The retraction came as Unicef said that a child was dying every six minutes -
250 a day - in one of the two famine-hit regions in Somalia's
south.
Al-Shabaab, pro-al-Qa'eda insurgents, had said it was ready to welcome back
charities it kicked out last year.
But Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, the group's senior spokesman, told The Daily
Telegraph that only agencies already operating in Somalia may stay, despite
famine threatening to spread to more than two million people.
That means that the World Food Programme, Unicef and almost all the major
British charities face further hurdles delivering food to those who need it
most.
"We are not guaranteeing safety for any agency that was previously banned
from working in areas under our control," he said in an interview in
Mogadishu, Somalia's capital.
"Our message was mistranslated, the agencies we are calling to help the
people are those who are in our areas now, but those banned previously
including WFP, and Unicef are not welcomed.
"We shall also expel any agency that causes problems for Muslim society."
The Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies can remain, Mr Rage said, because "we
think they remain impartial".
The announcement will come as a blow to aid groups across East Africa who had
hoped to be able to cut deals with the Islamists to allow food aid to be
delivered unhindered.
Two regions of southern Somalia were said this week to have tipped from a
humanitarian emergency' to a famine', the first time that term had
officially been used since almost a million Ethiopians died in 1984.
That suggestion was "an exaggeration", Mr Rage said.
"The UN wants Somalia to be in famine, they want push pressure on us
through such calls," he said.
"We agree that there is hunger in some areas, but there is no famine in
Somalia."
Among the 500 families camping in the open at the Waberi camp in the middle of
Mogadishu, these claims rang hollow.
They were among 20,000 people that the UN refugee agency said had arrived to
Somalia's wrecked capital this month alone, more than half of them from the
famine zones of Lower Shabelle and Bakool.
Nuriya Da'ud, 31, from Bakool, said she had nowhere else to go. "Alshabab
doesn't want us to go to Kenya or Ethiopia, they say that you are going to
Christian countries for help and they deny your access to the border,"
she told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
She was allowed to leave only after telling the Islamist commanders she would
stay in the side of Mogadishu they control.
"You can't tell them that you are fleeing from the drought," she
said.
"They tell you to wait for God and be patient. They don't care about the
passing lives." Nearby sat Isha Osman, 67, whose 76-year-old husband
and four grandchildren including one who was physically handicapped died
before she was forced to flee from Burhakaba town in Lower Shabelle to
safety in Mogadishu.
"The children died for hunger, because we had nothing to give them, all
we could give them were some tree leafs but they were poisonous and they
died," she said.
"I can imagine that hundreds of others there are now almost dead, because
the media is not there and al-Shabaab wants to hide the casualties, they
bury every one as soon as he dies," she said.
Al-Shabaab's about-turn on its promise to allow aid workers to return to
Somalia drew immediate anger from international agencies.
"Fighting in Somalia, restrictions on supply flights and international
support staff, as well as administrative hurdles, have all contributed to
the current hardship faced by the Somali population today," said Unni
Karunakara, president of Medecins Sans Frontieres.
"It is essential that both restrictions and obstacles to humanitarian aid
be removed as the situation continues to worsen."
The UN would try to secure safe access with al-Shabaab commanders on the
ground, who operate with significant independence from the group's leaders
in Mogadishu and its stronghold in Kismayo, aid workers in Nairobi said.
"The approach is to test the ground, to probe and see how far we get,"
said David Orr, spokesman for WFP.
"We are going to push the operation out unless we hear any different.
It's not if we go in, but when we go in. We know it will be risky but we're
going to go with it." Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee said
yesterday that GBP27m had been raised from individual donations since it
launched its appeal almost three weeks ago.
David Cameron and Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary,
yesterday met Somali community leaders in Birmingham to discuss the famine.
Mr Cameron said they had talked about "how we can ensure that aid reaches
those that need it most".
The meetings came as the third of five Boeing 747 flights landed in Nairobi
carrying supplies for Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, where aid staff have
reported a surge in infant deaths.
Airlifts to camps in neighbouring Ethiopia were delivering 75,000 tents and
other provisions, UNHCR said.
Turkey's prime minister said Tuesday he was considering visiting the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, a move likely to anger Israel amid diplomatic efforts to overcome already strained bilateral ties.
"If the conditions allow, I'm thinking of visiting Gaza," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters. "The foreign ministry will be working on it. I wish to make such a visit, depending on the outcome."
He said he would like to cross to the Palestinian enclave following a planned visit to Egypt, the date of which has not yet been determined.
The trip, if it happens, is likely to exacerbate tensions between Turkey and Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist group.
The two one-time allies are already in the grips of a severe crisis since May last year when Israeli troops killed nine Turkish activists aboard an aid ship that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Israel has slammed previous contacts between Turkey and Hamas, which took control of Gaza in 2007 after routing Fatah loyalists.
But Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government insists that peace cannot be achieved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if Hamas is excluded from the process.
Erdogan, whose frequent outbursts against Israel have earned him a hero's status in the Arab street, has rejected the "terrorist" label for Hamas, defending the Islamist group as "resistance fighters who are struggling to defend their land."
Erdogan announced his intention to go to Gaza shortly after a Turkish official voiced hope that Israel would apologise for last year's bloodshed on the Mavi Marmara ferry as part of fence-mending talks between the two countries.
"I would be surprised if there were no apologies since both sides have the political will to resolve this crisis," ambassador Ozdem Sanberk, a member of the UN panel probing the Israeli raid, told AFP Tuesday.
"We are heading toward a solution probably toward the end of the month," he added.
"Bilateral contacts are ongoing, not on a regular basis... I expect positive developments," said Sanberk, who is involved in the negotiations.
Israel's Haaretz daily reported Sunday that the defence establishment in the Jewish state wanted to see ties with Turkey repaired, even supporting an apology to Ankara over the 2010 raid.
Ankara demands an apology and compensation for the victims' families as a condition to repair ties.
Israeli lawmakers, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have said publicly that the Jewish state will not apologise for the raid, warning that expressing any such sentiment would be humiliating.
But Haaretz said that defence and justice ministry officials have in recent weeks suggested that Israel could in fact head off potential lawsuits by Turkish human rights organisations by offering an apology.
Israeli officials also acknowledge that upgrading relations with Ankara is a high diplomatic priority and that Israel would benefit from a return to good ties.
The once-flourishing relations began to visibly deteriorate after Erdogan's fierce criticism of the Jewish state's devastating offensive on Gaza at the turn of 2009 that left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead.
Last month, Erdogan renewed a call on Israel "to lift as soon as possible the inhumane and unlawful blockade" of Gaza and allow the entry of goods, notably construction materials to rebuild infrastructure destroyed during the offensive.
Parents attend to their malnourished child inside the peadiatric ward at the Banadir hospital in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. Photograph: Feisal Omar/Reuters
By officially declaring parts of Somalia to be in the grip of famine, the UN will be hoping to galvanise governments and the public into action to address the food crisis in east Africa. The UN estimates that 12 million in the region are now in need of emergency help and warns that thousands will die unless aid arrives quickly.
Where is the famine?
The UN declared on Wednesday that famine now exists in two regions of southern Somalia: southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle. Across the country, nearly half of the Somali population – 3.7 million people – are now facing severe food shortages, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south. The Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU), funded by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), warns that in the next one or two months famine will become widespread throughout southern Somalia unless help arrives. It says the crisis represents the most serious food insecurity situation in the world today and that the current humanitarian response is inadequate. Although Somalia is the worst-affected country, the crisis affects a much wider region, including the northern part of Kenya and southern parts of Ethiopia, Djibouti, the northern Karamoja region of Uganda, and parts of South and North Sudan, where large areas are classified as being in a state of humanitarian emergency.
How will aid agencies get into Somalia?
The situation in Somalia is complicated by the fact that the country has experienced conflict for decades. Al-Shabaab, the militant group that has aligned itself with al-Qaida, controls pockets of the capital, Mogadishu, and parts of central and southern Somalia. UN humanitarian agencies have welcomed the recent statement by al-Shabaab requesting international aid in southern Somalia, but pointedly said the inability of food agencies to work in the region since early 2010 has prevented the UN from reaching the very hungry – especially children – and has contributed to the current crisis. Unicef, the UN children's agency, has flown food supplies into Baidoa in south-central Somalia for the first time in two years. Supplies are now being flown into Mogadishu and a ship has left Kenya. The other prong of the aid effort is directed to those who have fled the drought to refugee camps, including Dadaab in Kenya, on the border with Somalia. With more than 380,000 people, it is the world's largest refugee settlement.
How is the aid effort being co-ordinated?
The UN operates a cluster system with different agencies taking the lead in different areas. So, for example, Unicef, operating with approximately 100 different partners, is in charge of nutrition aimed at children, while the World Food Programme leads the emergency communications and logistics clusters and is providing food assistance in Dadaab and to the 226,000 people affected in Dolo Ado, Ethiopia.
Unicef is bringing therapeutic food supplies, such as fortified milk for young children that has to be administered at health centres and sachets of peanut paste that can be taken independently. Unicef is also supplying clean water. Aid agencies need food supplies for 3 million people over the next six months, but funding is woefully short. David Bull, executive director of Unicef UK, says the agency is a "long way away" from the $30m it needs for the next three months. The FAO is appealing for $70m for Somalia for cash-for-work activities, provision of farm inputs and livestock emergency health services. It is also calling for $50m for Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda. Oxfam has accused some rich governments of wilful neglect. It says, of the estimated $1bn needed to stave off a major humanitarian catastrophe, only about $200m in new money has so far been provided.
Donations from the public, co-ordinated through the Disasters and Emergency Committee (DEC) appeals, enable aid agencies to signifciantly scale up their response. Several of DEC's 14 member agencies, including Concern, Merlin, Islamic Relief and the Red Cross were already working on the ground in Somalia. Others work through established local partnerships. Confirmation from DEC of funding pledges from the public enables the member organisations to reach more people, and offer more resources and expertise in monitoring and evaluation.
Why has famine struck Somalia?
The FAO says it is due to a combination of conflict and insecurity, limited access for humanitarian organisations, successive harvest failures because of drought and a lack of food assistance. The country has suffered war on and off since 1991, which has destroyed much of its infrastructure. In some areas, people's ability to cope with drought has also been undermined by land policies that restrict access to grazing areas. The FAO says food shortages in Somalia have killed tens of thousands of people in recent months and this figure will increase unless urgent action is taken. Famine is classified using a tool called the integrated food security phase classification, which has three main criteria: severe lack of food access for large populations, acute malnutrition rates exceeding 30% of the population, and a death rate exceeding two people per 10,000 per day.
Is international action in the offing?
An international emergency meeting will be held in Rome on Monday to mobilise international support. The French government, holding the G20 presidency, has asked the FAO to organise the high-level ministerial meeting, to which the FAO's 191 member countries, UN agencies, international organisations, development banks and NGOs have been invited. Ironically, France has so far not pledged any new money, and Denmark and Italy have said no significant new sums are available. The FAO says there is a "tiny window of opportunity to prevent massive deaths and destitution".
• This article was updated on Thursday 21 July to include information about the World Food Programme
A displaced Afghan child queues to receive winter aid from the UNHCR. Photograph: Omar Sobhani/Reuters
There are few development debates as timely and as explosive as the relationship between security and development.
On both sides of the Atlantic, national security objectives are increasingly being used in the justification, design and delivery of aid and development projects, and states that are deemed "fragile", "broken", or "weak" have emerged as top priorities for UK and US development agencies.
Unveiling the new UK's national security strategy in October last year, David Cameron said "...we're mad if we don't put money into mending broken states where so many of the problems of poverty come from". Citing Paul Collier's 2007 book The Bottom Billion as evidence, Cameron argued that the Department for International Development's budget should be directed not only towards campaigns for vaccination, malaria reduction "and all of those extremely worthwhile things", but also towards addressing issues of conflict. In December, the Lancet reported that the proportion of DfID's budget for "conflict states" would increase from 22% to 30% over the next three years. Aid to Afghanistan, meanwhile, was expected to increase by 40%.
In the next Global development podcast, we'll take a close look at the debates around security and aid. We'll take stock of the increasing "securitisation" or "militarisation" of foreign aid and ask what role - if any - aid should play in conflict zones. In advance of the podcast, we'd like to collect your questions, comments and thoughts on the issue, with a view to incorporating material into the discussion.
If you want a feel for the debate, in November on our Poverty matters blog, Richard Mallet, a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), argued that "aid should not be used to meet our security agenda", and questioned the logic of a securitised development strategy in the context of Andy Sumner's recent research that suggests the vast majority of the world's poorest people actually live in middle-income countries (MICs).
Last January, a group of eight international NGOs working in Afghanistan argued that "militarised aid" intended to "win hearts and minds" only sidelines "efforts to address the underlying causes of poverty and repair the destruction wrought by three decades of conflict and disorder".
Let us know what you think. What are the key issues? What role should aid play in conflict and post-conflict situations? Can aid be made to work for both security and development? And whose security, and whose development are these strategies aimed at?
Post your questions, comments, thoughts, examples and resources below. The podcast will be broadcast later this month.
As always, if you have any problems posting a comment, or if you would prefer to suggest a question anonymously, email us here.
Rickshaw drivers cycle through water after heavy rain in Dhaka. Photograph: Pavel Rahman/AP
This week in Cape Town, the World Bank will decide whether to approve new climate adaptation loans for five countries. In Bangladesh and around the world, campaigners are resisting these loans and urging their governments not to accept new debt for climate change. More than 50 organisations from countries due to receive the loans recently signed a statement opposing the concept of climate loans, which was initially invented by the UK.
In Bangladesh we have already seen the impacts of climate change, with thousands of lives lost and thousands of people displaced. By pushing climate loans, the UK is making people in countries like mine pay twice for climate change, even though we played virtually no part in causing the problem.
First, we have to endure the impacts. Bangladesh will lose around one-third of its land and there will be 30 million more displaced people due to climate induced problems in next 50 years. Second, if rich industrialised countries get their way, we will have to repay these unfair climate loans.
Countries such as the UK are historically responsible for causing climate change. By 11 January each year, the average UK citizen will emit as much as the average Bangladeshi will in an entire year. Industrialised countries not only bear the historic responsibility for climate change, but also current responsibility. They should be providing compensation to the countries where people are dealing with the impacts of climate change caused by the actions of others.
Offering Bangladesh climate loans through the World Bank is a form of trickery that will push us deeper into poverty, with no means of escape. Loans for climate adaptation are supposed to help countries cope with the worst impacts of global warming. They are not intended to fund income-generating projects, so no new money will be created to repay them.
Yet again, the World Bank has at heart the interests of the small group of countries responsible for climate change, and not those of the world's poor. It has repeatedly failed to consult the people whose lives will be directly affected by its projects, leading to loss of land and livelihoods for millions. The new climate loans programme perpetuates these problems, as Climate Loan Sharks, the report by our allies at the Word Development Movement, makes clear. What's more, the World Bank has a long history of funding fossil fuel projects, having increased its funding 40-fold in the last five years.
The World Bank and its financial allies are already pushing Bangladesh to privatise and commercialise power, water and education, which will leave the poorest people unable to access essential services. If it retains control of climate finance, it will have even more power over our government.
The World Bank cannot be trusted to deliver climate finance. Instead, we need the UK to help us adapt to climate change through democratic and representative institutions, like the UN Adaptation Fund. The UK has so far failed to put a single penny into this fund. And by pouring money into the World Bank's climate investment funds, it is undermining the UN fund.
We are at a critical time for the future of climate finance. At the Cancún climate talks last year, a new green climate fund was announced, and is currently being designed. The form this new fund takes will be one of the key issues at the next UN climate talks in Durban, in December. The UK government intends to model the new fund on the World Bank's existing programme, in spite of its woeful inadequacies.
The World Bank's approach must not be replicated. People in donor countries such as the UK, which is a key player, and recipient countries such as Bangladesh, must join forces to ensure a just and equitable solution to climate change. Pushing donor country interests through capitalist institutions like the World Bank, which has a huge carbon footprint and a terrible track record in pushing harmful economic policies, will exacerbate the problems of both poverty and climate change rather than solve them.
• Rezaul Karim Chowdhury is convenor of the Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh
