Overview

Some 250,000 people died in the southern Somalia famine of 2011-12, which also displaced and destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands more. Yet this crisis had been predicted nearly a year earlier. The harshest drought in Somalia's recent history coincided with a global spike in food prices, hitting this arid, import-dependent country hard. The policies of Al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group that controlled southern Somalia, exacerbated an already difficult situation, barring most humanitarian assistance, while donors counter-terrorism policies led to cuts and criminalized any aid falling into their hands. A major disaster resulted from the production and market failures precipitated by the drought and food price crisis, while the famine itself was the result of the failure to quickly respond to these events-and was thus largely human-made. This book analyses the famine: the trade-offs between competing policy priorities that led to it, the collective failure in response, and how those affected by it attempted to protect themselves and their livelihoods.It also examines the humanitarian response, including actors that had not previously been particularly visible in Somalia-from Turkey, the Middle East, and Islamic charities worldwide.

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9781849045759

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Reviews

'The essential text on the largest, and most overlooked, famine of the 21st century.' -- Alex de Waal, Research Professor and Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation, Tufts University; 'Maxwell and Majid have penned haunting reflections on the long and lonely days of 2010 and 2011. The authors' dangerous journey and their penetrating analysis has unearthed compelling evidence of, indeed, a collective failure. They bravely cast light on competing policy imperatives in Somalia at that time, which in fact acted to undermine humanitarian action.' -- Abdullahi Khalif, food security expert and former (2010-2015) Somalia Country Representative for Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET); 'Dan Maxwell and Nisar Majid are important commentators on Somalia. Their book is essential reading for those wishing to understand the root causes of an apparently intractable crisis and its more acute manifestations. Famine in Somalia is a must read for anyone wanting to understand contemporary Somalia and other similarly complex contexts which challenge us all.' -- Dr Sara Pantuliano, Head of the Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

Author Information

Daniel Maxwell is a Professor of Nutrition and Humanitarian Studies at Tufts University, Boston. Nisar Majid is a researcher and consultant specialising in food security transnational studies with reference to Somali populations.

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