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The problems of delivering aid Global development news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk Explainer: How operations to get aid into Somalia have been hit by a lack of cash in the build-up to the famine The famine in Somalia will spread unless the world community responds with greater urgency, the UN said this week. With more than 12 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti in need of aid, the UN says $1.4bn (£853m) is needed. Operations have been hit by a lack of cash in the build-up to the famine. How has the lack of funding affected relief operations? The biggest humanitarian agency operating in Somalia is the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger. Due to the lack of resources, WFP had to reduce rations – including special fortified, nutritional products ; cereal; vegetable oil and sugar – throughout Somalia by roughly 65% in April/May and 79% in June. Otherwise it would have run ou...

Just Give 'Em the Money: The Power and Pleasure of Unrestricted Funding SSIR Opinion & Analysis When I stumbled into philanthropy, seven years out of medical school, I had no idea that there was an accepted set of practices to follow. Through a combination of cluelessness, hubris, and too much time in remote field sites I remained blissfully unaware of the mores and norms of the grant-making world. In my ignorance, I figured that the best thing for the Mulago Foundation to do was to find high-impact organizations focused on the thing we cared about most—and give them a bunch of money. That's worked out pretty well for us, and unrestricted funding remains a cornerstone of our funding strategy. What I can't figure out is why everyone doesn't do it. Unrestricted money makes an organization work smoothly, enables innovation, and provides fuel for growth. It unlocks potential and allows people to get down to business and do what they're be...

Somalia and the limits of humanitarian aid Africa Works Jeffrey Gettleman's excellent article on the Somali famine presents a useful reminder of Amartya Sen's famous insight that famines, chiefly, are human constructions. The persistence of famines isn't a tragedy but rather a consequence of social and political breakdowns. In the Somali case, the country's long civil war– and the tactics used by contending factions — means that famine is a tool of combat rather than the result of "food shortages" as such. Because famines usually arise from dysfunctional distribution of food resources (rather than from an absolute shortage of food), aid agencies are inevitably limited in what they can do to alleviate famines. Moreoever, realities on the ground mean that famine aid inevitably benefits combatants as much or more than the truly needy. In Somalia, political dysfunction mocks the good intentions of relief agents. That famines are man-made...

Famine and drought Owen abroad There is a famine in the Horn of Africa.  I know there is a lot else in the news at the moment – the awful events in Norway,  the US debt crisis, the British hacking scandal – but we need to keep this at the front of our minds.  The situation is very bad. If you can afford it,  you can give money in British pounds here  or in US dollars here . It is at times like this that we get a lot of half-baked commentary about famine. We are told that the problem is drought, or over-population, or global warming. Special interest groups call for more money to be spent on agriculture. Commentators complain that we've given aid for decades and nothing gets any better. So here are two things to keep in mind. First, famine is not caused by drought or overpopulation or insufficient food production. As Amartya Sen explained in Poverty and Famines , people go hungry when they cannot access food, because they are too...