Ethiopia is appealing for $175 million in emergency food aid amidst the worst drought to hit eastern Africa in ten years. Ethiopia says some 6.2 million people are in dire need of assistance. Humanitarian advocates say the appeal underscores the severity of Ethiopia’s food crisis twenty-five years after the 1984 famine that killed one million people. In addition to emergency aid, Paul Smith-Lomas of Oxfam said that richer nations should allow Africa to become more self-sufficient in producing food.

Paul Smith-Lomas: “When an emergency appeal like this comes out, the donors must respond, and people do need food. But we also think that longer-term funding is needed, too. Now, there are ways in which you can do a certain amount of both. If more money for emergency food aid was invested inside the region, then we could be recycling the economy far more. We could be promoting local agricultural investment far more than buying grain from somewhere on the other side of the world.”