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68–243PDF 2011

USAID’S LONG-TERM STRATEGY FOR ADDRESSING

EAST AFRICAN EMERGENCIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

Serial No. 112–95

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

VACANT 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

KAREN BASS, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Ms. Rajakumari Jandhyala, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development ................................................ 5

Ms. Katherine Zimmerman, Gulf of Aden Team Lead, Critical Threats 

Project, American Enterprise Institute .............................................................. 31

The Honorable Kent Hill, senior vice president of international programs, 

World Vision ......................................................................................................... 40

Ms. Shannon Scribner, humanitarian policy manager, Oxfam America ............ 49

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Ms. Rajakumari Jandhyala: Prepared statement ................................................. 9

Ms. Katherine Zimmerman: Prepared statement ................................................. 33

The Honorable Kent Hill: Prepared statement ..................................................... 43

Ms. Shannon Scribner: Prepared statement ......................................................... 52

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 72

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 73

The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Missouri: Prepared statement ......................................................................... 74

The Honorable Kent Hill: Material submitted for the record .............................. 75

Ms. Shannon Scribner: Material submitted for the record .................................. 81

(1)

USAID’S LONG-TERM STRATEGY FOR 

ADDRESSING EAST AFRICAN EMERGENCIES 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. 

Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. Two months ago, this subcommittee held a hearing 

on Somalia that revealed the extent of the suffering from what witnesses agreed was the worst drought in the Horn of Africa since 

the 1950s. Our hearing today is in part a follow up to that July 

7th hearing in order to examine the U.S. Agency for International 

Development’s long-term strategy to address the humanitarian crises in East Africa such as the current devastating drought. The 

need for this continued focus on the region is apparent, given the 

on-going very disturbing reports that we are receiving about Sudanese attacks on its Blue Nile state that will drive residents into 

South Sudan and reports of theft of international food aid. 

We know that an estimated 13.1 million are in need of urgent 

humanitarian assistance, and every month that number goes up. 

The United States to date has devoted a total of $604.6 million in 

humanitarian assistance funding for the Horn of Africa. At the 

same time, our Government has devoted $370 million in Fiscal 

Year 2011 to help the newly-independent Government of South 

Sudan respond to the crisis largely caused by the Republic of Sudan’s attacks that have sent people streaming into this young nation. 

The drought in East Africa apparently is part of a persistent 

weather trend in the region. But there is disagreement on the extent to which La Nina or El Nino, two weather phenomena, will affect weather patterns in East Africa over time. The current La 

Nina phenomenon which began in August 2010, resulted in wetter 

than normal conditions in Australia and parts of Asia from December to February, and drier than normal conditions over equatorial 

East Africa over the same period, leading to the current drought 

in the region. But while drought is one reason for food shortages, 

it is exacerbated by stagnating agricultural development and 

unsustainable forms of livelihood. 

In our July 7th hearing, Nancy Lindborg, Assistant Administrator in the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau 

2

for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, raised the 

issue of the long-term need for changes in livelihoods in the region. 

She quoted a local cattle herder saying, ‘‘We are seeing the end of 

the pastoral lifestyle as we know it.’’ In countries across the region, 

Ms. Lindborg testified, nomads are without water and pasture and 

unable to migrate safely. Many of them are left without assets or 

income and as they migrate out of rural areas to urban areas, they 

strain an already stressed situation. There are nomads in Africa 

from Western Sahara to Sudan. If weather conditions have conspired to end what in some cases are livelihoods developed over 

millennia, who will work with these pastoralists to develop new 

ways of surviving? 

Part of our humanitarian strategy, therefore, must involve working with African governments on developing viable strategies for 

helping nomads transition into new livelihoods that fit their skills 

and are sustainable in often resource-poor conditions. In the long 

run, donors will be increasingly less likely to continue to support 

the people suffering through repeated droughts in the same areas. 

We must break this cycle now and help them to find durable solutions for the future. 

In Somalia, the hardest hit country in the region, the terrorist 

group al-Shabaab has obstructed the delivery of humanitarian assistance and directly threatened aid agencies. It also has interrogated aid workers and accused them of spying for the West or proselytizing. Maritime piracy and the hijacking of aid shipments has 

also hindered the provision of aid. By late 2009, threats against humanitarian workers and attacks against aid compounds had driven 

many international groups out of al-Shabaab controlled areas. Most 

of the remaining groups left southern Somalia in 2010. 

The result has been an estimated 2.2 million people in southern 

Somalia, representing some 60 percent of those who remain in the 

country, in need of aid, but currently out of reach of most aid agencies. 

We face serious questions about how to meet the desperate needs 

of people like those living in areas controlled by al-Shabaab. We 

want to prevent terrorist organizations from benefitting from humanitarian aid, but we must balance this concern with our deep 

desire to keep alive those needing food, water, and medicine. 

There has to be a solution that not only prevents aid from going 

to terrorists, but also prevents the terrorists from perpetrating further violence against their own people by denying them access to 

life-saving food assistance. We don’t want food being used as a 

weapon as we learned so bitterly during the Mengistu regime. 

Meanwhile, our Government is helping the new Government of 

South Sudan to effectively respond to the expectations of the population for essential services and improved livelihoods, as well as 

containing the conflicts that are likely to erupt. This new government is learning to handle the normal business of establishing a 

government even as an estimated 371,455 people have migrated 

from the north to South Sudan as well as to the Blue Nile in 

Southern Kordofan States in the Republic of the Sudan and the 

disputed area of Abyei since October 30th of last year. 

Apparently, continuing attacks in Southern Kordofan and now 

Blue Nile State will only continue the flight of thousands of people 

3

into South Sudan. Given its troubled relationship with the Republic 

of Sudan to the north, our assistance to the new government must 

build its capacity as a democratically-elected institution and help 

enable it to avoid and address such crises. Empowerment should be 

our focus as we will help this new government take its place among 

the world’s nations. 

Drought and other natural disasters and man-made catastrophes 

due to conflict have been a persistent story in East Africa. In an 

era of limited resources, we must encourage adapted lifestyles, develop strategies for delivering aid in conflict areas and enable our 

partner governments to manage crises more successfully. 

I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses. I 

thank them in advance for taking the time to be here to share their 

expertise and their recommendations. And I would like to yield to 

my friend and colleague, Mr. Payne, for any time he would like to 

consume. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling this 

very important hearing, what is surely the worst humanitarian crisis facing the world today. Prior to our recess, we had several meetings dealing with this issue, however, we are continuing to see the 

crisis continue. This crisis is indeed the worst in a generation affecting food security for more than 12 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. 

Many of us remember the famines in Ethiopia in that region for 

many years. Back beginning in the ’60s when they started to come 

at about a 10-year frequency there was the drought of the ’60s, 

early in the ’60s, then in the early ’70s and the drought in the ’80s. 

And then we went into Somalia in the early ’90s and we all recall 

the ‘‘Blackhawk Down’’ incident which ended that particular era 

when we went in to try to feed the children. Back in the ’70s cycle, 

I went to Wollo Province with French and German pilots to deal 

with the ’73 drought and out of the city of Dessie in Wollo Province 

in Ethiopia when we saw millions of people who were mobile and 

we had to locate them by planes and then drop food to wherever 

we could find them. We called it the Mobile Million. We saw that 

we needed to do better planning. 

Once again, we see the situation is continuing and the international community was very slow to respond then, resulting in 

more than 1 million deaths in that cycle. Then, of course, we started to do better planning and we started to project when famines 

would come and we try to preposition our supplies and actually 

probably this situation would be even much worse, as bad as it is, 

had it not been for some prepositioning by USAID and the U.N. 

predicting that this drought was coming. 

We now face the worsening humanitarian disaster that will take 

even more lives. The scope and scale of today’s crisis is virtually 

unpredecented. As crops have failed and livestock have died, food 

prices have soared in the past year. In addition, poor infrastructure 

and security and internal unrest have compounded the problem 

facing the region. Somalia, where drought conditions have exacerbated the long-term complex emergency, is the country hardest hit 

by the disaster and Islamic insurgency led by al-Shabaab complicates the delivery of international aid to famine-struck areas. 

4

On July 20, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for 

Somalia issued a famine declaration into regions of southern Somalia. Now all south and central regions of Somalia are in the midst 

of this famine, including regions that used to be the breadbasket 

of the country like the Juba Valley. Nearly half of Somalia’s population, some 3.7 million people have been impacted. Over 2.4 million located mostly in the south-central region have fled their 

homes in search of food and water. Nearly 900,000 of these men, 

women, and children have fled into neighboring nations, greatly 

straining their already insufficient resources. 

The road to camps in northern Kenya and eastern Ethiopia have 

been described as roads of death. Thousands of women, children, 

and elderly are left on the side of the road unable to continue, resting on those who have already died. Those fortunate enough to 

reach the camps find filled beyond capacity with horrendous sanitary conditions and a lack of food. The international community 

have recognized the magnitude of the crisis. The World Food Program is currently feeding 8 million people with more to be accessed 

in the coming weeks. The U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund 

has granted $51.3 million for the region. The Organization of Islamic Conference met last week and pledged $350 million to Somalia. The African Union matched this amount with $300 million 

coming from the African Development Bank. The United States has contributed over $604 million in humanitarian assistance so far this year, with nearly 70 percent of it going 

to emergency food aid. Despite these considerable efforts by the 

international community to respond to the crisis, there remains a 

significant funding shortfall. The U.N. has issued an appeal for 

$2.5 billion, U.S. Funding to date has been approximately $1.1 billion, leaving $1.4 billion short. 

The needs of these affected are expected to increase in the coming months with emergency conditions expected to persist well into 

2012. 

First, we must make every effort to get the life-saving aid to 

these people who are desperately in need, especially those who are 

trapped inside al-Shabaab-controlled territory in southern Somalia. 

I join with my colleague, Steve Cohen, and other members in sending a letter to the State Department requesting that licensing restrictions be lifted for NGOs desperately trying to access to most 

hard-to-reach areas, those under al-Shabaab control. The licensing 

restrictions were lifted, but it is still unclear whether the aid is 

reaching those living in the al-Shabaab-held territories. 

As the United States and the international community attempt 

to pull these populations back from the brink, long-term investments are needed such as risk-reduction strategies and helping 

communities that diversify their livelihoods adapt to climatechange conditions and build resilience to face inevitable future crises. 

In July, I introduced H Res 361 calling attention to the crisis encouraging the United States and other donors to take a long-term 

strategic approach to addressing the root causes of the crisis and 

urging all parties to allow assistance to flow to the most vulnerable 

populations. The resolution has more than 50 cosponsors and many 

of our colleagues have been deeply concerned and vocal on the 

5

issue including our chairman, Jim McGovern, Jo Ann Emerson, 

Rosa Delauro, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Gwen 

Moore, and Leader Pelosi and many others. Yet, in the face of the 

graphic depictions of starving women and children, many in Congress have proposed deep cuts to our international affairs budget 

that could cripple the ability to provide even basic emergency responses. 

Levels of funding proposed by the House Appropriations Committee will make it difficult to meet both short and long-term needs 

and emergencies today as long as the preventative programs we 

need to put in place. I know that Chairman Smith is also concerned about this issue and we hope to work with him and his colleagues to ensure that adequate funding in spite of our difficult 

times here are put forth to deal with the crisis. In regard to South 

Sudan, I was very pleased to be at the independence celebration in 

Juba and have followed closely the development in South Sudan. 

Of course, we’re still concerned about Abyei; the disputed territory, 

Southern Kordofan, where belligerants are still at each other, and 

the south Blue Nile. We have to resolve these issues so that Sudan 

can move forward and we have to remember that Darfur still remains unresolved. 

Thank you to our distinguished witnesses for joining us today. I 

certainly look forward to your testimony. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the vice chairman 

of the subcommittee, Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

important hearing. I’m going to pass so that we have time to get 

straight to the witnesses. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Carnahan, the gentleman from Missouri. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to submit 

my opening statement for the record, too, so we can get on to our 

witnesses and again, thank you for holding this important hearing 

today. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. I’d like to now introduce our first witness, Ms. Jandhyala, who has served as the USAID’s Deputy Administrator for Africa since October 2010. In that capacity, she 

oversees the Offices of Sudan Programs and East African Affairs. 

Prior to joining USAID, Ms. Jandhyala worked as a senior advisor 

and head of the Peace and Security Division in the Department of 

State Office of the United States Special Envoy to Sudan. Ms. 

Jandhyala is an expert on national security with a focus on war to 

peace transitions and public policy reforms in countries affected by 

conflict. The floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF MS. RAJAKUMARI JANDHYALA, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR AFRICA, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Good afternoon Chairman Smith, Mr. Payne, 

and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to 

speak with you today about East Africa. It is always an honor and 

pleasure to have the opportunity to discuss our work in Africa. I 

request the chair recognize the written testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, your full statement will be made 

a part of the record. 

6

Ms. JANDHYALA. Thank you. As many of you have mentioned, the 

worst drought in over half a century has left 12.7 million East Africans in need of emergency humanitarian assistance. Under the 

leadership of President Obama and Secretary Clinton and our Administrator Shah, the U.S. Government in coordination with the 

international community is delivering emergency food assistance to 

help local populations in the worst affected areas of Ethiopia, 

Kenya, and parts of Somalia. 

The assistance immediately concerns about local food, nutritional 

support to malnourished children, water, and other essential services to save lives. 

East Africa has two faces, a face of conflict, security, and corruption is one many know best. But there is another one of hope, 

progress, and promise. And we try to balance in our work how to 

manage both at the same time. Recently, Deputy Administrator 

Don Steinberg, Assistant Administrator Nancy Lindborg, testified 

on the complexities of providing and delivering assistance in humanitarian crises such as this when we’re dealing with both conflict issues, local tensions within the communities, and the cross 

border issues of on-going military situation. 

Today, I’m here to discuss with you about our continued development engagement in the region which has helped many people experiencing rising incomes, improved health, and better educational 

opportunities for their children. USAID’s on-going work, bolstered 

by strong policy and diplomacy, serves as a crucial force to lessen 

the severity of the humanitarian crisis we’re facing. Our work has 

a long-term view to the region’s development in order to work with 

our host country governments, regional organization and the broader international community with the focus on health, agricultural 

productivity, environmental steward stewardship and conflict mitigation with the emphasis on empowering people to participate in 

democratic processes in their country. 

Recognizing the potential of 342 million people in East Africa, USAID is investing $3 billion in development assistance in FY2011. 

While this is a significant amount, it’s far less than what we might 

need to spend in future humanitarian crises in absence of our concerted support for development. Our belief is that long-term food 

security and stability is key to lessening the impact of recurring 

crises such as the one we’re facing today. Our focus is to strengthen early warning systems in the region, build resiliency, as mentioned by the chairman, in communities through livelihood support, 

safety-net investments, and implement measures to help populations and communities adapt to climate change and prevent conflict over resources by underlying issues of fragility that gives rise 

to violence. 

Most importantly, we hope to unlock the enormous potential of 

African agriculture as the driver of prosperity through Feed the 

Future initiative that the President has announced. And our continued engagement with the governments at national and local levels to advance a reform agenda that takes into consideration how 

to prevent future disasters and how to mitigate the impact on their 

populations. 

We see a difference in the impact of the drought in Ethiopia and 

Kenya on one hand and Somalia on the other. More than 40 perVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:34 Feb 16, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\090811\68243 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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cent of Somalia’s 9.8 million people are in crisis and the famine is 

expected to only get worse. It expanded to three regions this week 

and we’re seeing a very different situation in Ethiopia and Kenya. 

One sees a need both in the Ethiopia and Kenya to be sure, but 

also one of resilience. Just 6 percent of their combined population 

is at risk while the situation is great in Somalia and we do expect 

it to deteriorate. 

Ethiopia serves as an important example of USAID’s development assistance working in hand with the humanitarian which has 

helped to generate the resiliency that mitigates the severity of the 

humanitarian shocks that they could have been experiencing during this crisis. Since 2003, the number of Ethiopians in need of 

emergency assistance has dropped to almost two thirds. The Government of Ethiopia has developed comprehensive economic and 

agriculture plans which the U.S. Government is supporting. For instance, the government’s Productive Safety Net program that addresses chronically food insecure populations has helped 7.5 million 

survive the current crisis and avoid having to sell off their livestock 

asset base at the moment. 

Kenya reflects another factor that exacerbates our effects of the 

drought: Erratic weather, degraded land, and high cost of energy. 

USAID is helping the country adapt to some of these changes and 

the communities, the pastoral communities of northern Kenya deal 

with the food insecurity that they are facing as well. 

We’re focused on better management of water, land, and natural 

resources that allow them to adapt to these changing situations 

and also engaged in the markets in the productive region. 

Through global climate change, USAID and its Kenyan partners 

are exploring innovative ways for new energy systems and have a 

high cost of applications in rural areas for those who have limited 

access to electricity. Although Somalia has lacked a functioning 

central government for over two decades, Somalians have been remarkably resilient to difficult circumstances. I was recently in 

Somaliland a few weeks ago and the enormous effort of people 

there to provide for themselves with the assistance that they have 

received shows a great commitment on what we can do in terms 

of when there is stability. 

In other parts of Somalia, we have a USAID transition initiatives 

to bridge between immediate humanitarian assistance and longer 

term development programs. In areas of relative stability, our assistance has helped nearly 200,000 children in schools; 41,000 communities have access to water; and nearly 10,000 youth and livelihood programs. We continue to look for opportunities for relative 

stability to empower the population. 

USAID focuses on these issues in Somalia because where we find 

opportunities with communities, we’re able to build community cohesion and security for those communities, when they’ve invested 

in their communities and see that there is a future. 

I would like to turn to the other part of our work which is countries like Sudan which are emerging from conflict and I would like 

to acknowledge it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to travel 

with Mr. Payne to the inauguration on July 9th for the emergence 

of the new country. 

8

USAID has been present in Sudan since 1958. Since 2005, after 

the signing of the CPA, we’ve worked in South Sudan to help the 

ministries establish a new government, deliver social services, work 

with local populations to mitigate conflict and in the post-independence era, we hope to continue our commitment and we are implementing a 2-year transition strategy that has an overall goal of increasing stability in the post-CPA period in South Sudan. That 

does not take away from the on-going commitment we have made 

to encourage both parties to continue to negotiate and resolve the 

outstanding issues that are still remaining from the CPA. 

We see South Sudan’s development policy challenges revolving 

around five key issues: Transparency, accountability and reconciliation for good governance; human capital development, given the 

enormous need head; sound, natural resources and revenue management based both on the oil and non-oil potential that rests with 

the country; delivery of social services, and creating an enabled environment for private sector investments. We’re working with the 

international community to build a broad coalition so that the government can build confidence with its own population that it can 

deliver on their aspirations. The U.S. Government is committed to 

continuing to work with the Republic of the South Sudan in efforts 

to build a new country and deliver the needs of its people. 

As we assist the government, we are also working to plan an 

international engagement conference for South Sudan that allows 

us to hear from them their development vision and their priorities 

and how they hope to move forward in the next few years. 

Mr. Chairman, this year USAID celebrates 50 years of generosity 

of the American people. We believe we can make the world a better 

and safer place, if we use our wealth, expertise, and our values and 

invest wisely. Each of the countries I’ve discussed today presents 

a combination of hope, accomplishment and a challenge. And the 

region itself is a balance of all of that at the moment. 

The United States’ overall investment goes far beyond the immediate and we continue to work with you and look forward to having 

a discussion on East Africa today and in the coming months. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jandhyala follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Jandhyala, thank you very much for your testimony and for the very detailed, extended testimony you have provided. It gives us a great deal of information and the subcommittee 

certainly needs that. 

Let me ask you just a couple of questions. In our July hearing 

on Somalia, the USAID made it very clear that FEWS NET, the 

Famine Early Warning System, made it clear that there was a 

famine perhaps, or a drought certainly, on its way as early as last 

year. We knew that, and our Government wasn’t able to preposition food, but in your opinion was the handoff of that information 

to taking action done as swiftly as it could or should have been? 

Or were there gaps somewhere that we could learn from so if there 

were gaps it doesn’t happen again? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We have worked over the last year with our 

FEWS NET colleagues, our international partners, tracking the situation. And I think we’ve done an enormous, we’ve put in an enormous effort into reaching out to, informing host country governments, partners in the region, the U.N. agencies, to see how we can 

jointly work together on this. I’m sure there are some things that 

we can improve on. However, our biggest constraint continues to be 

working with host country governments and advancing and working with them to strengthen and respond to their populations. 

Mr. SMITH. We seem to have been taken by at least some surprise by the severity and pervasiveness of the famine. Was it more 

than what the FEWS NET and some of the analyses that went into 

what might be coming their way? Or did we just miss something? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I think the failure of the rains in the first October, November, that was recognized. And then the recent poor 

rains in June, July has intensified the problem that we’ve been 

dealing with. But it is a difficult situation that we’re having to deal 

with. 

Mr. SMITH. I guess what I’m getting at is: Was there anywhere 

along the chain of command where good, actionable information 

might have been missed about the severity of this drought? And if 

there wasn’t, please say so. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. As far as our colleagues tell us that we were 

able to take that information and turn it into an action plan and 

to preposition, to inform, to educate and seek access immediately 

to get to those areas and find creative ways such as voucher programs to see how we can be creative in how we deliver assistance 

in this circumstance. 

Mr. SMITH. Now on the voucher programs, have you found that 

empowering people, particularly with work so they can buy locallygrown foodstuffs, is preferable to just bringing food in? Is that one 

of the reasons why some of it was stolen in the first place because 

it was in competition with local merchants? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. It’s a multi-track process. One is delivering food. 

The other is vouchers. So we’re trying to find as many different 

ways that we can minimize the impact of this crisis on the population. And sometimes, our visibility into what’s going on in these 

communities also restricts us on how we track this. So we’re working on a monitoring system with our partners on the ground. 

Mr. SMITH. Is there an analysis about whether or not more 

vouchers are needed, rather than less? 

20

Ms. JANDHYALA. Currently, we have $8 million in our voucher 

program and we’ve launched it, so we’re now assessing with our 

teams. How do we expand it, what are the consequences of this 

program, vis-a`-vis other types of assistance we’re delivering, and if 

there’s room for improvement in how we roll this, expand this type 

of activity out. 

Mr. SMITH. When will those kinds of decisions be made? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We’re in discussion at the moment, so we should 

come back to you and your staff within the next few weeks. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you about licensing. I think everyone on 

this committee is very concerned about the fact that non-U.S. supported NGOs who have people on the ground, partners with whom 

they can collaborate with have not—they’ve been given a general 

verbal ‘‘you won’t be prosecuted,’’ but why hasn’t that translated 

into a durable statement of something in hand where the NGOs 

will not be fearful of prosecution, and who would make that decision? And will it be made, in your view, soon? Because it seems to 

me we’re losing an asset on the ground to feed hungry people because of a concern that somehow we might be aiding and abetting 

al-Shabaab. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I think we’re committed to trying to get as many 

different partners to take part in this effort to minimize the impact 

with the population. We are committed and our colleagues at the 

State Department and Treasury are currently working to see how 

we can review the situation on a case-by-case basis and I think we 

can provide additional information in the coming weeks. These discussions are on-going at the moment in the administration regarding. 

Mr. SMITH. Is the problem the Treasury Department? Are they 

the ones who are objecting to USAID’s requests? It seems to me 

with this drought and its consequences growing worse by the moment, why wouldn’t you want to just get this done today, for example? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. The discussions are ongoing at the moment 

amongst all of us, USAID, Treasury, and State, and we’re trying 

to balance what’s the impact. Even if we move forward, what are 

the issues of access and security. So we’d be able to give additional 

information as these conversations conclude. 

Mr. SMITH. I guess what I’m trying to get at is where is the bottleneck? Is it at Treasury? Is USAID actively advocating for the 

provision of those licenses to these NGOs? Especially since they are 

people on the ground who know the risks and are indigenous Somalians in most cases, willing to get that food. But there may have 

to be some collaboration, some contact with al-Shabaab, and they 

fear prosecution. It seems to me that you take that off the table, 

and you talked about opportunities a moment ago, a new opportunity for relief will find its way to those people. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I think our State Department colleagues have 

spent a lot of time with the diaspora community as well as our 

leadership trying to identify where the opportunities exist and 

what kind of a process we need to put in place. And I think the 

discussions are ongoing. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, but again I’m trying to get at where the bottleneck is. Is it Treasury? 

21

Ms. JANDHYALA. I couldn’t say, sir, because we’re still continuing 

the discussions. 

Mr. SMITH. I do think there is a great deal of support, certainly 

on this subcommittee for ensuring that those licenses are granted 

ASAP and I would say today with an exclamation point. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I’ll take that——

Mr. SMITH. Please do. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I will. 

Mr. SMITH. I would think that a call from the Secretary of State 

to whoever may be the bottleneck in Treasury, if that’s where it’s 

at could undo a huge long pipeline of discussions that could mean 

more dead or severely hurt people. So please take that back and 

if you could apprise us soon as to what you find out. 

In his testimony, Kent Hill of World Vision says that U.S. response to the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years is 

only 60 percent of what it was for the 2008 drought in the region. 

My question is where is the missing funding? According to what 

the U.N. has said is needed, there is about a $1 billion funding gap. 

I know in past crises, I’ve been here 31 years and no matter who 

is in the White House and at State Department, at USAID, money 

is often in something as catastrophic as this is, drawn down from 

multiple spigots as you’re doing and from multiple accounts. 

Is there going to be an effort to draw down additional dollars and 

hopefully get it back to those sources later, to meet this emergency 

crisis? I mean $600 million, we’re all happy and grateful for that, 

but it seems that there needs to be more. 

And secondly, if I could, I know Saudi Arabia has stepped up with some $60 million. I might be wrong on that number. But is 

there a move to try to get our Persian Gulf allies who might have 

much more persuasion with al-Shabaab leaders to use their diplomatic efforts to open up more areas so people get food and medicine? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. On the first issue about funding, there will be 

a mini summit on the Horn of Africa at the sidelines of UNGA in 

the next 2 weeks. And part of that discussion is discussing about 

the current status of the appeal that’s been put out by the U.N. 

agencies. 

The other issue is also what our partners in the region, Turkey 

has stepped up. The OIC partners have stepped up, Saudi Arabia. 

So what we’re trying to see is how can the U.N. harness all of these 

funding sources to account for what the gap is. So there is currently an on-going assessment that we’re working with our U.N. 

partners to assess where the funding gaps are, given that the nontraditional partners have also provided leadership and providing 

their own funding to the situation. 

So we can come back to you once we have a better picture on 

that gap analysis and then we’re able to adjust our funding accordingly. But we wanted to really work with and take advantage and 

leverage all these other funding partners that traditionally have 

provided leadership and stepped up in the situation. I know Turkey 

is wanting to work with us to see how we can coordinate programs. 

AU is working with us. We really try to see what the actual picture 

of the gap is because for us it’s not the funding at the moment. It’s 

access and security. But even if it is funding, how do we account 

22

for all these other nontraditional partners and how do we take advantage of theirs and see how we can use their money in areas that 

we can’t use our monies and sources of funding. That’s the discussion we’re having with our U.N. colleagues at the moment. 

Mr. SMITH. Finally, in Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, 

what is being done to ensure that sex trafficking, sex for food and 

other kind of gender-based violence is hopefully being stopped, and 

where there is a violence, where have those who have committed 

it been held to account and the victims given assistance? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I know that our colleagues at PRM at State, our 

own gender advisor, Carla Koppell, has been out there and we’re 

working—the coping mechanisms that the people in the refugee 

camps has led to some behavior, frustration and leading to some 

of the protection issues that we’re dealing with. So what we have 

done is to see how we can work with the UNHCR and the Kenyan 

Government and other partners to see how better we can put a protection and see how we can deal with the gender-based violence. 

That is a priority for us. 

As you know Deputy Steinberg of the Agency has made a commitment to this and we are currently working to see what systems, 

what policies and what programs we need to put in place into those 

camps to address that. It’s a major worry for us and given that it 

leaves this population much more vulnerable than other situations 

we’ve seen around the world. 

Mr. SMITH. I would ask—I probably didn’t phrase it as a question, but do you anticipate further drawdown from various accounts 

to exceed the $600 million on the near term? And how much do you 

anticipate would be needed over the next several months? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I think for now we’re working with our $600 

million that we have pulled in from. Once we have this conversation with the U.N. and the partners we’ll explore to see where the 

needs are and then come back and really explore what flexibilities 

and what support we might need from you to allow us to do that 

as well. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. We certainly have a question 

in regard to the licensing. I would also like to have it clarified. The 

meeting that was held several days after we adjourned, the Administrator Raj Shah attended it and many of the NGO groups were 

there, CARE and Oxfam and most of them. But the concern at that 

time about the whole question of licensing, and as we know the 

agencies take a lot of risk, first of all, to have an interest and still 

try and I just have to commend people who put their lives in 

harm’s way. The World Food Program since 2008 has lost 14 workers, have been killed trying to deliver life-saving food and aid to Somali civilians, so we do have some very heroic people. I’ve met 

some of them on my last trip to Mogadishu about 2 years ago when 

I visited there last. But them then to worry about the license or 

whether their agency is going to be held liable if some of the food 

falls into the hands of al-Shabaab, to me, really is putting a cart 

before the horse. I mean it’s bad if al-Shabaab did get control of 

some of the food as we have heard. 

However, I think there was too much holding back or not enough 

clarification to agencies who were willing to put themselves out 

23

there in harm’s way, but worried about the legal consequences if 

some of the food they had fell into the hands of some of the bad 

people. You know, it seems to me that the overall goal should have 

been saving the children, saving the women, saving the people in 

need. 

However, it seems like, Mr. Smith asked, it was Treasury fooling 

around with whether a license could be issued or not issued. And 

can you explain is that issue clear and can the NGOs and PVOs 

work without worrying about if indeed something fell in the hands 

of some less than desirable groups, that they’re going to be held accountable and prosecuted? Absolutely. I mean they were fearful at 

that meeting, it was unclear. It was several weeks ago. And I think 

that many lives would have been saved if we didn’t fool around 

about a license and some fool falling into the hands of the wrong 

people. Children were dying while we were trying to debate in 

court was legal, what was not. Should we allow it? We were on the 

Voice of America, there was a program 3 or 4 weeks ago where 

NPR, did any food fall in the hands—the chairman made it clear 

and myself that it’s unfortunate if some falls in, we hope it didn’t. 

However, the basis goal is to try to save lives. And so I just wonder 

if that issue has been clarified. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Mr. Payne, I agree with you. Our commitment 

is about saving lives. After recently coming from my recent visit, 

it can’t be anything other than our commitment to save lives. We’re 

approaching this on two tracks, as I mentioned earlier. One is everything who receives U.S. funding is covered by the license. The 

other is those who are not being funded by U.S. Government, that’s 

the ongoing discussion at the moment. 

So we’re encouraging as many people as possible to work with us 

to see how we can take advantage and efficiently maximize in 

working with us in that regard. The ongoing discussion about the 

second track, non-U.S. Government funding, those discussions are 

being had at the moment. 

Mr. PAYNE. We were just chatting. People need to be assured 

with a legal document in hand. Agencies are still reluctant to know 

whether they are going to be, like I said, not only cited, but prosecuted and fines and penalties and I don’t know if it probably goes 

as far as imprisonment. This seems to me that sometimes it’s great 

to have lawyers around, but I think that we really, and I’m not 

blaming you. I’m sure you would love—that’s what you do, you give 

food out. You’re not trying to hold it in. However, perhaps we have 

the wrong agency here. We really need to see if we can get through 

this red tape. 

We have currently as it’s been indicated, $604 million. Now how 

does the DART team in the countries there? Are they a separate 

entity and how is that operating? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We have the DART team in Nairobi and Addis 

and their primary function is to identify and coordinate with other 

partner response agencies so they work with on three functions, 

how efficiently to get our resources out there, find creative partners 

who can help us deliver the assistance, work with host country systems to see where we can bring greater efficiency to their services 

and lastly, to work with partners. It’s a real rapid, real time team 

24

that’s on the ground trying to build better management of the situation. 

Mr. PAYNE. And how has the fundraising with the other countries, I think we mentioned that the Arab League finally came in 

with something. We know we did $604 million. Where did the other 

nations, any other large donors? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. The United Kingdom, which is one of our other 

partners, currently is providing $115 million. The EU has committed to $300 million. So we’re trying to find how best to pull all 

of our resources together to impact this. 

Each of us has our own restrictions, our own programs, so we’re 

working—and the World Bank has committed to $500 million for 

disaster recovery and development. So in the next week or 2, we’re 

trying to bring all of us together and look at not only about the 

emergency, but also the long term recovery efforts where maybe we 

should start doing some things now that lend to a greater resiliency and recovery in the coming months. 

Mr. PAYNE. Now at the Dadaab camp, what is the current population? Two years ago—there’s a lot of people now, but I understand that the growth has grown by maybe 25 percent, 20 percent 

since that time. What is the current estimated number of people 

actually in the camp? And I assume that many of them can’t actually physically get into the camp, so are they in the surrounding 

areas? And how are they serviced? Are they serviced as if, in fact, 

they were in the camp with rations, etcetera? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. The camps right now are hosting about 440,000 

refugees, more than 116,000 which have arrived since January. Approximately 1500 new refugees are arriving on a daily basis. So our 

colleagues at the State Department are closely working with the 

Kenyan Government about opening up the new site, the new refugee camp to relieve some pressure off the original camp. 

The services are being delivered in some ways trying to help 

WFP and others, loosen some procedures up, so that the food and 

the immediate services goes to these populations. So there is a full 

effort now to maybe be creative in a way that we not just view it 

as a physical camp, but led by needs and services, rather than saying somebody who is in the camp, because expecting 1500 people 

a day in, it’s hard for people to say where they belong and in which 

physical location. 

Mr. PAYNE. Just a final question or two. A number of Somalis 

have gone into Ethiopia which is really great that they’ve opened 

their borders. However, as you know, in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia the Somalia population is at odds with the central government. I have spoken to just recently, just today in person, one of 

the ONLF representatives who allege that in the Ogaden region 

there is difficulty and less than a uniform delivery of relief supplies. 

Have you heard of any complaint of this nature at the State Department, to your knowledge or at USAID? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I’m not aware of anything, but what I could do 

is check with our colleagues in Ethiopia, our mission in Ethiopia 

and our State colleagues and come back to you with some additional information on that. 

25

Mr. PAYNE. I really would like to have you follow up on that. And 

finally, I spoke to the second person in charge in Eritrea a week 

ago and asked about the situation there. Of course, as you know, 

they indicate that they have had a bumper crop last year and they 

also purchased expecting a problem this year. And I have been 

asked to come and visit if time permitted. 

Have you had any conversations with the Government of Eritrea? There had seemed to be a lack of communication with the 

government. I know there sometimes has been some difficulty, but 

hopefully, there will be some ongoing conversations between the officials of Eritrea and the U.S. Government. What is your assessment? I was told that if they needed help, they would indeed be 

in touch with us. So I can just take it at that word. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We don’t have an AID mission in Eritrea. However, the European Union is a big partner of the Eritrean Government, so a lot of our visibility into the humanitarian situation has 

been through our partners who have presence and programs there. 

What I could do is talk to our State colleagues and our colleagues, 

partner colleagues at the EU to see where we can get additional 

information on the crops, the situation about the food. 

Mr. PAYNE. I have one last question. In regard to South Sudan, 

there was a donor, a conference, I was really unclear, but Ambassador Steinberg was going to have a bit to do with. And of course, 

Ambassador Steinberg is an outstanding person and usually does 

a great job on his projects. However, I was wondering what happened to the conference that was scheduled to begin about 2, 3 

weeks from now? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We’re committed, the President made the commitment to this International Engagement Conference for the new 

country to come to Washington and meet a variety of partners that 

could help them in implementing their development vision. 

We had talked to them about coming as a new government with 

a new cabinet and they appointed their cabinet and installed their 

cabinet last Friday. So we thought between now and then, UNGA, 

which is in the next 2 weeks, that they would not really have the 

time necessary to cohesively come with the policy vision. And we 

wanted them to succeed at the conference and wanted to give them 

an additional time to engage us on their development vision. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you, we look forward to that. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We hope to have all of you participate as well. 

Mr. PAYNE. Great. And also, there still seems to be some confusion in parts of State Department about South Sudan not being on 

sanctions. So maybe you could bump into anybody over at State, 

tell them it’s a new country, and not a part of Khartoum any more. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I’ll carry that message, sir. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Carnahan. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member 

again for leading us today. Thank you for being here and for the 

work that you do. 

I wanted to follow up. My colleague from New Jersey, Mr. 

Payne’s question about Deputy Administrator Steinberg, when he 

recently returned from the region, he indicated that emergency humanitarian response must put women front and center in the procVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:34 Feb 16, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\090811\68243 HFA PsN: SHIRL
26

ess assuring that they address not just the victims of the current 

emergency, but make them part of key solutions going forward. He 

further stated that the U.S. is involving women as planners and officiaries and recipients on programs including relief to pregnant 

women and projects to prevent and respond to disturbing reports 

of sexual violence. 

I want to commend the administration on making these priorities 

and with women and children disproportionately vulnerable to malnutrition, disease, sexual and gender-based violence in the wake of 

this crisis, I think these issues are critical and especially challenging. 

I’d like to hear you elaborate more on the strategy to ensure that 

these most vulnerable populations are supported through the recovery efforts and how they really fit in to the long-term development 

process? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Deputy Steinberg in our Agency has really made 

this an agenda of everything we do across all the sectors, health, 

education, agriculture. It’s really a multi-sectoral commitment and 

we work sort of at three levels, one at the policy level in these host 

countries to ensure that women participate in this decision-making 

process when decisions are being made about camps and about food 

deliveries, that they should be influencing these decisions. On my 

recent visit, I have seen other camps and I have never seen a camp 

that is so full of women and children as I’ve seen both in Ethiopia 

and Kenya. And sometimes it becomes a hard thing to kind of absorb at the enormity of the suffering that they face. 

And so we have made commitment to three levels. One is that 

they participate during this process and not just be recipients of assistance because a lot of times we tend to say we treated this many 

women. Our push right now is to say we need these women to participate in the decision-making process in the policies that are 

made. The other big issue is access to assets, land and credit. Because in any household women make some of these decisions about 

children’s education, food security. So we think part of it is making 

food security, having women participate in food security and production, land, access to credit. 

We’re working with the African women in agriculture research 

and development to help us think through these strategies much 

more and especially in crisis situation. We have a lot of knowledge 

on how to do deal with it in the longer term, but we really have 

to ramp up our efforts in these complex crises and go beyond just 

protection. And how can we make them productive because so far 

we deal with protection, but we also want to deal with economic 

viability of households which is dependent on women. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. When you were there, share with the committee 

some of the impact of that involvement in terms of getting better 

results. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. In the camp in Ethiopia, I found that the decisions around water, decisions around health care were really meaningful in the way that we were able to say how to not only survive 

this crisis, but let’s start talking about how do we recover from it. 

That provided sort of a hope and that allowed people to be motivated because a lot of—as the chairman and Mr. Payne have said, 

27

a lot of women made tough decisions walking to these camps, leaving children behind and—sorry. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. The other issue I wanted to ask 

about on my time here is on climate change. Under the generous 

clock of the chairman, climate change, one of the causes of the 

drought, what should we be doing to help mitigate the impacts of 

climate change on vulnerable countries? Scientific evidence suggests that extreme weather events such as flooding and drought 

will likely become even more severe in terms of frequency and severity around the globe, but especially in areas like Horn of Africa. 

Can you talk with us about the administration’s global climate 

change initiative, address these trends especially in Africa and 

what else we need to be doing to address those? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. From an AID perspective, we deal with communities who face water shortages, who lose livestock because of lack 

of rain. We deal with the impact and the consequences. So one of 

our efforts is working with local governments. For example, in 

Ethiopia, before the drought we did a commercial de-stocking program where they didn’t have to wait until the livestock died and 

lost all their asset bases. So we said is it possible to sell off some 

of your livestock now, get some income and be prepared to deal 

with purchasing food within a few months’ time when we know you 

will not be able to grow crops. 

The other is water management. In northern Kenya with the 

pastoral community, Mr. Chairman, that you mentioned, our objective there is some pastoral communities are able to adapt and move 

near rivers and maybe start farming. Others aren’t. So we have 

to—we’re working on two tracks within our Feed the Future. One 

is how to sort of have them engage in the market, link them to the 

on-going markets where food production areas to food deficit areas. 

And the other is give them tools to manage the resources they need 

to sustain their lifestyle currently. 

It’s a very complex combination of factors of managing livestock, 

land, water, and at the community level that’s where we have 

worked and continue to work with in most of the Horn at least 

today. I can bring some additional information through your staff 

about what we’re doing throughout the continent. Today, I sort of 

have focused on East Africa, but we’re willing to share that information with you. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. I’d certainly like to see that and 

again, thank you for being here. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan. Ms. Bass? 

Ms. BASS. First of all, I wanted to thank the chair and ranking 

member for putting this hearing on and all the work that you’ve 

done over this year and I especially want to thank the witness for 

your work, your contributions and I’ve never been to one of the refugee camps, so I can’t even imagine the suffering that you must 

have seen. 

You were giving some examples in regard to climate change, but 

I wanted to ask if maybe you had a couple of other examples about 

how USAID is addressing the long-term needs of the region since 

we know that the cycles of drought and famine occur, recurrently. 

Maybe you could point out a couple of other examples? 

28

Ms. JANDHYALA. Our $3 billion of development assistance, the region is amazingly dynamic, even with the drought. It leads in 

terms of trade. It leads in terms of financial services, innovative 

mobile banking. I mean on a development front, the regional integration platforms, the infrastructure that’s being discussed within 

Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya, it is a very vibrant economy that 

is in that region at the moment. 

So what we have said is we make a commitment to how do we 

create economic opportunity in that region? How do we improve 

governance in that region? And our investments long term have actually helped us think through why is it that we’re not—how do we 

mitigate? We can’t avoid another drought or shortage of rain, but 

we can mitigate it. We can lessen the impact. We can be more responsive as the chairman said, and quicker. Where have we 

learned our lessons? So we’re spending an enormous amount of 

time with the governments themselves saying that as Mr. Payne 

has said in the ’60s, ’80s, ’90s, we need them to commit. So our 

huge effort is a reform agenda with the governments to make policy commitments now so that we don’t have to face the same situation over and over in the coming years. 

For us, the development assistance is the long-term solution to 

the region and I think that Feed the Future, unlocking the agriculture productivity in that region is key to stability in that region 

because nearly 80 percent of the population earns income in the agriculture sector. So productivity is our commitment and governance 

is a huge commitment to the region and regional integrations 

where they take advantage of it, so if there are food deficit areas 

and food productive areas, how do we create the markets to link 

them because we may not be able to grow food in all parts of the 

region, but we need to make sure that the food that is grown is 

reaching populations that can access it. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. On governance, I did want to ask you a 

question about that. The area that I represent in Los Angeles, 

there’s a neighborhood that’s referred to as Little Ethiopia. And it’s 

a commercial area, but there’s a lot of Ethiopians that live in the 

area and they are always talking to me about democracy and 

human rights, especially in the wake of the 2010 elections. And a 

little bit off subject, but I wanted to know if you could kind of address that in terms of what we’re doing to support the democratic 

efforts since they will ask me when I get back. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. AID approaches this issue from two tracks. One 

is strengthening civil society in terms of participation because as 

long as you don’t have populations participating and making these 

choices about their future that’s always our biggest constraint. 

We’re providing tools. We’re providing instruments. But at the end 

of the day you do need a population that participates. So we’re 

working on that. 

The other is a much more interesting thing that we’re doing in 

Ethiopia, actually, at local governments. We’re working with the 

governments about social accountability, so whether they’re delivering health services or education, we have had much better success with local governments having populations participate in those 

decisions. So we feel that we try to use different platforms to get 

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able for those services that they’ve made commitments to. And 

that’s our big effort right now in many parts of Ethiopia working 

and deploying to reach, working with regional governments. And 

our State colleagues continue to work on the broader governance 

issues in the country. 

Ms. BASS. And then finally, just one last question. I know that 

there will be some cuts in the next year’s budget and I wanted to 

know if any of the cuts that are being proposed would impact the 

Food for Peace and international disaster assistance, would affect 

your ability to respond to the current emergency or is it something 

we need to take a look at again? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. As of today, we don’t see it. We’re not experiencing it. But I think once we have this conversation on the sidelines of UNGA about where the international resources are flowing 

to, we have a better idea where the gaps are and then come back 

and review where our situation is. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Just a couple of follow ups. If you could, Ms. 

Jandhyala, get back to us early next week to the subcommittee? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. And update us on the progress or lack of progress on 

the licenses in that conversation. Because it seems to me delay is 

denial, and if there’s something we can do, we’ll ask Treasury to 

come here and provide their rationale for denial of those licenses. 

It seems to me that a call from the Secretary of State would do 

this, at least I would think. This is that urgent. 

So if you could let us know by early next week exactly what the 

lay of the land is, that would be most appreciative, and we’ll share 

it immediately with all the members of the subcommittee for sure. 

Secondly, if you could, on Iran’s PR wire there’s a story that they 

are now providing their eleventh convoy, this one some 40 tons of 

relief material, food, medicine and the like, and this is their eleventh time. So they seem to be responding for whatever reason, humanitarian or political or both. 

My question is what is your take on that? Is it real? Are they 

really providing foodstuff? Is this something that is just being done 

for PR purposes? 

Secondly, with regards to the Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia 

has some $500 million a day in oil profits. They’ve provided $60 

million in relief which obviously is welcomed, but my question is 

what kind of robust diplomacy is being done among our Persian 

Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia which would have, I think, the 

most to contribute to meet that billion-dollar gap and to do it immediately. Who is coordinating that? Are the phone calls being 

made, especially in light of the excessive wealth of countries like 

Saudi Arabia? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. On the first two, I’ll come back with additional 

information regarding—I’ll take back your request and come 

back—I’ll take back your request to our colleagues about the discussion on the licensing. 

On the issue about Saudi Arabia and the diplomatic strategy 

with our Gulf partners, there’s an intense effort by our State Department colleagues in the region, outside the region, nontraditional donors, at every opportunity we have, at UNGA, at G–20, at 

30

every international event and bilateral discussions this topic has 

been raised with our partners. And that’s led by our State Department colleagues. And we’re working closely with them by providing 

them information on where and how they can participate in this 

large international effort, humanitarian effort and development effort for the recovery. 

The other issue is some have started on recovery activities, so 

we’re also trying—not everybody wants to deal with the immediate 

humanitarian. Some would like to focus on recovery issues. So 

we’re catering to both those conversations at the moment, but there 

is a large, intense effort by our State Department colleagues to 

move this agenda forward. 

Mr. SMITH. I want to thank you, Ms. Jandhyala, very much for 

your testimony. We look forward to hearing from you early next 

week. Thank you for your service. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Thank you for having me. 

Mr. SMITH. We will now welcome our second panel to the witness 

table and I’ll do the official introductions. Beginning first with Ms. 

Katherine Zimmerman from the American Enterprise Institute. 

Ms. Zimmerman is a foreign policy analyst at the AEI critical 

threat project. As AEI’s team leader for the Gulf of Aden region, 

her work has focused on al-Qaeda and its associated movements in 

the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Ms. Zimmerman 

specializes in the Yemen-based group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia’s al-Qaeda link, al-Shabaab. She has conducted numerous briefings for policy makers, published analyses of 

U.S. national security interest in Yemen and Somalia. 

We’ll then hear from Dr. Kent Hill, who joined World Vision in 

February 2011 after more than three decades serving in the U.S. 

Government and in academic and nonprofit leadership roles. As 

head of the World Vision U.S. international programs, he collaborates with World Vision’s international partners to coordinate the 

allocation of government grants and donations from individuals 

and corporations. From 2001 to 2005, Dr. Hill served as head of 

USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. Between 2005 and 2009, 

he led USAID’s Bureau for Global Health heading up their health 

programs and representing them in several large health initiatives. 

I will note that while Dr. Hill was Assistant Administrator for 

Global Health in the Bush administration, I asked him to administratively initiate a robust fistula program within USAID. I’m happy 

to say that he did so and did it wholeheartedly with a great deal 

of skill and compassion. Thanks to this program, USAID has dedicated nearly $60 million to address fistula between FY 2005 and 

2010 and approximately 20,000 women have received fistula repair 

surgery since 2005 and had he not taken that leadership role, I can 

tell you that would not have happened. We had passed a bill. I 

sponsored it. Passed in the House, died in the Senate. We asked 

if administratively Dr. Hill could initiate that program, and he did. 

We’re now in some 30 USAID-supported fistula repair centers, 

mostly in Africa, in 11 countries and again 20,000 women have received repair. 

Then we’ll hear from Ms. Shannon Scribner of Oxfam who has 

been with Oxfam since 2003 and is currently leading the humanitarian policy team in Washington, DC. She was worked on many 

31

of Oxfam’s humanitarian responses around the world including in 

the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Liberia, Ethiopia, and Somalia. She has testified previously before 

Congress and has been interviewed on humanitarian topics by 

many well-known media outlets. 

Ms. Scriber began her career as a healthcare volunteer in a small 

rural village in Zambia. 

Ms. Zimmerman, if you could begin. 

STATEMENT OF MS. KATHERINE ZIMMERMAN, GULF OF ADEN 

TEAM LEAD, CRITICAL THREATS PROJECT, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of 

the subcommittee, it is an honor to appear before you today to discuss this important topic. Before I begin, I would like to direct you 

to a reference map of Somalia provided in an appendix to my statement. I will briefly outline al-Shabaab’s history with humanitarian 

assistance before going into detail about current conditions and the 

issue of providing humanitarian assistance in al-Shabaab controlled territory. 

Al-Shabaab’s position toward humanitarian assistance has 

evolved over the years as hard-line, radical Islamists gained prominence in the group. Since mid-2009, the group has progressively 

banned many Western organizations claiming that they have a 

Christian agenda and do not pursue the interests of the Somali 

people. Local NGOs also face pressure from al-Shabaab for working 

with these groups. 

Al-Shabaab’s leadership particularly targeted the U.N.’s World 

Food Program. First, al-Shabaab prohibited all branded aid, including aid with the American flag on it. Then, it required the World 

Food Program to only purchase food locally and to empty all food 

warehouses by the end of 2009. On January 1, 2010, al-Shabaab 

militants raided a World Food Program warehouse in Marka and 

burned over 300 sacks of food. The World Food Program responded 

by suspending its operations in the south, citing a lack of security. 

It has not been able to resume operations there. 

The experience of the World Food Program is not unique. By 

mid-September 2010, at least seven other agencies were banned 

from al-Shabaab’s territories. The organizations that remain face 

restrictions on activities and many are subject to some form of taxation. Al-Shabaab’s actions have exacerbated the effects of the 

drought in the region. 

In early July this year, al-Shabaab’s spokesman announced that 

‘‘all aid agencies whose objective is only humanitarian relief are 

free to operate.’’ Despite this proclamation, agencies such as the 

World Food Program are still banned. There have been certain 

openings into the south. UNICEF, for example, has delivered supplies into Baidoa, the capital of Bay region. By and large, however, 

al-Shabaab remains hostile to most international aid agencies. 

Many Somali families, unable to survive under al-Shabaab’s rule, 

are fleeing. In response, al-Shabaab has established roadblocks 

along primary travel routes and has forced truckloads of people to 

turn back. Residents have also been required to feed al-Shabaab 

militants or face punishment for refusing to do so. The group pubVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:34 Feb 16, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\090811\68243 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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licizes its drought-relief work, but the sheer number of people leaving its territory is indicative of the poor conditions and the limited 

access to food. 

It is necessary to recognize very real restrictions on humanitarian aid activities when considering the prospect of expanding operations into southern and central Somalia. First, the humanitarian operating environment is precarious even without the presence of al-Shabaab. There have already been attacks on aid convoys 

in Bay and Hiran regions during which at least one aid worker was 

killed. The only clear realized gains since the U.N. first deployed 

peacekeeping forces in 1992 have been made in Mogadishu, where 

a peacekeeping force assists the Transitional Federal Government 

or the TFG. 

The African Union Mission in Somalia or AMISOM, has a force 

presence of about 9,000 peacekeepers. Territory outside of the TFG 

and AMISON’s control is contested by armed factions and it is likely that any insertion of resources into such a volatile environment 

will result in violence. A significant escalation in humanitarian activities throughout southern and central Somalia will very likely 

increase the risk to aid workers’ safety. 

Second, while al-Shabaab is not the only obstacle to humanitarian relief in Somalia, it is clearly the greatest threat to aid 

workers. Al-Shabaab’s shura council has made clear that it will not 

accept the presence of many international humanitarian aid organizations and has enforced this ban with violence. Humanitarian 

aid organizations are ill equipped to deal with the threat posed to 

their personnel by al-Shabaab militants and it would be naive to 

ignore the security aspect of any humanitarian operation there. 

Third, al-Shabaab has a very strong power base in major cities 

in the south such as the ports of Marka and Kismaayo. There’s a 

high likelihood that any humanitarian operation, which would entail establishing security in the heartland of al-Shabaab’s territory, 

would be met with significant armed resistance. Al-Shabaab is able 

to operate military training camps openly and will be able to call 

up forces quickly. Its militias have already exhibited the ability to 

withstand AMISOM operations in Mogadishu, especially during its 

2010 Ramadam offensive. It has taken a 50 percent increase in 

peacekeeping troops and sustained effort by the TFG to develop its 

own security forces to reestablish temporary control over the majority of the capital. Whereas in Mogadishu, al-Shabaab conducted an 

insurgency against AMISOM and TFG troops, in southern Somalia, 

al-Shabaab is the dominant power. 

An armed conflict in southern Somalia will likely require the deployment of ground forces that could readily defeat al-Shabaab. 

The decision to pursue a humanitarian operation in southern Somalia ought to be made with these substantial costs in mind. Opting for humanitarian aid operation will likely require a military 

commitment. Seeking to purchase consent from or to cooperate 

with al-Shabaab to insert humanitarian assistance incurs future 

costs. Purchasing consent does not guarantee future security or 

even the delivery of assistance to the people in need. What it does, 

however, is fund a virulent radical insurgence group that has stated its intentions to attack America, and has increasingly established ties to al-Qaeda’s operational franchise, al-Qaeda in the AraVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:34 Feb 16, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\090811\68243 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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bian Peninsula across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen. Cooperating with 

al-Shabaab will likely permit it to dictate aid distribution strengthening the group. 

A humanitarian operation to respond to the spreading famine, 

however morally imperative, must not be undertaken without an 

understanding of the full requirements and the associated risks. I 

thank the subcommittee for its attention. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Zimmerman follows:]


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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Hill. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KENT HILL, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS, WORLD VISION 

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your kind words about 

the work together we did on fistula and a number of other topics. 

I appreciate that very much and Congressman Payne, I remember 

your support when I testified before this subcommittee, I believe on 

TB, and we managed to get some major progress there as well, so 

I appreciate that very much. 

I testify to you today on behalf of World Vision, and thank you 

for the opportunity of doing so. World Vision is a child-focused 

Christian humanitarian organization that serves the most vulnerable people in about 100 countries and I might just add that in our 

calculation of the 100 countries or so Somalia is the top of the list 

in terms of difficulty the place in which to work. 

The World Vision International 2010 budget was approximately $2.5 billion and the World Vision U.S. portion of WVI raised about 

$1 billion of that with 75 percent coming from private donations. 

Our supporters include 1 million donors from every state and congressional district and we partner with more than 6,000 churches 

and thousands of corporations as well. 

With respect to the crisis in the Horn, we’ve been working to 

strengthen communities and respond to emergencies for 60 years. 

In 2010, World Vision served 15 million people through responses 

to 80 different humanitarian disasters around the world including 

Haiti, the flooding in Pakistan, the severe drought in China. We’ve 

been operational in the Horn for a number of decades. 

This drought is the worst in the Horn in 60 years. Just a couple 

of days ago the U.N. has warned that as many as 750,000 Somalis 

may die in the coming months. This is approaching the number of 

people who died and probably will exceed that which occurred during the ’84–’85 Ethiopian famine. 

An incredible 58 percent of the children in Somalia’s Bay region 

are suffering from acute malnutrition. In total, more than 12 million people are presently at risk. Their crops have died. Their animals have died and now they are dying in the tens of thousands. 

Half of them or more are children, many in southern Somalia, 

where the famine has been declared in a number of places. Many 

tens of thousands more will die unless the world responds in a way 

that’s more convincing than it is now responding. 

World Vision is reaching out to about 2.5 million people with lifesaving aid and other assistance in this particular crisis. Let me say 

just a word about how smart aid saves and transforms lives. While 

droughts are cyclical and more droughts will certainly come in the 

future, famines are entirely preventable with the right response. 

Let me insert something here. There’s been a lot of discussion 

here today about the problems of food security and the things that 

the world needs to do on this, but it would be silly not to note the 

importance of the testimony we have just heard. 

In situations where there is political instability or anarchy, 

you’re always going to have a crisis exacerbated, so droughts and 

famines are never going to have just rain or climate problems when 

41

you’ve got this kind of governance issues at work in Somalia. Read 

any standard history of this region, and it is frightening the degree 

of the complexity and the difficulty of solving that. 

If we don’t find a way to address the governance issues in places 

like this, our international development attempts to help will always be severely limited. So we’ve got to keep that in mind. 

We can and we must respond and we must respond quickly if the 

devastating consequences of this famine in the Horn are to be significantly reduced. 

Now we know firsthand from our experience that there are 

things you can do that will make a difference. Throughout the 

Horn of Africa World Vision has delivered water to communities 

whose water sources have dried up. We’ve provided emergency nutrition to malnourished children. Our clinics in Somalia will serve 

people who have fled their homes or on their way to Ethiopia or 

Kenya. We have put up 5,000 tents in Dadaab, the largest refugee 

camp in the world, perhaps the first shelter that these Somali refugees have had in more than 30 days. Many times, these people 

have walked for days and they’re malnourished. 

It’s sobering to think how many more people, especially children, 

will die if we and the world do not respond energetically and quickly. Now this is important. Famine prevention has got to be a priority. For two and a half decades World Vision has worked in programs like the Morulem Irrigation program which has enabled 

families in northwestern Kenya’s Turkana Country to grow, eat 

and sell crops. 

Now I bring this up for this reason. If you compare the places 

that groups like Oxfam or World Vision or any of the other good 

organizations that do work, if you look at the work that they did 

over a long period of time, 10 or 15 years, you compare what happens during a famine, the groups that will have the famine are the 

ones that we have not been in a position to help. It does make a 

difference what we do and when we do it. And to what scale we 

do it. 

Other areas that we don’t touch or haven’t had the resources to 

touch, they’re the ones that are most victimized. 

Now let me say something about this very touchy issue of U.S. 

funding with respect to this. We all know this is a tough, political, 

and budget environment right now with many Americans struggling to make ends meet and with much legitimate political attention on reducing the U.S. Government debt. But reducing the U.S. 

budget deficit and living within our means, however much it is a 

moral issue to do that and I think it is a moral issue to live within 

our means, it is also a moral imperative to save vulnerable children 

from hunger and effects of disaster when we have it within our capacity to make a difference. 

I insist on believing and World Vision believes and I know my 

colleagues believe this as well. We believe that we can do both. We 

can get our fiscal house in order, make the steps necessary to do 

that, and yet we can continue to fund at appropriate levels, the important global and humanitarian programs that we believe in. 

For many years, the U.S. has been and continues to be the leading donor government to humanitarian crises in the Horn, but listen to this. Our share has shrunk from approximately 53 percent 

42

of the world’s response to the drought in 2008 to about 30 percent 

today. We are simply not playing the proportionate weight we once 

did, just a few months or years ago, to crises like this. 

Or consider this, the U.S. Government’s response to what may 

be—what is the worst disaster, a drought in the Horn in 6 years 

is about 60 years in what it was in 2008 and that concerns us. 

With respect to appropriation issues, this is not the time for 

America to pull back. It is not a time to reduce those life-saving 

accounts by 30 percent in some cases. It is a time to increase them. 

Disaster assistance accounts for 1⁄10 of 1 percent of our national 

budget and it’s highly cost effective in terms of saving lives. They 

should not be cut during a time of famine. 

Therefore, I would request on behalf of World Vision and many 

of the other organizations and InterAction and in addition to submitting my full text for the record, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to submit that letter that has just gone out to congressional members on 

this point. We would request that funding be at least at the Fiscal 

Year 2010 enacted level which means $1.85 billion for migration 

and refugee assistance programs; $1.3 billion for international disaster assistance, that’s what funds OFDA and $1.48 billion for U.S. 

food programs through P.L. 480, Food for Peace. 

I would like to include for the record, as I mentioned that letter 

signed by over 50 nongovernmental organizations asking that disaster assistance accounts be funded at these Fiscal Year 2010 levels. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the ranking member Payne for holding this hearing, for your on-going internal advocacy within the U.S. Congress to ensure a strong and 

moral response to the situation in the Horn of Africa and I look forward to your questions in a few minutes. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Dr. Hill, thank you so much. 

Ms. Scribner? 

STATEMENT OF MS. SHANNON SCRIBNER, HUMANITARIAN 

POLICY MANAGER, OXFAM AMERICA 

Ms. SCRIBNER. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Payne, thank you 

for this opportunity to testify today on the humanitarian situation 

in East Africa. Oxfam is grateful for your leadership and the work 

this committee has done to address the humanitarian situation in 

the region. Oxfam America is an international development and relief agency committed to developing lasting solutions to poverty, 

hunger, and social injustice. We are part of a confederation of 15 

Oxfam organizations working together in more than a hundred 

countries with over 3,000 local partners around the globe. 

The Horn of Africa, as we have heard, is experiencing the worst 

drought we have seen in 60 years. But the current crisis is also due 

to not heeding early warnings about the drought, the conflict in Somalia, high food prices, and the lack of investment in agriculture 

and programs that reduce the risk of disasters in the first place. 

The famine and on-going conflict in Somalia has displaced around 

1.8 million people. Thousands have fled from rural parts of Somalia 

into Mogadishu while even more have walked for weeks across the 

desert with very little food or water in search of relief in neighboring countries. In Kenya, there are 430,000 refugees living in the 

camp of Dadaab, where 70–80 percent of new arrivals are women 

and children. In Ethiopia, there are 250,000 refugees living in Dolo 

Ado where there has been a rise in deaths among children due to 

measles, malnutrition, pneumonia, and diarrhea. 

Oxfam is working in Kenya and Ethiopia directly operational and 

through partners, and we are also working in Somalia, but solely 

through partners. We are reaching over 1 million people and aim 

to reach 3.5 million. Oxfam’s response includes providing water and 

sanitation services, food aid, cash transfers where food is available 

and providing livelihood support, such as rehabilitating livestock 

since those predominantly affected by this drought have been pastoralists. 

In Somalia, Oxfam’s partners are reaching over 800,000 people. 

While operations in south-central Somalia are extremely difficult, 

no doubt about it, it is possible to provide assistance, particularly 

for NGOs who have strong links to the communities, with some Somali partners, and who have a history of working in south-central 

Somalia. 

In the Kenya refugee camps, Oxfam is providing water and sanitation assistance to more than 64,000 people and we are also providing water and sanitation to the 60,000 people that are sitting 

on the outskirts of Dadaab. 

The current challenges to the response include funding, access, 

and coordination. The U.S. Government has been by far the most 

generous donor, but I would just like to echo Dr. Hill’s comments 

about the need for the U.S. Government and others to do more. 

Other donors have also stepped up including nontraditional donors 

which we’ve heard a little bit about, but the needs are immense 

and as has been stated, there is a $1 billion shortfall today. And 

we know that the needs are going to increase. Below average rainVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:34 Feb 16, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\090811\68243 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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fall is predicted for the November to January rains in south and 

central Somalia which means we may not see recovery in Somalia 

until the next harvest in August 2012. 

In terms of access, south-central Somalia is one of the world’s 

most difficult environments to work in and Oxfam partners and 

other agencies are reaching Somalis and providing assistance 

where they can. But restrictions by armed actors or donor policies 

that also have restrictions can hamper efforts to provide lifesaving 

assistance. Therefore, all parties must lift restrictions and allow 

unfettered access to assistance in Somalia. 

In addition to funding and access, we need to ensure that aid 

reaches those most in need. Therefore, coordination, information 

sharing, and transparency amongst all actors must be improved. In 

failing to respond to the early warning systems as has already been 

stated, we knew about this crisis, at least about some of the early 

warning about La Nina was coming in in August 2010. While a 

massive operation is now underway, little was done until the May 

2011 rains failed, as was predicted by the early warning systems. 

Looking forward, national governments, regional actors, and the 

international community, including NGOs must do a better job of 

coordinating a holistic response early on if food emergencies are to 

be avoided in the future. And I just want to say recently we’ve had 

a series of conferences, we’ve had two FAO conferences in Rome. 

The African Union also had a conference. There’s a conference 

going on in Nairobi today and tomorrow by affected countries, but 

why did it take long to actually have those conferences? 

In terms of improving access to food, a number of factors have 

resulted in reduced food production in the region. In the long term, 

we must address constraints to agricultural productivity. However, 

we must immediately increase people’s access to food today. With 

high and rising food prices, basic staples are simply not affordable 

for tens of thousands of people throughout the region. The majority 

of people in the worst affected areas have no savings and few safety nets to support them when drought or other disasters strike. 

Oxfam’s assessments have shown that when food is available, 

cash-based interventions are a rapid, effective way of saving lives, 

supporting livelihoods and contributing to the functioning of local 

markets. As we look at the way forward, we know that the Horn 

of Africa is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, particularly 

drought, which will have impacts on livelihoods and food productions. Studies have shown that investing in disaster risk reduction 

which we have touched on, save lives and money. However, global 

expenditures on disaster risk reduction in 2009 was only 0.5 percent of total annual official development assistance. 

Protecting core livestock herds is much cheaper than rebuilding 

them once they have been decimated by drought. In the far region 

of Ethiopia restocking sheep and goats cost 6.5 times more than 

supplementary feeding and restocking cattle costs 14 times more. 

DRR also builds community resilience. 

In Ethiopia, Oxfam America has a project in the south where 

we’ve implemented a small-scale irrigation project that has pumped 

water from a major river to community fields enabling pastoralists 

to produce for their own consumption and to sell on local markets. 

Today, this community is no longer in need of food aid and they 

51

do not have to migrate with their livestock because animal feed is 

available in their community. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the record an Oxfam 

paper on disaster risk reduction in the Horn of Africa that we prepared for the last FAO meeting in Rome as well as my testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, those documents will be made a 

part of the record and all submissions by our distinguished witnesses. 

Ms. SCRIBNER. Thank you. So solutions do exist and crises on 

this scale can be avoided. But we have to act early and we have 

to invest in the right places. Therefore, the U.S. Government 

should use its foreign assistance and influence. To echo my colleague again, maintain the humanitarian emergency accounts at 

the FY2010 enacted levels and fully fund Feed the Future because 

that is what has been put forward by USAID as a way to address 

long-term needs. 

Insure a majority of U.S. Government assistance, both humanitarian and development related to this current crisis reinforces resilience and reduces the risk of disaster by considering the longterm implications. Support national governments to establish 

stronger social protection and safety net programs such as delivering regular food, cash, or cash vouchers. Build the resilience and 

productivity of pastoralists and other small-scale food producers, 

including implementing policies and long-term investments that 

focus on drought cycle management and improving access to market for small holders. 

Finally, we need to ensure a strong and strategic humanitarian 

response and once humanitarian principles are upheld and actors 

are encouraged to share timely, accurate information about their 

activities. 

Thank you very much and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Scribner follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Scribner, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Let me just ask you a couple of questions. You were here for the 

previous testimony, obviously. I wonder if you might want to speak 

to the licensing issue, how that has hurt operations on the ground 

and where you think the problem lies. Where’s the bottleneck? Is 

it Treasury? And why has USAID, if they’re pushing for this, been 

unable to get Treasury to change their policy? 

Mr. HILL. The NGO community in general was I think very 

pleased with some of the movement in the last few days when it 

was announced that U.S.-funded projects would see more relief in 

terms of the restrictions, of peers of being held accountable if assistance somehow reached armed groups or someplace else it 

shouldn’t go. But the NGO community recognized what was left out 

of that written statement. And what was left out of that written 

statement was us unless we happened to be implementing a U.S. 

Government grant. And even though there have been verbal assurances to us that we needn’t worry, you can imagine what a donor 

might think when they prepare to give a gift to Oxfam or World 

Vision or some other organization and they don’t know if there’s 

going to be a problem with liability because of how difficult the environment it is in to work in. 

So I think our request would be that the government make it 

very clear in writing that the same discretion will be given to us 

that has been given for U.S. Government funds. Now when you 

consider the amount of money that the private sector has available 

and is willing to put into this, this is really not a small point. And 

so we would like to see more guarantees put into writing that 

would allow us to engage. 

Now that’s not the only problem. I mean we were thrown out a 

year ago, World Vision was expelled. And like Oxfam, we have to 

work with other organizations to do our work there. We do some 

work with the Global Fund on Malaria and TB in south and southcentral Somalia. So there are other times that we will have to pull 

out just because of security reasons, at least to be directly involved. 

But at least we would not have to take into consideration the fear 

that we will be held liable if we can’t quite manage the risk as well 

as we would like to. 

Ms. SCRIBNER. And if I could add to that, I agree that we have 

seen some real improvements over the last several weeks in terms 

of USAID implementing partners having these waivers as they go 

in, but it does get to those that do not. And Oxfam America does 

not take U.S. Government money. So for us, we’ve raised $4.5 million from private, from Americans and from foundations. We cannot use that money in Somalia. It’s not clear to us how we could 

use that money in Somalia. Because we’re a confederation, luckily 

we have 15 organizations that are chipping into a pot and we do 

have other organizations, other Oxfams that are providing assistance in Somalia, but our assistance is going to Ethiopia and to 

Kenya. 

Mr. SMITH. We’re going to be working on this between now and 

next week. I plan on introducing legislation that would make clear 

that humanitarian organizations would be excluded from the USA 

PATRIOT Act concerns which is obviously what is so important 

61

here. And if for no other reason, to give the administration whatever cover they think they might need or somebody at Treasury 

who thinks they need some kind of cover. I mean, we’ve had that 

same problem, as my friend and colleague Mr. Payne knows, with 

those who—like in Burma and elsewhere—find it impossible to get 

help here, asylum, because of material support, allegedly, or even 

in Iraq where they have paid someone off in order to mitigate the 

possibility of becoming a target of terrorism or as payment to get 

a loved one out. And then that is used against him to come to this 

country. It seems to me that sometimes our rules and regulations 

border on absurd. 

Is there any estimation as to how many people might be assisted 

if the administration some time next week or soon were to provide 

this relief? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. I don’t have an assessment. 

Mr. SMITH. Clearly, you want to be working with your partners 

on the ground in Somalia, but you’re precluded from that opportunity out of legal risk. 

Ms. SCRIBNER. Correct. And I mean just to provide assistance to 

the partners that are already operating because as I said we’re 

reaching 800,000 people, but we want to expand those operations. 

Our partners want to expand those operations and we’re working 

through two partners in Mogadishu, outside of Mogadishu, and 

then also on the Afgooye corridor and Lower Shabelle. 

But I do want to make a comment about because these restrictions have been in place for some time, that the situation on the 

ground is that the NGOs and agencies that have been operating 

have developed systems and processes under very difficult situations to get the aid to go where it needs to. So it’s Somalis who are 

delivering the aid, who know the culture, know the language. 

They’re negotiating bit by bit. They have to negotiate with insurgent groups. It’s the reality of Somalia. And we don’t want to disrupt the good work that they’re doing. So as other aid organizations come in, that’s welcome because there are needs on the 

ground. They need to be sensitive to that, but they also need to test 

the waters. 

For those agencies that haven’t been working there, they’re not 

going to be able because of the humanitarian operations scale-up. 

It’s not going to be big. It’s going to be small. It’s going to be low 

profile. And so I don’t see a scale-up, a large scale up happening 

overnight any time soon. 

Mr. HILL. I would simply add two or three points on this. And 

I would reiterate something I said in my testimony. The difficulty 

for all of us to work there is going to be exceptionally high. But 

my colleague is absolutely right. The key is to work with implementing partners that we trust and who know the terrain. We just 

want the freedom to be able to at least do that. 

Now the problem with not giving enough funding to this from the 

USG and hopefully we’ll get more from the private sector as well 

isn’t just in the epicenter of the famine in south and south-central 

Somalia. It is, in fact, in these overcrowded refugee camps. There 

is tremendous amount that can be done. There are all sorts of 

water problems and health problems that can be addressed right 

62

now if we could just put the right resources to work further away 

from the epicenter in Kenya and Ethiopia and northern Somalia. 

Mr. SMITH. The FEWS NET famine early warning system had 

predicted a serious drought was in the offing. In your view, was 

there a gap somewhere in leadership, in conveying that information 

to those who could take effective action to mitigate it? Or was this 

a textbook example of what can and should be done, but other 

issues like al-Shabaab are perhaps to blame? It seems to me like 

we were taken by surprise. 

Mr. HILL. We shouldn’t have been. When I arrived at World Vision a few months ago, one of the first things that came across my 

desk were the reports from my person who is in charge of humanitarian disasters that were coming. He’s in the room. And he told 

me, he said the word from the U.N. and from other places, from 

the early warning systems is that something bad and something 

bad is coming. 

But to be fair here, we tried to put out, World Vision did, many 

months ago to try to secure some funding, and frankly we didn’t 

do very well. We didn’t secure much and when I asked ourselves 

at the senior level what happened, why couldn’t we do it, I mean 

some of the factors that we just have to face, there is a certain 

donor fatigue, not just on the part of governments, but the number 

of disasters is growing. All the experts say it’s going to continue to 

grow. We had Japan intercede here which caught everybody’s attention. And I think it’s just human nature that until its right 

upon us, we don’t always take the preventative action. But the was 

enough information that we should have acted sooner, both privately and publicly, to have mitigated this. We did some and that 

helped, but we should have done more. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Ms. SCRIBNER. Just on that point, I agree. The good news is that 

the early warning systems worked. But the bad news is once that 

happens, then what? There’s no trigger. There’s no—once we see 

that, then this is the next step and that needs to be in place. It 

is a matter of political will. It’s a matter of donor fatigue and until 

we see those images of the famine and of people crossing the border, those horrible images we’ve seen, we don’t act soon enough. 

But we need to do better. And I commend the U.S. Government for 

prepositioning supplies last year, but then my question would be 

what were we doing to work with national governments? What 

were we doing to work with regional actors and the international 

community early on? We need to do more than just preposition supplies ourselves and respond. All donors need to do more on that 

front. 

I just want to mention that the Kenya Red Cross, there was a 

humanitarian, a Kenyan humanitarian forum in Nairobi back in 

January and they were talking about this and nobody was listening 

to them, including the Kenyan Government. It just did not get the 

attention that it needed to. 

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add one thing? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, please. 

Mr. HILL. This sort of amplifies the point of why the budget matters. In 2010, the total enacted in 2010 for the international disaster assistance was $1.3 billion. Last year, it dropped to $863 milVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:34 Feb 16, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\090811\68243 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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lion. And the House marked-up bill for this fund is now $757.6 million. That is a 42 percent reduction in 2 years. Now what does that 

mean? That means that you can have all the early warning systems you want, but if you’ve already turned off the lights at the 

place that’s going to respond, you’re going to be slowed down for 

weeks or months, even if you had the political will and the money 

to do a supplemental. 

So if we want to take seriously the investment we’ve made in 

early warning systems, we can’t do this to funds like the International Disaster Assistant Fund. 

Mr. SMITH. Would you recommend, not just in this budget, but 

that there be a urgent supplemental request from the administration to meet these gaps or can they draw down from existing pools 

of money to meet this emergency and then over time return it to 

those other——

Mr. HILL. You were right in the previous panel to note that it’s 

USAID’s obligation and the State Department’s obligation to shift 

monies as they can and try to replace it if they can. But frankly, 

it is the kind of situation under normal circumstances would justify 

a supplemental. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. To your knowledge, and I did ask Ms. 

Jandhyala if she knew whether or not are we out of money, is it 

that they just don’t want to go after other accounts or what? We 

just don’t know. Do you have any sense of that? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. I don’t. And it’s mostly rumors where I hear 

Oxfam is running out of money and then suddenly they have 

money and then there’s a pledge that’s suddenly given. So I don’t 

have a good picture. It doesn’t mean that other people don’t, but 

I personally don’t at this point. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Hill, you talk about the U.S. Government’s response to what may be the worst drought in the Horn in 60 years 

and only 60 percent of what was for the Horn drought in 2008. Is 

that because of lack of resources, lack of will, a combination of both 

or what? 

Mr. HILL. You know, to be fair to the administration, I served 

this administration during 8 years of the biggest increase in foreign 

assistance funding since John F. Kennedy. And yes, the President 

was committed to that and yes, we had a bipartisan consensus in 

Congress to address HIV and PEPFAR and malaria and the Millennium Challenge Account. There was a bipartisan support for it. 

In the wake of 9/11, we understood that it was important. We had 

the luxury of being able to respond. 

Through no fault of its own, the present administration has been 

dealt a very much more difficult hand. I don’t have any doubt that 

the administration would like to respond, wants to respond. I think 

they’re distracted by lots of things right now. You know, in this 

nasty partisan bickering that we have right now in this country, 

it’s my hope and prayer that this is one place that we put the partisan bickering aside. I believe there is support on both sides of the 

aisle to deal with 1⁄10 of 1 percent of the national budget to exercise 

our moral responsibilities. I think the President is committed to 

this. I believe the Congress can be committed to this. 

We have to help the American public to understand that what 

they think is a situation with respect to foreign assistance is not. 

64

Repeatedly Gallup polls and others show that they think we spend 

about a quarter of the national budget on foreign assistance they 

say. We should cut it down to about 10 percent. And then it turns 

out, if you combine State Department, all foreign assistance together, it’s about 1 percent. If you get down to foreign assistance, 

it’s much less than that and by the time you get to these funds, 

you’re talking about 1⁄10 of 1 percent. 

So we’re not talking about the kind of money that’s going to 

break the bank. Now we’re going to have to be responsible, but this 

could be an example of something we can do together and we all 

should try to take credit for it together and take this one completely out of the banks of partisan bickering. It’s just too important not to do it. 

Ms. SCRIBNER. And if I could add on to that. I agree with all of 

that. But also say that we’ve already talked about more assistance 

is going to be needed. The needs are growing, so we should be asking those questions, Chairman, about where is the money, what do 

we have left in the coffers? Is the supplemental the right thing to 

do? So I welcome those questions and we’ll ask them ourselves. 

And then in the long term, we also need to look at Feed the Future, because that is what the U.S. Government, USAID in particular, is saying that is their response going forward in order to 

prevent this from happening again is going to be through Feed the 

Future. So then that brings into questions about development assistance overall actually being funded, Feed the Future as part of 

that. So I’m concerned about not actually having the funding to do 

the prevention that we’ve talked about, to do the resilience building 

that’s been mentioned and the disaster-risk reduction because we 

won’t have the funding in the future. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Scribner, you mentioned cash-based interventions as being obviously a viable option for Somalia. That also suggests the availability of foodstuffs that can be purchased and I’m 

wondering: How would you break that up in terms of region? Is it 

mostly cities where the foods might be available and that’s where 

that would work? Or how would that play out throughout the country? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. It’s counter intuitive during a time of food insecurity, but there is food available. Of course, not everywhere, but in 

northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, there is food on the local 

markets. There are—and where food is not available in the local 

markets, in the nearby cities, they actually, traders actually have 

food, but they’re not bringing them to market because people do not 

have the money to buy that food. So if we are able to give vouchers 

to those traders to bring the food into the communities or to do the 

cash vouchers. You can do cash for work. When people are experiencing food insecurity the most vulnerable populations aren’t going 

to be able to do that. So you need direct cash, but you could do cash 

for work for people that are healthier in terms of building some of 

the resilience for the next time this hits. And you could also do 

vouchers. 

I think we should be looking at where food is available and looking at cash as an intervention and then where food is not obviously 

food aid is needed. I think WFP needs to do, the World Food Program needs to do a little bit, a better job in determining what the 

65

pipeline looks like, where food is available and where it’s not so 

that as the international community can look at alternative interventions, we know the exact areas where food is available and 

where it’s not. 

Mr. SMITH. Now Ms. Jandhyala mentioned there’s $8 million allocated. Does that seem an appropriate order of magnitude to you 

or seems too low in terms of prioritization? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. It seems low. It’s a good start. I think the U.S. 

Government does well with direct food aid and that’s really important in saving lives, of course. But if we could increase that amount 

it does seem low. Again, we are hearing that. Oxfam is doing direct 

food distribution, but we’re also doing the cash for food. So we’re 

looking at the communities where it works and where it doesn’t 

work. USAID should be doing that as well and they may need to 

increase the $8 million. 

Mr. HILL. I think the answer where there’s sufficient funds being 

put in, for example, into the Food for Peace, the answer would be 

no. If you gave the same statistics as I just did for OFDA because 

OFDA is what gets its money from the international disaster assistance, the fund in USDA which provides for Food for Peace was 

$1.84 billion at the end of Fiscal Year 2010. That was the total enacted. And the bill before us right now is $1.04. So there’s a tremendous cut here in a specific food program. 

And here’s something else that has not yet come up that I think 

we have to address. Look, if you look at the percentage cuts in the 

total of state and foreign assistance, one of the big mysteries to me 

is why of all of those accounts are the deepest cuts here? I don’t 

get it. I mean I know these are tough times, but even in foreign 

assistance and in State that you would cut most deeply the food 

and the disaster funds, it just—I think the prioritization there, we 

have to address that. And if there is some negotiation between the 

House and the Senate on the total amount, I would suggest that 

the negotiations center on these particular programs that have 

been gutted, that are being hurt because they were cut disproportionately. They should be restored first to the extent you can find 

the bipartisan consensus to do so. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that very much thank you. One last 

point, are the NGOs reaching out to Persian Gulf potential donors, 

especially Saudi Arabia? I mean the $60 million could be a downpayment for what could be a very huge amount of money that they 

are absolutely capable of providing. They have no debt like we do. 

Their profits, we estimate, or it is estimated, is $500 million per 

day. Sixty million dollars is a portion of a day’s profits in that oilrich country. Have the NGOs ever thought of sending a joint letter 

to the government and to the King asking for a very serious contribution, like $0.5 billion? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. That’s an excellent question and one that’s important. You know, I think Congressman Payne was the one to mention that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has had a conference and that was a very important conference and we’ve seen 

Turkey and Saudi Arabia come forward. Oxfam actually has an office in Saudi Arabia, so we actually have outreach with donors in 

that part of the world and it is a request that we’re making and 

it’s also a request that we make to their Embassies in the capitals 

66

where we work. So it’s something we have been pushing for and 

we will continue to push for. And in terms of Somalia, in particular, their assistance is very important just because of being able 

to fund the agencies in those areas that are Islamic, a lot of the 

agencies providing assistance. 

Mr. HILL. Three points. It is an interesting idea and I would support and I don’t see why InterAction and other NGOs could not encourage the U.S. Government to do it. Now it’s their role as a government and a government-to-government negotiation or you know, 

discussion, to do that. But your question raises a very interesting 

idea that I hadn’t thought about before, but I think I’m going to 

pursue. A few months ago I spent 4 hours with a World Vision 

International executive meeting with Islamic Relief in northern 

Virginia. They do several million dollars of assistance. I addressed 

the group. We talked about ways that World Vision and Islamic Relief could work together. 

And it just occurs to me that we ought to follow up on that and 

talk real specifically about they might be able to do some things 

that we can’t do in some of these areas here. We talked specifically 

about that before, but I could—we could also talk to them about 

the possibility of finding out what, if anything, they are doing to 

encourage Islamic governments to play a more active role, because 

I think it was maybe, it was one of the folks here today that said 

it really is odd that there isn’t more assistance coming from that 

part of the world. But I think one way into that discussion could 

be through Islamic Relief and we have good relations with them 

and I think it’s worth pursuing a discussion with them. 

Mr. SMITH. Does the Red Cross have access? And how much? 

Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Just from what I’ve seen out of reports, Islamic 

Relief is active in southern Somalia and also the Red Cross, both 

Iranian Red Cross and then other local international organizations 

that are tied to the Red Cross. So there are organizations that can 

operate in southern and central Somalia. 

Just from the security perspective, al-Shabaab has made it very 

clear that local Somali NGOs are the ones it trusts most to do the 

humanitarian relief work and so I think both Oxfam and World Vision, having faced security issues with al-Shabaab themselves, 

have gone that route because it’s the safest for both their workers 

and it’s also one of the more effective ways to deliver the assistance 

into the areas that need it. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Payne? 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. I couldn’t agree more that I 

do think that the countries that are doing well should certainly 

step up to the plate. We have seen that Turkey has taken more of 

a leadership. Of course, they’re not necessarily one of the wealthier 

countries in the group, but I think that their willingness to help 

with the educational system in Somalia and they’re simply starting 

to take more of a leadership role and hopefully they can become 

more active in the Arab League to try to get them to do more. 

I think that the African Union could also play a stronger role by 

urging the rich Arab countries to participate more. I think they’ve 

had a nice, close relationship and there has been sort of I guess a 

working relationship. But I do believe that the Islamic countries, 

especially as it relates to Somalia could certainly do much more 

67

than what they’re doing. The African Union did speak out about 

the treatment of Africans in Libya, finally, to the Islamic Arab 

League that they need to talk to the rebels and tell them that they 

need to stop this persecution of persons from sub-Saharan African 

who are being brutally treated by the rebels, feeling that they were 

part and friendly, I guess, to Ghadafi. So I think if they start to 

step up to the plate a little bit more that would be helpful to the 

overall cause. 

Let’s see, where to start? Ms. Scribner, Oxfam and other organizations have argued that while weather conditions contribute to 

the severity of the crisis, the poor policies and planning that cause 

the region to be more susceptive, that poor policies and planning 

have been as big a factor. I wonder if you would want to highlight 

what factors you think have led to the humanitarian crisis and 

what are ways, if any that these might be prevented and addressed 

in the future. I know you talked about the U.S. policy of Feed the 

Future which is certainly a well-drafted plan, but could you go into 

a little detail on that? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. Sure, on agriculture and pastoralism, it provides 

livelihoods for 237 million people in East Africa who live in the 

rural areas, yet, globally, the share of official development assistance that supports agriculture has declined by 77 percent. And it 

accounts for only 7 percent of the total official development assistance today. So I would say agriculture is an area where the international community has not done enough investment in and we’ve 

actually declined in our investments. 

But it’s also up to national governments, of course, to play a role 

in directing investments toward agriculture. And both Kenya and 

Ethiopia have committed to direct 10 percent of their national 

budgets to agriculture. However, Kenya and Ethiopia lack investment in livestock production in the region. For Ethiopia, only 1 

percent of their overall—sorry, 0.3 percent of their overall budget 

goes to investment and livestock production. And for Kenya, it’s 

less than 1 percent of their budget. So I think that is an area in 

terms of agriculture and livestock production where the international community can invest more, but also national governments. 

Both Ethiopia and Kenya are taking steps to do disaster management approaches and that should be commended. That’s good news. 

But both Ethiopia and Kenya also need to look at the early warning systems and take the data that they’re seeing and act sooner. 

And they do need to invest more in disaster-risk reduction. 

And in terms of the disaster-risk management approach, it needs 

to be built up in terms of the capacity of the governments at all 

levels in Ethiopia and Kenya. So today and tomorrow there is the 

Nairobi conference that has been happening, where governments 

are submitting their national plans to prevent drought in the future. The U.S. Government should look at those plans and see how 

we can support those countries going forward. And most importantly, I think for Ethiopia and Kenya is to implement, and there 

are some ratifications of legislation that actually needs to happen. 

So even though these proposals are out there, they need to be implemented. And as soon as they do that, the U.S. Government 

should be behind that and supporting that effort. 

68

Mr. PAYNE. On the question of al-Shabaab, you know they have 

changed their policy it seems over the course of 6 or 7 months, once 

they, I guess initially said there was no drought and then they 

agreed that yes, it was a drought, but you couldn’t bring food aid 

in. Then they allowed it to come in. What is the current—and any 

one of the three of you might want to pitch in. What is the current 

situation, especially in south-central Somalia and where in the recent disappearance of al-Shabaab from Mogadishu, they’re certainly not gone. They just away, but how do you see that whole 

area playing out? 

Ms. ZIMMERMAN. The official line from the spokesman from alShabaab is still that there is not a famine in Somalia, that there 

is a drought, but that al-Shabaab is able to feed and help the people under its territories. And what the group has actually done is 

through a news channel that it has is when it hosts food distributions in refugee camps and displaced persons camps that alShabaab militants run, it will use that as promotional material and 

take pictures of the food aid being distributed and of the families 

being fed, and broadcast that throughout southern Somalia and 

into the diaspora as well saying that al-Shabaab is doing good work 

and this is Islamic charity at its heart. Through this and through 

coming together and trusting in al-Shabaab that people can survive 

this drought. 

More broadly, however, access still remains very limited into 

southern and central Somalia because of this denial of a crisis. And 

in my opinion, what has happened is that more local al-Shabaab 

leaders, who have greater ties to local communities needed to be 

more responsive to their populations, have increasingly put pressure on the leadership and actually openly put pressure on the 

leadership to change its policies toward major international aid organizations, recognizing that there is a drought and that people are 

dying in southern and central Somalia. 

From what I saw, I think the first signs were really in April 

where local clan leaders told local al-Shabaab officials that if they 

did not permit food assistance in now that people would die later 

and it’s later and people are dying. And I don’t think that alShabaab has fully recognized the effect that this has had on its 

public perception within the Somali population. 

Mr. PAYNE. There was—I don’t know whether World Vision has 

tried it, but there was at one point a move to attempt to have some 

Somali community here, in Minnesota, to try to get word to some 

of the al-Shabaab leadership that they ought to reconsider their 

policies. 

Have any of you worked with the local Somalia community and 

attempted to get them to try to persuade the al-Shabaab people to 

have a different—the leadership to take a different tack? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. Oxfam, we have not, but we have been talking 

about the importance of the diaspora and that exact role. And so 

it’s something we are discussing and something we are considering 

doing. But maybe to add a point to what Ms. Zimmerman said, but 

also to your question, the diaspora could potentially help, but it’s 

really the communities where the partners, Oxfam partners and 

other agencies that are operating on the ground are working who 

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in and if the community protects the aid projects, then they’re the 

ones to put the pressure on the local leaders. 

So our first defense through our partners and working on the 

ground are the communities themselves. 

Mr. PAYNE. Have your agencies worked with partners that have 

been able to get into Eritrea, has Oxfam—how have you found the 

situation? 

Ms. SCRIBNER. I don’t have a lot of information about Eritrea. 

Oxfam does have programs in Asmara and in southern Eritrea, but 

the operations are limited and we have very few staff, so we don’t 

get a lot of information coming out of Eritrea. But in Tigray and 

northern Ethiopia, we are seeing people that are crossing the borders that have been affected by the drought and we have heard stories about livestock that have died. So from the information we’re 

getting in the Tigray region, people seem to be affected by the 

drought in Eritrea as well. 

Mr. PAYNE. And Somalis are going into Ethiopia. I know they are 

allowing them in which is good, humanitarian, although Ethiopia 

is having its own problems with its own drought situation so it’s 

really complicated and then on the long-term problem as I mentioned before, the Ogadon region which is a whole separate issue 

for decades, tends to be having its own kind of situation. 

On one hand, the Ethiopian Government is embracing people 

coming into their area, even though they’re having difficulty with 

the drought, but then on the other hand you hear in another area 

that it’s not working. So I guess we have to continue to just do the 

best we can and try to keep the pressure on. 

Let me just commend all three of you for the outstanding work 

that each of your organizations continue to do. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could just have one final question to Ms. Zimmerman. In your testimony, you say there are reports that school-aged 

children have been forced to attend sessions with al-Shabaab officials to receive either religious or military training, and we know 

that Joseph Kony and Charles Taylor have relied, relied past tense 

in Taylor’s case, on children to do some horrific things to other people, including violence. And I’m wondering how widespread is that, 

child soldiers? Do we know? 

Ms. ZIMMERMAN. From what I’ve seen actually, the use of child 

soldiers is prolific on both sides in Somalia. Al-Shabaab conscripts 

children from regions that it controls, but there are indications that 

the Transitional Federal Government has used child soldiers in the 

past and it says that it’s trying to take efforts to ensure that they 

are of proper age before enrolling young boys into its programs to 

train them as soldiers. 

However, I think that Somalia and the U.S. could look further 

into the issue of the use of children as soldiers in the Horn of Africa. It’s an on-going problem. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Would any of you like to add anything before we conclude? I too, would like to thank you for your leadership and your 

extraordinary testimony which will be very helpful to us and I do 

believe the administration. And I look forward to working with you 

going forward. The hearing is concluded. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 4:37 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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