, fledgling governments, and even new countries can achieve self-reliance if met with equitable trade and aid policies.

ONE OF THE MOST remarkable aspects of the last decade of the Horn's history is not that more than two million people died because of war and drought, but rather that tens of millions lived.

Villages and towns throughout the Horn have developed elaborate coping mechanisms in response to increasing vulnerability. Local grain reserves, drought-resistant plants, bartering systems, water rationing, local health care approaches, short-term migration of family members for relief, longer-term migration for employment, sale of animals or other assets, and finally, total abandonment of home in search of safety and survival--all are ways people have sought to preserve livelihoods and ways of life.

The most helpful outside aid has supported local communities directly, through both indigenous and international non-governmental organizations. The most relevant assistance has been defined by the communities themselves.

This summer, the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Peace in the Horn of Africa has launched the Campaign for Democracy and Development to support efforts of local Horn residents for a greater voice in their economic and political systems. The coalition, composed of various church, human rights, and other non-governmental organizations, helped marshal the passage of the Horn of Africa Recovery and Food Security Act in April 1992. The law reorients U.S. policy to the Horn, mandating an active U.S. role in peacemaking and directing U.S. aid to grassroots development programs.

A COALITION OF Ethiopian rebel groups toppled the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam in June 1991. That coalition (plus a few more groups) now constitutes the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE). The TGE is carrying out an ambitious approach to democratization: decentralize power and hold elections at the local and regional levels. The TGE rationalizes that people want power at the local level to determine their political leadership and their economic-development strategies. This has led to a proliferation of new political configurations and violent local conflict in the south and east of the country, but the TGE is sticking to its approach, arguing that this is the only way to allow for equitable representation in an incredibly diverse country.

After a 30-year war, Eritreans have won their battle with Ethiopia for independence. But instead of an outright proclamation of independence, they are abiding by earlier promises for a referendum to let the Eritrean people decide their own future.

Formerly the northwestern part of Somalia, the new independent Republic of Somaliland resulted from three years of intense fighting against forces of the now-deposed dictator Siad Barre. After Barre was overthrown, Somalis from all over the north came together in the town of Burao in April 1991 and demanded independence from traditionally discriminatory southern-led governments. No outside country has yet recognized this new entity.

Southern Sudanese are increasingly debating the issue of independence, while their beleaguered rebel movement continues to fight for a more representative central government. Northern Sudanese are attempting to overcome traditional rivalries and a brutal military dictatorship to press the case for democracy.

All these movements had their genesis at the local level, built from the bottom up. With supportive, targeted aid, these movements, some of which have become governments, can maintain their authenticity and uniqueness while at the same time being strengthened and encouraged.

INDIGENOUS CHURCH organizations (such as the Ethiopian church-led Joint Relief Partnership, the Sudan Council of Churches, and the New Sudan Council of Churches in southern Sudan), relief and rehabilitation organizations that were counterparts of liberation movements, and other local groups have carried out locally defined development activities even in conflict areas.

International private voluntary organizations, many of which are based in the United States, have been helpful in assisting local development efforts of indigenous groups, as well as in initiatives of their own. Agricultural credit, seeds, tools, primary health care, education, and environmental restoration are some of the needs that have been served by these groups.

Now that some areas are relatively tranquil and emerging governments are exhibiting a greater respect for participatory processes, outside aid is even more critical. This reconstruction and rehabilitation aid should be geared toward grassroots, sustainable, people-centered development. Projects and programs should, as far as possible, involve communities in planning and implementation. Indigenous groups should be encouraged and utilized as much as possible in order to build and strengthen local capacity.

As the U.S. government, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other donors draw up development plans for and with the new Ethiopian government, it is critical to note the pitfalls of past development strategies. Meles Zenawi, the leader of the coalition government in Ethiopia, has repeatedly stated that the fundamental goal of government development policy will be to foster self-reliance throughout the country. What is grown, who controls where it is sold, and what sector or region gets aid are life and death matters in the Horn. Supporting participatory development processes is a first step in ensuring greater equality.

It is a time of great danger in the Horn of Africa, but also a time of great opportunity for the U.S. government and other donors. After three decades of supporting corrupt dictators and militarizing vulnerable societies, the U.S. government is fortunate to have a second chance to assist local populations in building a better future for the Horn. If the United States and other donors make the effort to get more aid directly to the people, future famine might be prevented--and then, perhaps, the image of the starving child will become a distant memory.

John Prendergast was a research associate at the Center of Concern in Washington, D.C., co-coordinator of the Coalition for Peace in the Horn of Africa, and the author of the booklet, Peace, Development, and People of the Horn of Africa (published by Bread for the World and the Center of Concern, 1992) when this article appeared.