Internally displaced Somali women and their children wait to register at the al-Hidaya settlement in the capital, Mogadishu. Thousands of people have been fleeing Somalia's famine and severe food shortages. Photograph: Omar Faruk/Reuters
As I drove through Mogadishu this week, what struck me more than the shrapnel-encrusted buildings and the patrols armed to the teeth was the tide of hungry people on the move. Thousands of people, mainly women and children, were heading for crammed relief camps that can offer sustenance and hope only in the smallest measure.
In one of the camps, Korson, I was introduced to Abdullai – an acutely malnourished boy of 13 who had walked 320km to the capital with his mother and five siblings from their village in Bakool to the south. They began their journey determined to escape a drought that has killed all their livestock and left them on the brink of starvation. Now, however, they find themselves in an unforgiving city whose camps and health clinics are stretched to breaking point by the influx of people from the surrounding countryside.
The experts tell us a drought becomes a famine when more than a third of children are severely malnourished and more than two in every 10,000 people are dying each day. In my mind, however, famine will forever be defined by the expression of desperation mingled with quiet dignity on Abdullai's face. His fragile hand felt as if it could break with the slightest squeeze of comfort. He was so painfully thin that the circumference of his wrist was no bigger than my thumb.
Behind the statistics of this worsening emergency are millions of human stories such as Abdullai's, with thousands mourning lost families and livelihoods, and facing the most fragile of futures.
I spoke with the prime minister of Somalia's interim government, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, who was in the Korson camp during my visit. He conceded Mogadishu was unable to cope with the influx of people, and said more international help was urgently needed.
Working in this war-torn country – as Islamic Relief has done for the past five years – is certainly a complex business, fraught with danger. But we have not experienced any insurmountable problems so far in getting aid through to the areas we target – whether controlled by the government or by armed opposition groups.
In the current crisis we have been working mainly within a 50km radius of Mogadishu, distributing food and water and providing basic healthcare. But on a recent assessment visit to central and southern Somalia we found it safe and practicable for us to scale up our existing operation and help many more families further afield.
Our aim is to raise £12.5m to provide food, water, infant nutrition, sanitation and healthcare to 320,000 people for the coming three months – a vital period in the fight for survival.
Although we work closely with all local authorities, we do not pay any charges or "taxes" to armed opposition groups and we have never been asked to do so.
Islamic Relief's obvious Muslim identity – a cause of concern to some in the west – opens doors that are closed to many other international aid agencies in Somalia. But once trust has been established and doors opened, we work under the same humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence that are shared by all 13 of our fellow NGOs in the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee.
My next stop after Mogadishu is to attend a crucial Istanbul meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a grouping of 56 Muslim countries whose members play an increasingly important and somewhat unrecognised role in responding to crises like this one.
• Jehangir Malik is UK director of Islamic Relief
A man selling beans at a market in Katine, north-east Uganda. Photograph: Martin Godwin
Africa's smallholder farmers not only have the potential to produce enough food for export – and thereby contribute to food security worldwide – but to help lead the way to robust growth and development across the continent. That is, if the right kinds of investments and policy approaches are taken to vastly improve their productivity through better access to technology, credit, transportation and markets.
The importance of farming as an income source in Africa was highlighted at this week's meeting of regional agricultural ministers and experts in Cape Town, which was organised by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) and takes place just before the World Economic Forum on Africa, which begins on Wednesday .
Agricultural markets are changing. We no longer need to think exclusively in terms of export crops because new market opportunities are emerging on Africa's doorstep. As cities expand and incomes increase, people in urban areas are changing their eating habits and becoming consumers who want more meat, dairy products and vegetables, and they expect higher quality standards – we are seeing this across the continent.
In response to this demand, agricultural value chains are expanding and becoming better organised. These modern markets bring their own challenges for some smallholder farmers in terms of higher entry costs, but the potential opportunities cannot be overlooked. So, what needs to happen to make the most of these opportunities, and for smallholder agriculture to lead the way to economic growth and food security?
National governments and the international community need to reverse the longstanding neglect of rural development. There needs to be improved governance in rural areas, and policies that create a better economic environment for smallholder farmers to succeed and grow not only food but their businesses as well.
Rural infrastructure in Africa needs to be expanded and improved. Nearly a third of the rural population live more than five hours away from a market town, with fewer than 20% living within an hour of a market town. Only one in five Africans has access to a national electricity grid. Targeted investments in road-building and utility construction can go a long way towards improving farmers' capabilities and access to markets.
The rural environment must be made less risky – and people must be helped to better manage risk, in their agricultural production systems and their lives more broadly through access to information and innovative insurance, savings and credit services that help them grasp new economic opportunities.
Governments and their partners need to make investments in the education and skills of rural people so they can make the most of new opportunities to engage in agricultural markets or work in non-farm industries. This should include strengthening their collective capabilities – and particularly farmers' organisations – so that they can support each other in managing the risks they face, learn new techniques for improving their productivity and market their products.
Importantly, our investments need to recognise and address the major challenges and risks faced by rural people in Africa – such as the deterioration of the natural resource base, competition for land and water, and the effects of climate change on the rural landscape. Ifad's rural poverty report outlines how small farmers can be helped not only to become more productive, but to farm in a way that is more sustainable in terms of natural resources, and more resilient to climate change.
If we can create the conditions for poor rural people in Africa to move out of subsistence and into the marketplace – then we will have our best chance to transform Africa into a continent that not only feeds itself, but also plays a key role in feeding the world.
• Mohamed Béavogui is the director of Ifad's west and central African division.
The number of people needing food has also risen to 12.4 million as the
effects of two years of drought spread across the Horn of Africa.
The "crisis in southern Somalia is expected to continue to worsen through
2011, with all areas of the south slipping into famine", the UN’s
humanitarian affairs co-ordination office said in a new report on Friday.
Food shortages are expected to reach crisis levels in southern Somalia and
refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, and the emergency is unlikely to abate
for three to four months, the report said.
A second chartered cargo aircraft landed in Mogadishu on Friday carrying more
supplies of special food for starving children.
The African Union peacekeepers battling al-Shabaab, the country’s Islamist
insurgency, said that they had managed to fight their way to control one of
the militants’ main strongholds.
The Bakara market, from where al-Shabaab was sending forces to block aid, was
now contained on three sides, easing relief deliveries to the 100,000 people
now squatting in the city, said Paddy Ankunda, the AU force spokesman.
A fresh offensive is expected in the coming days against al-Shabaab, which
could however complicate food handouts.
For now, the World Food Programme said, "our feeding centres continue to
operate in spite of the difficult security situation".
Nearly half of Somalia’s estimated 10 million people are in need of relief
assistance, after two decades of civil conflict and the drought that
prompted the UN to declare famine for the first time this century.
The UN children’s agency warned on Friday that 1.25 million children in urgent
need of life-saving support in drought-struck southern Somalia must be made
a "top priority".
"The children of southern Somalia desperately need our help," UNICEF Somalia
representative Rozanne Chorlton said in a statement, warning that 640,000
children are acutely malnourished.
"Too many of them have already died and many others are at great risk unless
we act now," she added.
More than f30m has been raised from individual British donations through the
Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. The Government has pledged a further
f90m.
The African Union is scheduling a further donor conference in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia’s capital, on August 10.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which says it cannot be held
legally liable, had asked Mr Justice McCombe to rule on the preliminary
issue of whether to throw out the claims and grant summary judgment in its
favour.
The FCO's counsel Robert Jay QC had argued that the case was ''built on
inference'' and ended in a ''cul-de-sac''.
But the judge rejected the strike out application today saying: ''I have not
found that there was systematic torture nor, if there was, the UK government
is liable.
''I have simply decided that these claimants have arguable cases in law.''
The test case claimants, Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua, Paulo Muoka Nzili, Wambugu Wa
Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara, who are in their 70s and 80s, flew 4,000 miles
from their rural homes for the trial this spring which concentrated on
events in detention camps between 1952 and 1961.
They were not in court for the judgment today but were attending a press
conference in Nairobi.
At the earlier hearing the judge was told that Mr Mutua and Mr Nzili had been
castrated, Mr Nyingi was beaten unconscious in an incident in which 11 men
were clubbed to death, and Mrs Mara had been subjected to appalling sexual
abuse.
But the FCO argued that legal responsibility was transferred to the Kenyan
Republic upon independence in 1963.
The solicitors for the Kenyans, Leigh, Day & Co, hailed it as a "historic
judgment".
It was welcomed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said: "Responding with
generosity to the plea of the Kenyan victims is not a matter of legal
niceties. No, it is about morality, about magnanimity and humaneness, about
compassion."
Martyn Day, senior partner at Leigh Day & Co, said: "Our clients are delighted
that the High Court has rejected the British Government's arguments so
emphatically. It is an outrage that the British Government is dealing with
victims of torture so callously.
"We call on the British Government to deal with these victims of torture with
the dignity and respect they deserve and to meet with them and their
representatives in order to resolve the case amicably".
Nor does it seem implausible, on a day when his tanks were again laying waste
to the city of Hama, that Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, was doing much
the same.
For Egyptians, yesterday's extraordinary court appearance by Hosni Mubarak may
have been an electrifying and even seminal moment in their history. Yet the
potentially era-defining images of the bedridden dictator in his courtroom
cage seem likely to complicate the course of the Arab Spring.
With Nato's campaign mired in stagnation, western politicians have
increasingly come to acknowledge that the best solution for Libya may be to
persuade Col Gaddafi into a comfortable retirement in some remote part of
his nation.
But Mr Mubarak's fate will not reassure Libya's brother leader, even if he
were looking for a way out. Whatever guarantees the rebels may promise him,
Col Gaddafi will be aware that many Libyans will be plotting some way for
him eventually to face the same humiliation as his fellow dictator.
In one of Wednesday's many ironies, it emerged that Mr Mubarak could have been
spared his ordeal by an offer of sanctuary from Israel.
But the path of exile, followed by Tunisia's ousted leader Zine el-Abidine Ben
Ali, is denied to Col Gaddafi after his indictment by the International
Criminal Court and he is now likely to be increasingly convinced that only a
refusal to surrender affords him a chance of survival.
Mr Assad's position looks a little more secure, but the events in Egypt may
also ensure that he clings on longer than he might otherwise have done.
Yet, for all this, Mr Mubarak's trial - if it is shown to be transparent and
just - is a hugely important moment for the long-term success of the Arab
Spring.
If Egypt's military leaders, who are fearful of what may emerge during the
trial of their own actions of the past 30 years, had chosen to protect Mr
Mubarak, himself an army officer, they risked plunging the country back into
a miasma of violence. With the trial going ahead, the simmering tensions in
Egypt are now likely to abate a little.
More pertinently, the trial could herald a democratic future for the Arab
world.
Ever since the colonial powers withdrew from the region, the Middle East has
mostly been governed by feeble, larcenous kings or grasping, brutal
strongmen who owe their power to military coups, mounted either by
themselves or by their predecessors.
By bringing Mr Mubarak to justice, and setting a precedent of the fate that
could befall future tyrants, Egypt is unpicking the dictatorial writ that
has marred the region's recent history.
By establishing the principle that no individual is above the law, Egyptians
might just possibly have laid a platform for a prosperous and democratic
future in which all Arabs, not just those at the top, have a stake.
