Link https://www.reuters.com/world/un-aid-chief-ask-25-more-aid-money-globally-2023-2022-11-30/
The U.N. has said that a famine has not been declared in Somalia yet and they are appealing for a record 53 billion in 2023 up from the previous record set in 2022 of 41 billion. These rising appeals come as the gap between needs and actual funds increases with the U.N. not having enough to use for all its humanitarian projects which in this case is very relevant to Somalia which is experiencing their second famine since 2011 which was again also due to a drought. this famine is happening in spite of the fact that somalia has not declared itself to be officially in a famine the reason given being that they haven’t met the requirements yet though i will provide another in the next paragraph
The U.N has been asking for more and more funds as the years go by and the cost of maintaining alliances and helping each other up. They have once again set a record for funding appeals of which they will obviously not get all of and so the gap between funds needed and funds provided has grown and grown. This has affected the help given to countries like Somalia for example especially since it isn’t very high on the list of countries the UN would seek to help with its instability and the fact that this is Somalia’s 2nd major famine the last happening in 2011 which isn’t too long ago. Help for somalia is further hindered by their lack of declaring an official famine which in the world of politics and international relations official declarations are very important. Now the Somali envoy states the reason for a lack of an official declaration is that Somalia’s government says they haven’t fulfilled the guidelines for a famine but I believe that reason may be to avoid embarrassment. Now in a vacuum this sounds asinine as why would a country rather let its people starve to death but people have to remember that for countries little words mean a lot. tak Turkey for example, they don’t deny killing a bunch of Armenians or displacing them but they do deny the label of genocide and for the matter it’s important to them that their allies don’t as well. another example in terms of help is the rwandan genocide where due to places not recognizing it as a genocide until late they were not obligated to help. So for a country to declare not 1 but 2 official famines is not a good look for its government especially when it’s embroiled in a civil war and has an elected president this year all in all appearances in the international world is important to countries.
a way this relates back to class I believe is interdependence but not necessarily in a good way. somalia is in a very volatile state with them having a major famine in 2011 fending off civil war and political instability somalia has relied a lot on the U.N. and its aid and so is very dependent on them for help and with it not looking like rain is coming and even if somalia turns out fine after this climate change is likely only going to continue to get worse so the question becomes how long can somalia hang on without self imploding unless the U.N. is able to get more funding and cut down the gap between funds needed and funds gotten but again this looks unlikely as it is a ton of money and with the war in ukraine funds are diverted elsewhere