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NAIROBI, Kenya, December 8, 2016 -Forced to make a new round of cuts in food rations for refugees in Kenya, the World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed urgently for nearly $14 million to feed the 434,000 refugees living in Kenya’s Dadaab and Kakuma camps and in the new Kalobeyei settlement.
“We are appealing to donors to quickly come to the aid of the refugees, who rely on WFP food assistance for survival,” Annalisa Conte, WFP’s Representative and Country Director for Kenya, said in a news release.
WFP currently provides food relief to refugees in Kenya’s Dadaab and Kakuma camps, as well as the newly established Kalobeyei settlement. This assistance comes as cash transfers and food distributions. For those most vulnerable, the agency also offers specialized fortified foods to prevent malnutrition.
“WFP immediately requires $13.7 million to cover the food and cash needs for the refugees between December and April,” stressed Ms. Conte.
Beginning this month, the UN agency was forced to reduce food ration by half for the refugees’ monthly entitlement, which will only last until the end of February if no further funding received.
While cash transfers have not yet been cut, they are due to be exhausted by the end of January. If the agency is forced to discontinue the cash transfers, however, it will specifically affect 7,500 refugees in the recently launched Kalobeyei settlement, as the only form of food assistance they receive is cash.
“A generous and critically important $22 million shipment of food from the United States is en route to Dadaab and Kakuma and should be available for distribution by May,” Ms. Conte said, while warning: “But we have a dangerous gap in funding until then.”
She further reiterated that without an urgent response from other donors, WFP will completely run out of food for more than 400,000 people in Dadaab and Kakuma at the end of February.

There is clearly a need in the aftermath of Brexit for there to be a degree of reassurance given to Africa that Brexit doesn’t mean that the United Kingdom is going to turn its back on Africa.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, November 29, 2016 -Brexit does not mean that the British government will turn its back on Africa, Lord Paul Boateng, a Member of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords said Monday.
Speaking at the first ever Africa Trade Forum which is being hosted by the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union, Mr. Boateng said Brexit presents Africa and the UK with an opportunity to “put development at the heart of our trading relationship with Africa in a way frankly that it has not always been in relation to the EPAs, let’s be frank about it”.
“The UK recognizes that and we will seek every opportunity to minimize the disruption in our trading relationship and take every opportunity to seize this chance to re-fashion the relationship between the UK and Africa in terms of trade so intra-African trade becomes an opportunity which we can seize together,” he said.
Contributing to debate on Africa-E.U. Economic and Trade Cooperation and Brexit implications for Africa, Mr. Boateng assured participants, including African Ministers of Trade, Finance and Transportation as well as senior government officials, heads of Regional Economic Communities (RECs), African CEOs and executives, representatives of international development agencies, civil society and others, that trade relations between the UK and Africa will not be affected following Brexit.
“There is clearly a need in the aftermath of Brexit for there to be a degree of reassurance given to Africa that Brexit doesn’t mean that the United Kingdom is going to turn its back on Africa and I’m able to assure you that right across the political divide in the UK, in both Houses, Africa and the UK’s historic link with Africa remains central to our thinking,” he said.
“Yes there’s uncertainty at this time, that is inevitable, when such a momentous decision is made,” SAID Mr. Boateng.
“Yes there is a hazard always when you think about the scale of the task that lies ahead in terms of mapping out the future of the trading relationship between the UK and Africa but I think I can give the absolute assurance that we see this in the UK as an opportunity to be seized.”
He said he was concerned by the issue of infrastructure in most African countries. Mr. Boateng was born and brought up in the Gold Coast in Ghana.
“I am the grandson of cocoa and cassava farmers. My grandmother grew cassava, my grandfather grew cocoa and when I look at our village in Tafo in the eastern region of Ghana, two things strike me, first of all, that in the 1950s there was a direct rail link between Tafo, a heart of cocoa growing region and Takoradi, which at that time was our main port,” he told participants.
“That rail link no longer exists and that has had a damaging effect on agriculture in Ghana but Ghana is not alone in seeing the deterioration of its infrastructure so the United Kingdom recognizes the importance of infrastructure in terms of promoting intra-African trade.”
“The second matter which I can’t but help notice, he said, is that right next door to my grandmother’s farm was a West African Cocoa Research Institute and that was a major resource for West Africa in terms of agricultural support and extension and research at the highest level so it produced every year a handful of PhDs now sadly due to decades of neglect and the impact of the structural adjustment of the 70s and the 80s, that emphasis on higher education and the link between higher education, science, technology and innovation and agriculture simply went now we are seeking to revisit that but I would argue that that too is a very important part of our struggle in order to increase agricultural productivity of Africa.”
“Without that we are going to be in difficulties but the good news is it seems to me that is changing and the UK and our department of international development is making its contribution to that,” Mr. Boateng said.
Participants will be in Addis Ababa for the week attending the first ever Africa Trade Week, a multi-stakeholder platform for the advancement of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA). And intra-African Trade.











Harare, 17 November 2016 – El Niño-induced drought has led to a serious surge in food insecurity and hunger affecting 40 million people across the southern Africa region. Zimbabwe, one of the countries most affected, is in the midst of the worst drought in 25 years that is projected to affect 5.2 million people including 1.1 million urban dwellers during the first quarter of 2017.
Addressing some 150 participants at the 4 th national multi-stakeholders consultative meeting jointly convened by the Office of the President and Cabinet and the UN System in Zimbabwe today in Harare, the UN Resident Coordinator Bishow Parajuli said, “As we approach the peak hunger period of the lean season, inadequate funding to the humanitarian response plan will not only curtail the ongoing relief efforts to increase assistance to the most vulnerable in the rural settlements and scale-up assistance in urban areas but also risks reversing the gains made in the development and humanitarian areas thus far.”
Of the $352 million being sought under the Humanitarian Response Plan (April 2016-March 2017), nearly $212 million has been committed, with the current funding gap at $140 million. The committed financial and in kind relief support has allowed the UN and NGOs to reach approximately 1.7 million vulnerable people in over 42 districts with food, cash, agricultural inputs and other lifesaving relief assistance.
The committed resource includes the recently announced additional £40 million by DFID.
Announcing the additional boost which brings the total contribution by the Government of the UK to £55.6 million, Annabel Gerry Head of DFID Zimbabwe said, “The additional support from DFID will provide mobile cash payments to 360,000 vulnerable people up until end of March 2017; cover the cost of screening of 160,000 children for malnutrition; and the cost of treatment for over 12,000 children.”
The ongoing relief response has also been made possible by the generous contributions from USAID, EU-ECHO, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland and Denmark. The BRICS nations and others have also supported the relief efforts, including bilateral contributions from China, India and Brazil.
Expressing deep gratitude and appreciation for the generous support from donors, the UN Resident Coordinator said, “sectors such as water, hygiene, and sanitation; education; and protection remain severely underfunded, threatening the country’s hard-won development gains made in these areas over the years.”
The fourth national multi-stakeholder consultative meeting underlined the importance of the drought response to be consistently guided by the universal humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.
Senior Principal Director, Office of the President and Cabinet, Mr. O. E. M. Hove said, “Government has made all efforts to import and set a buffer stock of maize to ensure that no citizen starves irrespective of one’s political or other affiliations.” Mr. Hove appreciated the generous support from humanitarian and development partners that are complementing Government’s efforts in response to the prevailing humanitarian challenges and called on all partners to stay the course.
Noting the need to continue and increase joint response to the pressing effects of the worst drought, stakeholders agreed to recalibrate their efforts towards resilience-building, provision of quality social services and protection programmes to ensure strong linkages and eventual transition of those affected by drought to recovery, medium and long-term sustainable development.
Reiterating on the call to planning for the future with focus on building resilience, Mr. Hove said, “to this end the Government of Zimbabwe is implementing a special programme to ensure food security targeting to produce at least two million metric tonnes of maize grain on 400,000ha of which 200,000ha will be irrigated.”
Today’s national multi-stakeholders consultative meeting follows two successful Provincial Drought Response Consultative meetings held in Bulawayo and Harare at the end of September and beginning of November, respectively. The provincial meetings allowed partners to adopt harmonized relief response approach across the Government, UN and NGOs managed assistance for improved targeting, registration, distribution, monitoring and accountability.
Media Contact: Sirak Gebrehiwot, UN Communications Specialist, E-mail: sirak.gebrehiwot@one.un.org;
Cell #: +263 772 198 036

That there is civil-war like activity in Ogaden and Amhara regions in Ethiopia, that there continues internal skirmishes between Burundian security forces and civilians, that the Rwandan Opposition are silenced, In the Democratic Republic of Congo as there guerrillas fighting and killing while the FARDC and MONUSCO doesn’t act against civilians in North and South Kivu; As there are internal fighting between Somaliland, Galdumug, Al-Shabaab and AMISOM. This is all happening as we flick between the channels on the telly.
There we are discussing who’s the next racial biased brother Donald J. Trump thinking of hiring to his executive branch staff at the White House. This is happening while there continue bloodbath, there been genocide warnings for Burundi in October 2016 and South Sudan November 2016. South Sudan are skirmishes happening in Yei State, South Kordofan, West Bahr El Ghazal between SPLM/A and SPLM/A-IO, which is President Kiir and former FVP Machar. There are battles still in Darfur as the Khartoum regime under President Omar Al-Bashir are attacking the SPLM-N and other rebels who fight themselves in the past, but has no written an agreement while the Khartoum has said they will continue to fight them.

These are killings of civilians in with the mind of staying in power. It is happening with bullets that imported and exported from the rich nations, through back-channels that none of us want to discuss, because it implicates the nations of peace are involved in profits of the death of civilians. This is happening as we go to buy bread at the supermarket, markets for selling cassava and rice are blown to bits, water-sources are getting scarce as these nations are hurt by droughts and dire need of secure agricultural productions, but that is not happening while the big-men are explicitly doing what they can to kill each other for POWER.
The innocent is dying at rapid speed. The livelihoods are dwindling away because the Presidents and Government together with rebels are destroying the nations in their reach of staying with titles, businesses and feeding their elites of the donor funds. This is the situation in Ethiopia, Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.

We cannot let this happening while the fleeing civilians are going from one bad situation into another. If the Somalis think of fleeing to Ethiopia, they get into new trouble and Kenyan Government are busy deporting them to PoC sites inside Somalia. If you’re fleeing Ethiopia you have to cross the South Sudan and Sudan. Where the battles between the rivals continue and are bloody. The place of refuge right now is Northern Uganda, the war-torn parts that has had a decade of peace, but the locals are not getting land, but the refugees and businessmen. The reality is that the Government doesn’t have funds to allocate the Refugee camps in Adjumani where the UNICEF organization is lacking funds for support.
Together with the issues of Burundian refugees in Rwanda and Tanzania; the Burundian ones are safe in Tanzania, but still the UN operations doesn’t have the sufficient funds as there are more worry of what the Rwandese authorities do, as they want to send them away because the Burundian Authorities are claiming that Rwandese Government are training rebels to coup d’état against President Nkurunziza.
While the pulling out of ICC happens from Burundi, the Kenyan pulling troops from the UMISS, Ugandan negotiations in dialogue between the parties in Burundi and South Sudan; while the shallow relationships is to see how they all can grind monies out of the international community. The African Union complains to the European Union on payments for the soldiers, while the Ugandan and Burundian government eats of these funds, while the soldiers themselves thieving ammunition and gas to supply themselves with needed salaries.
All of this is happening while the Ethiopian Government has pulled out battalions out of certain areas in Somalia, as Kenyan have a strong force and feeling the pinch for being involved in the internal squabbles between Al-Shabaab, Government and Local-Government in war-torn nation. As Djibouti tries to live in peace, but get trained guerrillas from Eritrea and has built a railroad from Ethiopia so that the coastal state has giant ally on the Horn of Africa.

So the civil wars, the skirmishes from governments towards civilians shouldn’t be happening without anyone doing something about it. The Ethiopian, Burundian, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan are now all involved in similar business. The Troika of South Sudan is inactive and like a donor-friendly buddy to Kiir Government, but not certainly acting upon the violence and crimes against humanity. The Sudan government might be under sanctions and has issues with ICC charged President Bashir. Still, they are able to continue to fight civilians in the Darfur Region. The Somali Government feels more powerless as they are donor-friendly and need foreign support for basic operations, while the Al-Shabaab takes stake in every other region, as the Puntland, Galdumug and Somaliland has become more independent and making agreement on their own. As Somaliland have signed giant port-agreement to secure funding of the Civilian Government; also so they can function as nation on their own, though not respected as one from the international community.
This is just the beginning, and it’s not wonderful, it’s bleak… the warnings of GENOCIDE should worry the world in Burundi and South Sudan. But, the current silence, the mediocre attention and no-worries attitude. Is making me shiver and making me worried about the state of affairs in our time!

That there are such current state of affairs, the diplomatic works must be in tatters, the African Union is pointless, the East African Community is a Men’s Club for the Presidents, European Union are stooges for big-business, IGAD are Ethiopian skeleton for peaceful operations and the United Nations are powerless with no-mandate or real army to act upon the human rights violations or crimes against humanity if they are occurring.
It’s a reason why these nations want to withdraw from the Roman Statute if they can and still get donor-aid because the armies, laws and regulations of the civilians are massive breaches of international laws. The Geneva Conventions, the UN Charters and the other ones these Nations have signed into.
While the worst is having knowledge of the dying civilians in South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Burundi and Somalia as we speak, the silence and indifference… time to act; time for change and time get it on the agenda. Peace.

The president announced that the drought situation is very critical due to the delayed seasonal rains, drought has struck parts of Somalia, worst affected are Puntland and north western Somalia of Somaliland.
MOGADISHU, Somalia, November 14, 2016 – HE Hassan Sheik Mohamud, the president of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), has appealed to Somali pubic and the international community to urgently help Somali people affected by the drought in parts of the country.
“I appeal to the Somali people, wherever they are all over the world to help and stand shoulder to shoulder with their suffering Somali people who lack food and water due to the drought in the country. The government will also take an important part. The Gu’ season has passed without rains with earlier rainy seasons failing. So, the Somali people need to help one another and help their brothers and sisterswith food and water.” said the president of the FGS, HE Hassan Sheik Mohamud.
The president has also appealed to the international community to aid the situation urgently as it is time for action.
“I also appeal to the international community to immediately come to the aid of the Somali people in the affected areas before the situation gets worsened, it is time that an actual interference is made and aid is delivered very urgently in particular drought stricken areas of the country.” The president has appealed.
The president said that the drought has widely affected the country, but some areas are worse than others. “the drought is everywhere but in particular the drought hardly hitthe north western and North Eastern regions of Somalia of Somaliland and Puntland, where many livestock have already been lost, with people starting dying, in both areas the drought is very critical” said HE Hassan Sheik Mohamud, the president the FGS.
The president announced that the drought situation is very critical due to the delayed seasonal rains, drought has struck parts of Somalia, worst affected are Puntland and north western Somalia of Somaliland.
Somali people all over the world had previously taken part in collecting donations to help Somali people affected by droughts and the Somali president expects the same donations by Somali people reaching out to their Somali brothers and sisters worst affected by droughts repeatedly hitting Somalia due to lack of seasonal rains. In addition, the international community should also take their part. The government will make every effort to ensure it contributes to the aid.