21 mln need food aid in Eastern Africa by year end: UN

About 21 million people across Eastern Africa will require food assistance by the end of 2015, up from the current 11.4 million, the UN humanitarian agency said on Thursday.

The UN Office of Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cases of conflict in South Sudan and Yemen had contributed to the rise in the numbers.

The head of OCHA Pete Manfield attributed the rise in the number of food insecure people in the region to conflict, adverse climatic events and economic shocks which had continued to exacerbate humanitarian conditions in the region.

"The conflicts in South Sudan and Yemen have had a particularly significant impact on increased cross border population movements," he told a regional forum in Naivasha, organized by the Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD) through its specialized institution IGAD Climate Predictions and Applications Centre (ICPAC).

Manfield noted that the number of cases of severe and moderate acute malnutrition among children had significantly increased in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya.

He said that this trend would persist in the coming months, adding that additional funding was required to address the humanitarian crisis.

"Immediate scale up of nutrition programming as well as for food, security, health, water, sanitation and hygiene is urgently required," he said.

The two-day consultative meeting, which ended on Thursday, falls under the ICPAC Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forums (GHACOFs).

It brought together climate scientists, communication experts, policy makers including ministers of finance and ministers responsible for disaster risk management from eight countries, which form the Greater Horn of Africa.

ICPAC is the specialized IGAD institution based in Nairobi, mandated to provide timely climate early warning information, which covers IGAD members' states as well as Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

Manfield said that in the coming months the major driver of additional humanitarian needs would be climate-related. Manfield said that excessive rains mainly in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda could lead to widespread flooding.

"This will directly affect up to a further 2 million people who will face displacement due to flooding which will see the spread of communicable diseases and loss of livelihoods," he said.

The OCHA official challenged the affected governments to consider allocating increased levels of contingency finance to meet new short term, emergency needs.

"International humanitarian funding planned for 2016 should be brought forward to allow for prepositioning of stocks and existing development funding should be re-programmed," Manfield noted.

He added that governments and donor partners should further consider scaling up social safety net mechanisms to help minimize deterioration in livelihoods.

"Disaster risk reduction and preparedness activities should continue beyond the El Niño period and include planning and investment in recovery," he said.

Senior officer with World Bank (WB) Christoph Pusch had said that effects of the heavy rains would have major effects on the economies of affected countries.

He said that WB had increased its funding to climate change in Africa from 21 to 28 percent of its budget from the start of this year.

"World Bank support will come in handy after the rains where the infrastructure will have been destroyed," he said. Enditem