Can early intervention prevent humanitarian disasters?

IN APRIL DAVID BEASLEYWFPUNUNUNOCHAOCHA, the head of the World Food Programme (), warned of the danger of “multiple famines of biblical proportions” as a result of covid-19. History suggests that Somalia’s 16m people are especially vulnerable. Famines in 1992 and 2011 each claimed more than 200,000 lives. A drought in 2016-17 displaced more than 1m people and caused losses and damage of over $3bn. This year, in addition to the pandemic, crops have been swept away by floods and ravaged by desert locusts (with a new swarm on the way). The triple blow means that 3.5m people, more than a fifth of the population, face hunger between July and September, according to an agency of the and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, an American-funded outfit that monitors some 30 countries.Yet this time may be different, if early intervention proves to be as effective as its advocates believe. The ’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit activated a prepared plan when projections of the share of the population threatened with hunger crossed a preset threshold. Under the plan, the ’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs () released $15m from an emergency fund—the first such “triggered disbursement”. It hopes that the World Bank may chip in as much as $50m to the effort, to ensure that stepping in early really makes a difference. will announce its priorities for action next week, based on its own pre-prepared menu of options.