FAO responds to food and agricultural emergencies with assistance aimed at reviving food production and averting the threat of famine. During 1993, the Organization mobilized resources in response to war damage in Somalia, outbreaks of livestock diseases in Egypt and a plague of locusts that threatened the Near East, Africa and Southwest Asia.
FAO's Office for Special Relief Operations deployed 1.5 million doses of live vaccine to Egypt in October to help the country control the latest outbreak of Rift Valley fever (RVF). Rift Valley fever is a highly contagious viral disease that causes high rates of abortion and neonatal mortality in sheep, goats and cattle. It can also be transmitted to humans by direct contact or through mosquito bites, resulting in severe headache, visual impairment and sometimes death.
The previous epidemic of Rift Valley fever in Egypt in 1977 caused close to 600 human deaths and livestock losses estimated at over one million head. The new outbreak was first diagnosed in southern Egypt in July 1993. An FAO expert consultant joined an international panel of experts which, by September, found evidence of 6 000 human infections in the Aswan Governorate apart from abnormally high numbers of abortions in animals. The disease had also begun to spread to the agriculturally rich Nile Delta, apparently transmitted by mosquitoes.
After assessing the extent of the epidemic, the expert consultants urged Egypt's Veterinary Service to begin an immediate full-scale control programme. The measures adopted, aside from application of the FAO vaccine, include domestic production of vaccine at the Abbassia Vaccine Institute near Cairo, restriction of animal movement and strengthened control of the mosquitoes that carry the disease.
In 1993, FAO's Emergency Centre for Locust Operations (ECLO) mobilized international assistance to combat an upsurge of the desert locust that originated on the coastal plains around the Red Sea in late 1992. The Centre had been deactivated in the spring of 1989 when locusts were brought under control in some 40 countries in Africa, the Near East and Southwest Asia. With the reappearance of desert locusts in the Red Sea area, however, ECLO was immediately brought back into full operation.
ECLO acts as a clearing house for information, analysing locust reports and weather and habitat data derived from ground and satellite sources. The Centre prepares a monthly update on the locust situation as well as six-week forecasts for locust-affected countries and the international donor community. Since ancient times, it has been recognized that the battle against this plague requires constant vigilance: prevention is the most effective cure. By monitoring environmental conditions in locust breeding grounds, ECLO provides early warning of conditions that might encourage proliferation and spread.
When the Red Sea swarms moved eastwards to Pakistan and India, the Centre sounded an alert. Aerial and ground control effectively reduced the infestation in these areas, but other swarms moved westwards, reaching Mauritania by mid-1993 and later spreading to Algeria, Senegal and Morocco.
ECLO is coordinating the international campaign to contain the pest. The Centre channels aid from the donor community to affected zones in the form of technical assistance, sprayers, pesticides, flying hours, communications equipment, spare parts, training and operating expenses. More than 3.9 million hectares have been treated in affected countries since the beginning of the present upsurge.
From seeds and tools to oxen and ploughs, FAO's Office for Special Relief Operations (OSRO) provided a range of agricultural inputs to the country in 1993. At the same time, activities were developed to rehabilitate abattoirs and veterinary clinics, provide vaccines, medicines and tsetse control drugs to areas in need, and distribute income-generating supplies such as chickens and cocks and fishing gear.
Through 15 emergency relief projects, FAO channelled almost US$7 million to Somalia in the course of the year to help farmers and fisherfolk combat drought, famine and the disrupting effects of civil war. By rebuilding agricultural infrastructure in the rural areas, FAO is also helping to improve the lot of the urban poor, whose numbers have been swollen by people fleeing rural areas.
OSRO was established in 1973 to respond to the disastrous drought in 1972-73 in the semi-arid countries on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. In 1975, following an improvement in the Sahel situation, OSRO's work was extended to cover emergencies elsewhere.
The emphasis in these operations is on speedy approval and delivery of assistance. When disaster strikes a country, FAO representatives assess general needs in close collaboration with local authorities and with other UN agencies. At the request of the government, emergency missions are then organized to take full stock of damages and losses and to prepare assistance projects.
To aid in rehabilitation in Somalia, OSRO established the Agriculture Relief Centre in Mogadishu. The Centre coordinates disbursement of supplies by UNOSOM (United Nations Operation in Somalia) planes throughout Southern and Central Somalia. Once the planes arrive at the point of disembarkation, the supplies are accompanied by UN soldiers to their final destination.
The Relief Centre has become a meeting place for agriculturists, veterinarians and fishery specialists from all over the country. FAO experts and UN volunteers offer plant protection and extension services through the Centre, producing, for instance, illustrated booklets in the Somali language to help farmers and pastoralists achieve better yields. It is hoped that by rehabilitating agriculture in Somalia, the country will be able to get back on the path towards sustainable development of crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry and that the tide of exodus from the fields to already crowded urban centres will be turned.
Somalia was one of the 11 African countries that registered critical levels of food security in 1991-1993. In 1993, the country's food production remained well below pre-strife levels, but OSRO's rehabilitation assistance contributed to bringing it up above the previous year's low.