37th CFS Plenary Session, 17-22 October 2011, Rome
The CFS is the United Nations' forum for reviewing policies concerning world food. It is the most inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all relevant stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition.
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3 February 2012 – The United Nations declared an end to famine conditions in Somalia today, but warned that the crisis in the Horn of Africa is not over and requires continued efforts to restore food security and help people resume normal lives.
The number of people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance in Somalia has dropped from 4 million to 2.3 million, or 31 per cent of the population, according to a new report by the United Nations and the United States Government. Additionally, 325,000 children are acutely malnourished.
16 September 2011 – Health and nutrition rates have deteriorated for famine-wracked Somalis displaced within their own country but improved for those who have fled to Ethiopia, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.
6 September 2011 – United Nations agencies are mobilizing to assist at some 20,000 people who have fled the fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile state and arrived in neighbouring Ethiopia.
An assessment team from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) found that the refugees arriving in the Assosa region of western Ethiopia appear in good physical condition but need food, water and shelter.
So far, some 2,500 refugees who were willing to be relocated have been moved into an existing refugee camp at Sherkole that was first opened in 1997 in response to the North-South Sudanese civil war.
6 September 2011 – Delegates attending a United Nations-backed meeting on ending Somalia’s transitional period today endorsed a roadmap that spells out priority measures to be implemented before the current governing arrangements end in August next year.
The three-day Consultative Meeting on Ending the Transition, held in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, considered four priority tasks for ending the transition – security, constitution, reconciliation and good governance.
Delegates also agreed on certain principles for the implementation of the measures leading to the end of the transition on 20 August 2012.
6 September 2011 – Children are bearing the brunt of the Horn of Africa crisis and constitute the majority of all Somali refugees in neighbouring Ethiopia, the United Nations reported today.
The latest demographic data shows that people under the age of 18 account for 80 per cent of the 121,000 refugees in four camps in the Dollo Ado area of south-eastern Ethiopia, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
5 September 2011, Nairobi/Rome- - FAO today called for increased efforts to stem the food crisis in the Horn of Africa as famine spread to a sixth area of Somalia, threatening 750 000 people with starving to death in the next four months.
2 September 2011 – United Nations agencies and their partners are stepping up food distribution in refugee camps in Ethiopia that house people who have fled famine in neighbouring Somalia amid alarming malnutrition rates among children, the UN refugee agency reported today.
1 September 2011 – The United Nations refugee chief has called for a rapid increase in aid for Somalis uprooted by drought, famine and conflict, as he visited the capital, Mogadishu, which is hosting some 400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs).
“We are seeing here a deadly combination of conflict and drought and the misery is out of proportion to what is being done,” High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said yesterday as he met with IDPs sheltering on the grounds of Mogadishu’s crumbling cathedral.
23 August 2011 – The United Nations has deployed an emergency team to south-eastern Ethiopia where 18,000 new refugees fleeing drought, famine and conflict in Somalia have recently poured in, compounding a situation already fraught with high mortality from malnutrition and measles.
19 August 2011 – The head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today made an impassioned appeal to the world to save an estimated 390,000 starving children in famine-ravaged regions of Somalia, saying the international community must not let the so-called “disaster fatigue” numb compassion and generosity.
The spike in food prices of last year (2008) underscored what experts have been telling us for many years: the world's food systems are in crisis