President Obama congratulates Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on successful pirate raid

LEHMAN: I think the biggest concern when I talk to my former counterparts and current military leaders in — among our allies in Europe and the Pacific is, the theme that they — I keep hearing from them is, Why is the United States under Obama abdicating leadership or keeping stability in the world? … And they see our abdication of leadership in for instance dealing with the pirates. We were not in a leadership position and that’s opened up a very attractive opportunity for the Russians and even the Chinese have two ships out there.

Listen to the clip:

Absent in Lehman’s argument of course is the fact that, according to data released just this week, sea piracy worldwide has declined 28 percent in the first quarter of the year and, as the AP reported, “attacks fell sharply in Somalia’s waters thanks to international naval patrols.” And which country has a “large” naval presence there? The United States.

“When the Obama administration came to office the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia was snowballing out of control,” Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro said recently at an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress, “through the collective effort of the United States, the international community, and the private sector, we are now seeing signs of clear progress.” Shapiro continued:

The numbers clearly demonstrate this. In 2011, the number of successful pirate attacks fell by nearly half. As a result, there has been a significant drop in the numbers of ships and crew held hostage. In January 2011, pirates held 31 ships and 710 hostages. In early March of 2012 pirates held eight ships and 213 hostages – a roughly 70 percent decline. This is still way too many, but it is clear advances are being made.

“The Obama administration has pursued a strategy that seeks to leverage all elements of U.S. power” to combat piracy, Shapiro added, which comprises an integrated multi-dimensional approach that includes diplomatic engagement, expanding security at sea, preventing attacks and debilitating piracy networks.

Also absent from Lehman’s argument? Obama’s order in 2009 for a successful Navy SEALS operation to take out pirates holding an American ship captain hostage, nor his most recent order for U.S. special ops forces to rescue an American and a Danish hostages from pirate-affiliate kidnappers.

Children and mothers await food at distribution site in Mogadishu (Photo: Enough / Laura Heaton)

Communities across Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya suffered severely from the 2011 drought and famine; tens of thousands of people died. Somalia was the epicenter of this human tragedy, largely because conflict and the severe policies of the militant group al-Shabaab undercut the traditional coping strategies Somalis use to deal with extreme weather and also cut off these vulnerable communities from humanitarian aid.

The relief effort in Mogadishu suffered from lack of access and ongoing insecurity, but unlike in most other parts of the country, Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, or TFG, had unparalleled control there. And yet the city was mired in some of the most acute suffering, and famine was persistent, even as the United Nations rolled back the famine classification for other Somali regions.

Through interviews conducted primarily in settlements of displaced people who fled to Mogadishu from the surrounding regions at the height of the famine, Enough found:

“[I]nsecurity, inadequate oversight for distribution of humanitarian assistance, and wholesale criminality combined to create a situation where beneficiaries often didn’t see the relief intended for them, security services involved in distribution committed abuses with impunity, and aid flowed instead into the pockets of corrupt Somali officials—all issues that primarily fall to the TFG to address.”

The field dispatch, “Somalia Famine Relief: A View from Mogadishu,” presents individual testimonies from displaced people, highlights some important details about the scope of the suffering in Mogadishu, and features the Somali prime minister’s startling denial of famine in the city, just a day before the U.N. announced a massive new appeal for funds.

“Recent attention to Somalia generated by the high-level conference in London in February and by the reported successes of joint military operations targeting al-Shabaab leaves the impression that important changes are afoot. There are,” the field dispatch states. “But without some dramatic changes in the way the country is governed and humanitarian issues are handled, Somalia remains prone to the next iteration of al-Shabaab, coming in to fill the void, and donors’ contributions to assist Somalis most in need continue to risk falling into the hands of those who benefit from Somalia’s chaos.”

Cross-posted from the Enough Project.

Just six months remain before the Somali Transitional Federal Government’s time is up to ready the country for more permanent governing structures and institutions after more than 20 years of civil war. Marking the start of that countdown, British Prime Minister David Cameron convened a high-profile conference today in London to map out plans for concluding the transition and rally support for the many costly initiatives currently underway inside Somalia.

The conference also comes at a significant moment militarily in the long war. African Union peacekeepers, working alongside the army of the Transitional Federal Government, or TFG, have chalked up some important recent victories against Somalia’s al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab militia. Shabaab still controls large swaths of central and southern Somalia, but A.U. peacekeepers and the TFG now hold the capital of Mogadishu. While the threat from Shabaab has morphed—from street battles to guerrilla tactics like roadside bombs—and is far from defeated, control of Mogadishu carries significant value because it’s the place where all Somali interests and grievances converge.

“For decades, the world focused on what we could prevent from happening in Somalia—conflict, famine, terrorism,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who represented the United States in London. “Now, we are focused on what we can build.”

But what’s the good of a ‘transition’ that primarily focuses on surface-level tasks—in and of themselves no small feat in Somalia—like replacing the current leaders and building more representative, streamlined institutions? To Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus, such a process would produce little more than new names and faces but with “the same frustrating outcome.”

“Changes in political leadership and decision-making structures will have limited effect if no effort is made to weaken the political cartels and networks that work behind the scenes in Somalia to divert funds and stymie effective rule of law,” Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College, wrote in a briefing paper published by the Enough Project today.

After seven years and with little to show for its tenure, the TFG has provided ample illustrations of how not to garner support for Somalis or build institutions and credibility to extend security and services beyond the limited areas controlled by foreign peacekeepers and government-aligned armed groups. The past several years have also showcased the apparent lack of understanding by many international-led efforts of the necessity for an inclusive, transparent process to ensure that Somali people—long wary of outside interventions—feel represented.

The delegates at today’s conference broadly acknowledged these pitfalls, firmly noting that “there must be no further extensions” of the TFG’s mandate and of the need to “spend more time on the ground in Somalia in order to work more closely with Somalis on the challenging tasks ahead.”

Moving beyond Somalia’s big day in the spotlight, international efforts to prepare for the end of the transition in August 2012 and pave the way for a government with a stabilizing effect on the country will have to strike a balance between keeping an eye on the calendar and encouraging dialogue and inclusivity to ensure Somali initiative and buy-in.

“Back-room deals and decisions driven by expediency and deadline-induced panic have been the norm over the past two decades of diplomacy in Somalia and have consistently produced failure,” wrote Menkhaus. Certainly, with just six months to go, the temptation to look for shortcuts will be strong.

Meanwhile, the London conference appeared to be a motivating factor for the United Nations Security Council to approve an African Union proposal to expand the AU’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia, raising the troop strength from 12,000 to nearly 18,000. After deliberating the expansion since December, the Security Council signed off on the plans yesterday, which, with a price tag of about $300 million, more than doubles the mission’s current budget. This move, too, consolidates pressure on the TFG and its successor. As peacekeepers from an array of African countries risk their lives to roll back al-Shabaab, the Somali government must be ready to quickly step in and fill the void.

Abdi's funeral, which colleagues were afraid to attend (AFP)

The 29-year-old director of Shabelle radio network was shot to death on Saturday outside his home by unknown assailants. Abdi, known by his nickname “Fantastic,” covered corruption in Somalia.

The advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said of his death:

Violence against journalists in Somalia is sustained by impunity for those responsible. It is quite clear that Abdi was deliberately targeted. We call for a serious and impartial investigation that leads to the identification of his murderers.

His colleagues said they believe the al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab militant group that rules large swaths of Somalia by force orchestrated the killing. “Absolutely, we are sure it is al-Shabab,” Abdi’s colleague told Al Jazeera. An Al Shabab website offered up the killing as a “lesson” to other journalists, further pointing to the group as the killers.

Another journalist, Abdisalan Sheikh Hassan, was killed just over a month ago. In the past three years, 13 journalists in Somalia died in targeted violence, according to the Committee To Protect Journalists, an advocacy group that meticulously documents such killings and confirms motivations behind the killings.

The deaths — and continuing threats — are having a chilling effect on reporters in Somalia, which has lacked an effective central government since 1991. Five employees of Shabelle radio alone lost their lives in attacks, and Abdi is the third news director to be killed. His colleagues are disheartened. Station editor Muhyadin Hassan said the threats continued:

We sleep at the radio station because we can’t go home. We don’t know why we are being targeted. You can’t know who is going to kill you.

Another colleague noted that they couldn’t even attend his funeral service: “We can’t even pay respects to our fallen colleague since al Shabab is threatening us.”

Somalia’s president Sharif Ahmed, who controls little territory in the country despite foreign forces attempting bolster him, condemned Abid’s killing as a “senseless murder.” AMISOM, the African Union force fighting militants in Somalia, offered its condolences for the killing and said it would help the federal government in any investigation.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s landmark incursion into Somalia last October and ongoing military operations present some important opportunities and disquieting potential pitfalls for establishing lasting security in a region controlled by the al Qaeda-linked jihadi group al-Shabaab.

The nearly three-month long intervention is the Kenyan army’s first-ever offensive across its borders. The commotion after Kenyan soldiers crossed over into Somalia and, reportedly, then sought approval from the Somalia’s transitional federal government compounded questions about the army’s experience. It also accentuated concerns about upsetting the fragile arrangements that have enabled Kenya to, for the most part, avoid being a target of Shabaab’s deadly attacks.

But beyond the viability of the military campaign to rout a brutal militant group that has employed devastating insurgency tactics against peacekeepers and soldiers more familiar with the terrain, the question of what comes next looms even larger.

“Intervention strategies that plan the war but not the peace will fail,” Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus warned in a policy paper published last Friday by the Enough Project.

“Indifference to or wishful thinking about the crafting of a post-intervention political order guarantees disorder, and can leave both the occupied country and the intervening power worse off than before.”

The stakes of the military operation against Shabaab this time around cannot be overstated. If the current campaign fails to dramatically undercut −− if not wholly defeat−− Shabaab, the situation will be even worse, as a longtime Somalia watcher here remarked to Enough recently: “Shabaab will look invincible.”

The responsibility for coming up with the post-intervention plan lies squarely with Somali leaders and authorities but will require strong diplomatic efforts and coordination by international partners, wrote Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College. In particular, non-Somali actors must press for a governing plan that does not see the potential prizes of the operation against Shabaab −− most significantly, the lucrative and hotly contested port city of Kismayo −− divvied up along clan lines. Menkhaus explained:

The Kenyan government cannot facilitate this kind of Somali dialogue alone −− this requires broader diplomatic engagement by key donor governments from the West, the Islamic world, the United Nations, the African Union, and regional external actors. The details of a governing arrangement need to be hammered out by Somalis, not foreigners, but the general principle of open access is something external actors can and should insist on.

Kenyan officials have expressed a variety of goals for their intervention, but they boil down to the core desire for a friendlier Somali-Kenya border area — a plan long in the works, according to U.S. cables published by Wikileaks about the Kenyan government’s training of soldiers for the operation. To increase the likelihood of success, Menkhaus advises pursuing three key objectives:

(1) creating a buffer zone of peaceful, cooperative communities along the border to temper the militant al-Shabaab factions in their midst;

(2) advocating for a Jubbaland regional state that would at first exclusively
serve the important role of ensuring that local communities are represented in national institutions (in contrast to the administrative role of the Puntland and Somaliland governments); and

(3) brokering an inclusive deal and “cosmopolitan strategy” for the governing of
Kismayo, including establishing an international customs authority at the port to generate revenue for public works projects, support a lean civil service, and set an example for good management of public funds.

“Though there are good reasons to second-guess the Kenyan military intervention, it could produce an unexpected and rare window of opportunity in Kismayo,” Menkhaus wrote. “That opportunity will be missed unless diplomatic initiatives get underway immediately.”

Likewise, failure to plan for post-intervention governance in southern Somalia risks undoing any security gains the various allied forces can produce, rendering the new terrorism risks assumed by tourist-friendly Kenya pointless.

In response, Somali-Americans held a rally at the St. Paul, Minnesota capitol building last Friday afternoon “calling on banks and the federal government to find a solution to a continuing crisis affecting their families.” “The money that we are transferring is for starving people,” one rally-goer said. “This is a lifeline,” another demonstrator said, adding, “If they don’t get the money, they are going to starve, which is already they are dying day by day.” Another local Somali said, “It brings tears to us. We can’t even sleep thinking about this.” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) also spoke at the demonstration:

ELLISON: It’s important for all of us to know that as we stand here calling for simple justice that we don’t stand here alone. Our friends in the Christian community, other communities all over the state of Minnesota care about making sure that the lifeline stays in place for the people of Somalia.

Watch clips from the rally here:

In a letter to Secretary of State Clinton last month, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) highlighted three major concerns he had in cutting off the remittances:

First, it would deprive many Somalis of a major source of sustenance. [...] Second, the lack of legitimate means for the transmission of funds to Somalia may end up driving people into more difficult-to-track channels for sending money, which heightens the risk of funds ending up in the hands of bad actors. Third, an end to the flow of remittances from the U.S. to Somalia would be a potential victory for al-Shabbab, which could then claim that America was preventing needed funds from getting to suffering Somalis.

Sunrise Community Banks said last week that it “has been and remains open to facilitating money transfers to Somalia.” In a statement on its website, they said they “reached out to multiple government agencies and officials, have made a specific proposal, and have told the agencies that we are seeking a constructive exchange with them in an effort to reach an accommodation that would satisfy the concerns of those sending funds, the government and the bank.”

With millions of Somalis still reeling from the 2011 famine, the recent decision by the Minnesota-based Sunrise Community Banks to shut down its Somali remittance service is particularly difficult to bear. Sunrise’s wire services have enabled Somali-Americans to send more than $100 million back home on an annual basis. Globally, the Somali diaspora sends about $530 million home each year, which, according to a joint CAP-One Earth Foundation report, tallies that up to be about $17.3 billion since the country collapsed in 1991. Somalia is one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world.

Sunrise’s decision came about because of fears of violating existent terrorist financing regulations. Even while upholding all compliance requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act — which requires financial institutions to assist with the detection and prevention of money laundering, without additional protection — the bank deemed the risks as too high.

Sunrise’s closure tracks closely with the findings of a recent CAP report, Unintended Roadblocks, which illustrates how the numerous convoluted executive orders and vaguely defined laws related to counterterrorism present a host of expensive and ambiguous compliance challenges for organizations and companies doing business in places like Somalia. A climate of instability and unpredictability develops due to the absence of legal clarity. In a country like Somalia, which hasn’t had a central government in two decades and has been devastated by ongoing violence and political upheaval ever since, the inability — or perhaps unwillingness — of the Obama administration to clearly state what would constitute a violation of the law puts innocent lives at stake.

The Treasury Department has blogged about the Somali remittance issue recently which is an indicator of its attention to this issue, but it is no substitution for actual guidance — or even a policy memo. Similarly, simply noting that Sunrise bank has a “good compliance program, and [that] it would be rare for [the Justice Department] to prosecute a bank” does little to shift the onerous burden that results from ambiguous legal language. Humanitarian organizations like Oxfam America and American Refugee Committee released a statement in an attempt to call attention to the issue and delay the decision — but to no end.

The Obama administration should be applauded for the $870 million spent to meet ongoing and urgent humanitarian needs in the Horn of Africa, including nearly $205 million for Somalia. Over the holidays, President Obama announced another $113 million to help those in need. In addition, USAID has launched an unprecedented relief campaign, which even includes TV ads, as it attempts to raise awareness about the crisis.

This relief assistance is of tremendous importance but it has not been able to genuinely reach those in need, in part because of the brutal nature of violence in Somalia but also because ambiguous counterterrorism restrictions have rendered humanitarian groups extremely risk-adverse. Without additional protection, Sunrise felt it had no option but to shut down its wire service. With more than 250,000 people at risk of starvation, this means a vital lifeline has vanished. Ultimately, cutting off remittances won’t make us any safer, but it may contribute to greater instability in Somalia and require even more spending on humanitarian assistance.

And Funk’s work provides strong evidence that global warming has exacerbated the drought.

Funk, a US Geological Survey scientist and founding member of UC Santa Barbara’s Climate Hazard Group, deserves our attention because he is “part of a group of scientists that successfully forecast the droughts behind the present crisis,” as he explained in an August article in Nature.

In Dadaab in northeastern Kenya, the IRC gives fortified food to malnourished young children whose families are fleeing drought and famine in Somalia.  Photo: Peter Biro/IRC

You might assume bloggers who write about East Africa — confusionists who falsely assert that “Those who are familiar with Somalia’s recent history and current state of affairs do not mention climate change as a relevant factor to the country’s latest tragedy” — would actually read the relevant scientific journals.  But I find again and again that many people writing on the subject just don’t know what they’re talking about or even bother to spend even a minute or two googling the subject.

I have been reviewing the literature on drought in the past few weeks for a major article on Dust-bowlification invited by a leading science journal.  It will be published next week!

It seems increasingly clear that global warming is exacerbating the East African drought in a number of ways.   As Funk explained to me, the sea surface temperature [SST] rise in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific in recent decades are “well-correlated with global temperatures.”  This is an area where “models and observations agree.”

Funk examined the historical data to show that those rising SSTs have already had serious consequences for East Africa — in a 2010 journal article he co-authored, “A westward extension of the warm pool leads to a westward extension of the Walker circulation, drying eastern Africa.”  Here is how Nature summarized its findings in a January piece:

Ask farmers about rain, and they will tell you that the timing matters more than how much falls in a given year. In Eastern Africa, the months of the “long rains” or “belgs” are between March and June.

A new study in the journal Climate Dynamics suggests that these months will be much drier in the future in Kenya, Ethiopia and other East African nations because of climate change. Some 17.5 million people in the Horn of Africa already face food insecurity in the region, with stagnating agricultural production, population growth and recent drought….

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California, Santa Barbara, studied the flow of air currents over the Indian Ocean.

Over the past 60 years the Indian Ocean has warmed rapidly due to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The warmer Ocean heats up the air above, causing it to rise until it hits a cooler patch in the atmosphere. At that point, the hot air condenses and falls as rain (the process of convection). Unfortunately, the rain falls in middle of the tropical Indian Ocean and not over land. This region is part of a global atmospheric current called the Walker circulation.

The air, which has now lost its moisture, flows westward and descends over eastern Africa. The winds bear little rain.

Scientists say that between 1980 and 2009, oceanic heating has reduced precipitation over eastern Africa during the vital “long-rains” season.

“While there appear to be many factors that govern interannual variability in east African long-rains precipitation, convective activity during [the March to June season] has steadily declined in eastern Africa for the past 30 years as the convective branch of the Walker circulation has become more active over the Indian Ocean,” the paper states.

Funk said to me, “I think we’re already seeing the impacts from climate change” in the area.

It is important to note that Funk’s work, and other recent work, strongly suggests that many IPCC model predictions of increased precipitation in the region were incorrect:

Conventional modeling suggests that the tropical Walker circulation will become weaker due to climate change, resulting in more rainfall in eastern Africa. In the IPCC report, 18 out of 21 models predicted greater precipitation in the region. But recent studies, including this one, argue for a strengthening of the Walker circulation. This study uses observational data to show that the Walker circulation has extended westward, which makes precipitation more likely over the Indian Ocean and droughts the norm in eastern Africa.

Funk considers it a “first-order impact of global warming” that SSTs will continue to rise.  He warned in his piece, “If the climate continues to tilt toward an intensified Walker circulation, or a westward extension of its western branch, rainfall should continue to decrease in the most food insecure region of the world.”  In short, things are likely to “persist or intensify” in the coming decades.

Funk’s analysis stems from his work with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which was set up by the US Agency for International Development to help policy-makers prevent humanitarian disasters.

As he explained in the August Nature article, “We thought trouble was coming”:

Last summer, our group was meeting when a La Niña weather system was forecast. We knew that such an event could bring trouble, and we issued an alert that East Africa might experience severe droughts.

We based this conclusion on information from three sources. First, we knew that La Niña events are commonly associated with weakened rains in the Horn of Africa from October to December.

Second, from work on the ground, we knew that persistent poor rains at the end of the past decade, combined with high food prices, had weakened the population’s resilience to food emergencies.

And third, research has linked warming in the Indian Ocean as a result of climate change to drying of March-to-June rains in East Africa. This warming has intensified the negative impact of La Niña events; it was the chance that both the autumn and spring rainy seasons could be affected, back to back, that really concerned us.

Sure enough, the autumn 2010 rains were poor, or failed completely. The outlook for famine or survival then rested on the spring rains. April came without rain. May came without rain. And we feared the worst.

A key point I and others have made over and over again is that the most extreme weather occurs when climate change compounds the natural variability of the climate.  In this case, global warming appears to be intensifying the impact of the La Niña.

But you also see that the long-term drying — persistent poor rains at the end of the past decade — have contributed.  Again, climate change has contributed to the underlying problem.

It is also true that the rise in temperatures worsens any drought, by drying out the soil.  I will discuss that in greater length in a later post.

And, of course, one of my favorite recent topics of 2011, the high food prices of the past year, also makes the situation worse. As now seems clear, those high food prices have been driven, in part, by extreme weather — see Washington Post, Lester Brown explain how extreme weather, climate change drive record food prices and my various posts on “food insecurity.”

These high food prices are most likely going to get even higher in the coming decades, as population pressures collide with climate change — see Oxfam Predicts Climate Change will Help Double Food Prices by 2030: “We Are Turning Abundance into Scarcity.”

Funk explained in his piece what high food prices mean right now:

The situation on the ground quickly deteriorated. FEWS NET runs a food-price tracking system that showed that the price of maize (corn) in Kitui, Kenya, had soared by 246% in 12 months. And the value of a goat in Bardera, Somalia, usually sold to buy grain, had halved. Satellite measurements of vegetation health tracked the emerging drought in disturbing detail. FEWS NET put out a second alert on 7 June that warned: “This is the most severe food security emergency in the world today, and the current humanitarian response is inadequate.”

Two months on, the grim statistics show that the massive crisis is outstripping the international resources available to address it. Famine conditions are expected to spread farther across Somalia, and large areas of Kenya and Ethiopia could see food availability fall to crisis levels. In all, some 11.5 million people across East Africa need emergency assistance.

Funk agreed with me that the fact that Somalia is a failed state is a major reason that a brutal drought has turned into a  devastating famine:  “No doubt, the most important thing, is the mis-government,” as he called it.  But the point is that a “climate-driven drought  set up the conditions where mis-governance could lead to catastrophe.”

One final point.  It’s true that Somalia’s mis-government has meant that the drought has had a more severe impact on Somalia than surrounding states.  And it’s true that planning for the drought has helped alleviate the famine in neighboring countries.  But it hasn’t eliminated the danger in those countries.

As Dan Glickman, former Agriculture Secretary, and Dr. George Rupp, CEO of the International Rescue Committee, explained last month:

After the last East African famine in 2002, leaders had the insight to invest in long-term programs that have delivered astonishing results, including the Famine Early Warning System Network. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently noted, the number of Ethiopians at risk of starvation in that previous famine was 13 million, while in the midst of today’s crisis, that number has been slashed by more than 60 percent to 5 million.

So, no, even Ethiopia has not escaped the threat posed by this drought.  There are still 5 million at risk of starvation in that country alone.

The bottom line is that leading experts have concluded that global warming is exacerbating the East African drought, they used that knowledge to accurately predict the current drought, and they warn that unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases pose a grave threat to the food security of the region.

The confusionists who try to muddy the waters try to turn every serious discussion about the contribution of global warming to some current impact on humans, like this drought, into “you said global warming caused the problem and that isn’t true” or some such misrepresentation.  They seriously undermine efforts of scientist like Funk to inform the world community of what’s happening now and what’s likely to happen in the future so that we can plan ahead.

I have little doubt that readers without a chip on their shoulder realize that this photo (Peter Biro/IRC) is meant as a visual of the health threat the doctors warn about in the article (see comments below).

Doctor’s Warn Climate Change is “Greatest Threat to Public Health”

Medical experts have urged policy makers to take concrete steps to tackle climate change, warning that failure to do so poses an immediate, grave and escalating threat to the health and security of billions of people around the globe.

More than 100 medical and military professionals, including Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of council at the British Medical Association and Lord Michael Jay, chairman of medical relief charity Merlin, yesterday backed a statement declaring climate change the greatest current threat to public health.

The statement outlines how rising temperatures and weather instability will lead to more frequent and extreme weather events, loss of habitat and habitation, water and food shortages, the spread of diseases, ecosystem collapse, and threats to livelihood, potentially triggering mass migration and conflict within and between countries.

It also warns that humanitarian crises will impact on military resources and that the human and economic cost of climate impacts “will be enormous”.

It urges the EU to urgently adopt a 30 per cent CO2 greenhouse gas reduction target for 2020 and for the United Nations to commit to restricting the global temperature rise to 2°C as agreed at the Copenhagen and Cancun Summits.

JR:  In April the British Medical Journal warned that climate change “poses an immediate and grave threat, driving ill-health and increasing the risk of conflict, such that each feeds upon the other.”  The UK’s Hadley Center notes that on our current one related impact, “By the 2090s close to one-fifth of the world’s population will be exposed to ozone levels well above the World Health Organization recommended safe-health level.”

Europe Could Reconsider Climate Approach

In what could herald a significant shift in policy for a region that has been in the forefront of advocating action to combat climate change, the European Union is for the first time questioning whether it should press ahead with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions if other countries don’t follow.

In a document seen by Dow Jones Newswires, the European Commission’s energy department says the EU should consider whether the region should seek to switch its domestic energy base away from carbon emitting sources in the absence of a global climate change deal.

“If coordinated action on climate among the main global players fails to strengthen in the next few years, the question arises how far the EU should continue with an energy system transition oriented to decarbonisation,” the commission says in a draft of its Energy Roadmap 2050 document.

To be sure, the EU will stick by its end-of-decade greenhouse gas reductions goals and the paper could still change before it is published later this year. Even if it doesn’t, the document would only be the opening salvo in what would be a fiercely contested debate. Many member states are strongly committed to slashing emissions, and the climate change department within the Commission, the EU’s executive, would likely resist any attempt to water down the EU’s green credentials. There has been frequent past friction between the energy and climate change departments in Brussels.

Still, the EU has long been recognized as a global leader in the fight to slash carbon emissions and the region’s commitment to environmental goals has been a badge of honor in Brussels, especially at a time when the region is mired in a debt and economic crisis.

EU 2050 Roadmap Sees Big Shift Toward Renewables

The European Union must make a drastic shift from fossil fuels and derive more and more of its power from renewable sources, driving up electricity costs over the next two decades, according to a draft document seen by Reuters on Monday.

The 2050 energy road map to be published by the end of the year complements a 2050 low carbon road map released by the European Commission earlier this year, which seeks to chart a way to reducing carbon emissions by more than 80 percent by the middle of the century.

“Currently, Europe’s power system is based mostly on fossil fuels. This has to change,” the draft energy 2050 road map writes.

“Most scenarios suggest that electricity prices will rise to 2030, but fall thereafter,” it said.

The cost in energy-related expenditure could result in a rise to as much as 15 percent of a household’s income in 2030 and 16 percent in 2050, although this would include capital costs and transport fuel costs.

Why the World May be Running out of Clean Water

Earlier this month, officials in the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu had to confront a pretty dire problem: they were running out of water. Due to a severe and lasting drought, water reserves in this country of 11,000 people had dwindled to just a few days’ worth. Climate change plays a role here: as sea levels rose, Tuvalu’s groundwater became increasingly saline and undrinkable, leaving the island dependent on rainwater. But now a La Niña–influenced drought has severely curtailed rainfall, leaving Tuvalu dry as a bone. “This situation is bad,” Pusinelli Laafai, Tuvalu’s permanent secretary of home affairs, told the Associated Press earlier this month. “It’s really bad.”

So far Tuvalu has been bailed out by its neighbors Australia and New Zealand, which have donated rehydration packets and desalination equipment. But the archipelago’s water woes are just beginning — and it’s far from the only part of the world facing a big dry. Other island nations like the Maldives and Kiribati will see their groundwater spoil as sea levels rise.

Developing World Ups Ante in Cleantech “Arms Race”

Last year was a turning point in the global race to develop clean technology. It marked the first time that more new wind power generating capacity was installed in developing countries than in the rich world.

China led the way, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), and now has the most wind generating capacity in the world, thanks to favourable government policies. A record capacity of 19 gigawatts was added in China last year, taking the total to more than 42GW. India also showed strong growth, in line with the government target of adding more than 10GW of new capacity by 2012, and there are industry estimates that 100GW is possible.

According to GWEC, the growth illustrates the advantages of investing in green power. “This puts an end to the assertion that wind power is a premium technology only for rich countries which cannot be deployed at scale in other markets,” it says in its annual report. “It is also testament to the inherent attractiveness of wind power for countries striving to diversify their energy mix, improve their security of supply in the face of rapidly growing demand and relieve national budgets of the burden of expensive fossil fuel imports at volatile prices.”

EPA Farm Dust Rule A ‘Myth,’ Agency Says

The EPA is trying to put to rest what it calls a “myth” that it is going to crack down on farm dust.

In letters to two senators last week, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency won’t expand its current air quality standards to include dust created by agriculture. The agency released the letters Monday.

Republicans and some farm-state Democrats have used the issue on the campaign trail, arguing that the EPA is set to penalize farmers for everyday activities. Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said in a recent debate that the agency is “out of control” and was preparing to regulate dust.

The House GOP has pushed a host of measures aimed at weakening, delaying or scrapping environmental regulations in recent months, saying they view them as job killers. Similar efforts are not expected to be successful in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Obama administration officials have tried to deflect talk of a dust rule for months, to little avail. A statement released by the agency Monday said that “EPA hopes that this action finally puts an end to the myth that the agency is planning to expand regulations of farm dust.”

Earlier this month the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) released survey results indicating that yet another region in Somalia succumbed to official famine. Conditions throughout Somalia are expected to deteriorate even further in the coming months, particularly as the October rains approach. An increased prevalence of diseases like cholera and severe diarrhea means an already weakened population will be further debilitated.

According to the U.N.’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, an estimated 585,000 urban Somalis are projected to be in crisis by December if relief interventions are not scaled up. Worse still, the U.N.’s Food Security Analysis and Nutrition Unit for Somalia has officially announced that 750,000 people are at risk of imminent starvation and death in the coming four months.

These numbers are basically equivalent to every single person in Washington, DC — or almost everyone in San Francisco — facing starvation unless they begin receiving food, water, and medical attention from an outside source now.

In response to the lackluster international effort and the growing urgency, 20 aid organizations recently released a statement calling for an all-inclusive dialogue “to put people’s lives before politics in order to save thousands of lives.” This call for a diplomatic push is vital; the Somali population is on death’s doorstep.

A prime opportunity could present itself later this week as the international contact group for Somalia gathers in Denmark. Ironically, the cornerstone of this meeting is the recently agreed political reform Road Map, not the metastasizing crisis of epic proportions. As international donors, key regional actors, and Somali officials meet in Copenhagen, they will focus on priority tasks for reforming Somalia’s feeble Transitional Federal Government. They are likely to touch tangentially on the urgent humanitarian needs but there seems to be no plan for a robust diplomatic response. Certainly, immediate relief responses need to be linked to a more comprehensive approach if they are to be sustainable. But, crafting (yet another) governance plan for a functional Somali government just doesn’t make a ton of sense when the survival prognosis for much of the population is bleak.

The options to stop the worsening crisis are few and the likelihood of success is slipping away. The restrictions placed on aid groups — by all parties to the conflict — as well as the international donor community are significant impediments to accessing those in need. And while the United States is leading international community contributions with more than $600 million in assistance to the Horn of Africa, the U.N. appeal remains only 63 percent funded. Worse yet, with so many Somalis holding on by a thread, the increased drone attacks in Somalia create a perception problem about U.S. government priorities. Instead of rearranging the patio furniture tomorrow in Copenhagen, the first order of business at tomorrow’s meeting should be the creation of a diplomatic plan focused on enabling the unimpeded delivery of desperately needed aid.

The New York Times reports on Somlia:

In the damp, gray dawn in this remote Somali bush town, 25,000 men, women and children, their rib cages protruding, their eyes listless, shuffled with their last bit of strength today toward outdoor kitchens for a scoop of food. Hundreds, too feeble to eat, died while they waited. […]

“Here is hell,” said Mr. [Geoff] Loane [of the Red Cross], who worked in Ethiopia during the 1984-85 famine. “I thought I would never see Ethiopia again, and I didn’t think we would allow it to happen again.”

But Mr. Loane made that exasperated remark to the Times in 1992. And it has happened again.

A Google search for “Somalia famine” turns up a host of articles from the past 20 years about recurring periods of drought and devastation unfolding in the Horn of Africa. They have taken place with such frequency and little variation in details that it is a wonder how often disaster relief is discussed with little or no reference to root causes.

But the epic proportions of the 2011 Somalia famine should force a conversation, argues longtime Somalia specialist Ken Menkhaus, beginning with a focus on how the political actors largely responsible for the country’s dysfunction are now blocking aid delivery as well.

“The international response to date has been shockingly inadequate not just because funds for humanitarian aid have fallen short, but because of the absence of political will to take bold diplomatic action to remove impediments to the delivery of aid,” Menkhaus wrote in a paper published by the Enough Project yesterday.

The 2011 Somalia famine — the worst in 60 years — currently threatens three-quarters of a million people. Nearly half of the country’s population needs emergency assistance. The region is inherently more prone to drought than almost anywhere else in the world, but war and the absence of a functioning government has shredded Somalis’ ability to cope and survive, Menkhaus told Enough in an interview last month.

Despite the long lead-time the international community had to prepare for famine this time around, and years of experience providing relief in this part of the world, assistance fails to reach those who need it most because of blockages and diversions by both the militant al-Shabab group and its sworn enemy, Somalia’s U.N.-backed Transitional Federal Government, or TFG. As a result, the bulk of the assistance can only get as close as the Kenyan border region, a walk of several days. Writes Menkhaus:

This is not a famine relief strategy – it is a macabre game of “Survivor,” rewarding those lucky and strong enough to straggle across the border with a prize of shelter, food rations, and the prospect of being warehoused in a refugee camp for the next 20 years.

So what Menkhaus proposes is a “diplomatic surge” leveled simultaneously at the Shabab and the TFG to open routes for aid delivery. It must be clear to both sides that anyone found diverting or withholding aid from civilians will be held accountable. Condemnation of Shabab’s tactics is a given, but Menkhaus advocates taking a similarly hard line with the TFG.

The time frame for organizing a diplomatic surge is short, and the strongest public pressure must come from a range of Islamic actors, including some newly liberated societies in the Middle East who may still be too preoccupied internally to engage beyond their borders. But the United States has a key coordinating role to play. President Obama must personally get involved, Menkhaus argues, to jump start the initiative.

The alternatives — doing nothing beyond the typical, unsatisfactory relief effort or enabling a regional military operation to develop — are deeply unappealing, especially when diplomatic options still exist.

The 2011 Somalia famine risks spurring the post-mortem regret of other humanitarian catastrophes — Rwanda, Darfur — where hundreds of thousands of victims fell prey to the motives of ideologically driven, self-interested, and powerful in their countries. Menkhaus asks: “Will the same be true for the Obama administration and other world leaders when they look back on the 2011 Somalia famine and ask: Was that the best we could do?”

How much has the world spent on Somalia since 1991? A new report released today by the Center for American Progress — Twenty Years of Collapse: The Cost of Failure in Somalia — tried to figure out just that. Using both official statistics and some educated guess work, we estimate that the world spent more than $55 billion on Somalia since 1991. Yet, for all that spending, consider some of the truly appalling statistics that we also compiled:

– Odds that a child in Somalia will die before his or her fifth birthday: 1 in 7.4

– Difference in life expectancy between a citizen of Japan and Somalia: 32.2 years

– Number of refugees fleeing Somalia daily in July 2011: 3,500

– Number of Somalis who needed humanitarian assistance in 2010: 3.2 million

There is also a 25 percent chance that a Somali will either be a refugee or an internally placed person. See the report’s chart on Somali refugees in the region:

Indeed, Somalia is currently suffering the worst famine the world has seen in more than two decades and its civil war rages on unabated. So why has so much spending yielded so little? In large part because many of the international interventions in Somalia were so badly planned and implemented that they actually made the overall situation worse in the long run.

The world has been willing to spend billions on arms transfers, counter-terrorism efforts and military approaches, but sensible diplomacy and working at the local level to build durable peace agreements have usually been an afterthought. The United States and the international community needs to be much more principled and effective in delivering aid in order to help shape a functioning central government in Somalia that enjoys the faith and support of its own people.

Eminent Somalia expert and political science professor Ken Menkhaus spoke to Laura Heaton of the Enough Project about what’s behind the famine sweeping East Africa and lessons that we should take away from the crisis.

HEATON: The famine in the Horn of Africa was spurred by a drought, but there are plenty of man-made triggers of the current crisis. Can you pinpoint the most responsible?

MENKHAUS: This is a part of the world that is more susceptible to extreme variations in seasonal rainfall than almost anywhere in the world. One in every five years there is an extreme drought; one in every five years there is an extreme flood. Historically, local populations have developed pretty elaborate coping mechanisms. But those coping mechanisms have been overloaded in recent decades by a wide range of factors, some environmental but also by more direct man-made problems like armed conflict – all of which have disrupted the old coping mechanisms that populations used to have. Previously, people would suffer during these years of extremes, but they would usually survive. Now that’s broken, particularly in Somalia.

So what we’ve got is the worst drought in 60 years, combined with 1.4 million Somalis internally displaced by years of warfare. As we all know, internally displaced people are always the most vulnerable because they’ve lost their livelihoods and their support system at home. And this has all been unfolding in the context of a perfect storm for food insecurity globally: We have a spike in fuel prices and food prices. A big part of the crisis in Somalia is not just that people used to be able to farm for subsistence and now can’t; there are lots of people whose purchasing power has been badly eroded. There is food on the market in much of Somalia, but people can’t afford it.

Another element of this perfect storm is the suspension of food aid to southern Somalia [the area controlled by the militant group al-Shabaab] for two years. Somalia hasn’t been self-sufficient since the early 1970s; the country is dependent on food aid from World Food Program and others. But aid delivery has been suspended in recent years for three main reasons: Insecurity – In 2008 Somalia was the most dangerous place in the world for aid workers, whether international or national. A third of all casualties worldwide occurred in Somalia, so aid groups started pulling out because they couldn’t justify the risk. Second, the U.S. government’s suspension of aid due to counterterrorism grounds; allowing aid to reach Shabaab was a violation of the Patriot Act. Third was Shabaab’s ban on most international agencies from working in the areas it controlled, accusing them of being spies and of trying to put Somali farmers out of business. We heard good news this week on a shift in U.S. policy to legally protect NGOs from being prosecuted under the Patriot Act. But that third bottleneck is still unresolved. As long as Shabaab continues blocking food aid, we’re limited in what we can do.

HEATON: When Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government was created in 2004, it was seen as a step in the right direction because it represented the first government in Somalia since 1991. But the TFG has had little success stabilizing the country, and TFG officials are often accused of personally profiting from Somalia’s lawlessness. What role has the TFG played in the current crisis?

MENKHAUS: The TFG is now in its seventh year of transition and has yet to even exercise modest governance capacity in the portion of the capital where it is located. It is protected by 9,000 African Union peacekeepers, and if they were not there the TFG would be driven out in hours. They have been largely irrelevant in the current famine – they are not a cause of the famine; they lack any capacity to play a constructive role in famine response. We’re hardly even talking about them, which in some ways is a real indictment of this transitional period.

The TFG does have legal control over an area of Mogadishu where the African Union provides protection, and that is a safe haven where food aid is being brought in. Somalis are flocking there in increasingly large numbers to get assistance. But what is happening unfortunately, but predictably, is that uncontrolled elements of the TFG – paramilitaries – have been fighting among themselves and have been in some cases looting the food aid. So the TFG, in as much as it could play a role right now, is actually looking like part of the problem rather than the solution.

The one difference between the TFG and Shabaab is that we have no leverage over Shabaab, but we have a lot of leverage over the TFG. I expect that donor countries are going to be weighing the full force of their diplomatic influence on TFG members and reminding them that they will be held responsible if they divert food aid away from people in need. Keep in mind that many of these TFG officials are diaspora members who hold citizenship abroad, so they are bound by those laws too.

HEATON: How are independently governed areas like Somaliland and Puntland faring? I understand the crisis hasn’t been as severe in those areas, but it’s interesting to consider how governance factors in to either prevention or response to the famine.

MENKHAUS: Actually, the drought has been quite severe in the north of Somalia as well, but what is interesting is that the north is generally much more arid than the south. The south has rivers and generally has better rainfall. But the north, despite being more arid and being affected by the drought, has not seen famine. The reason for that is pretty straightforward: There is a social peace. There is governance. The Somaliland government has been able to maintain a reasonable level of security and stability that has allows for the flow of commercial food, and as the drought hit, for the flow of international assistance. As a result, they have been hosting more and more displaced people from the south.

But it’s not necessarily the government itself; it’s also the maintenance of a social peace. There’s an enduring pact between clans in the north, managed by clan elders, that has helped keep society there together, whereas in the south that isn’t the case. Of course these are areas that don’t have a Shabaab presence, and that’s been critical too.

HEATON: There have been conflicting reports on whether the militant group al-Shabaab would let aid groups into the most gravely affected parts of Somalia or not. But you’re in touch with people in the region all the time – local sources, aid groups, governmental entities. How has the group’s presence impacted the response?

MENKHAUS: We’re pretty sure that Shabaab is splintering now. The famine has been a source of tension within the organization, and the hope is that we’ll see some breakaway wings again that would say, ‘our people are starving, and we welcome aid.’ It would be very risky for those splinter groups, but desperate times call for desperate measures. That could open some space for aid groups to come in. That’s the last best-case scenario we’ve got left, because right now we have people flooding the Kenyan border, and that creates a massive, long-term refugee crisis that will haunt us.

It’s important to flag the breaking news that Shabaab has pulled out of Mogadishu. We’re still trying to make sense of that – Is it a tactical measure? Do they want to launch more hit-and-run attacks instead? There are a lot of possible explanations, but it could be that the social pressure now is so great that clans are rebelling, that the group is fragmenting and actually being pushed out by local Somali communities. That would be a major break for the famine response. Regardless, Shabaab’s in trouble no matter what. [The famine] is just disastrous for this group – by blocking food aid, blocking people from getting out, they have just shredded what little credibility they had left with Somalis and jihadist around the world.

HEATON: What lessons should the international community take away from this present humanitarian crisis? How should the U.S. government revamp its approach to Somalia or to the Horn more broadly to help prevent crises from continuing to occur in regular intervals?

MENKHAUS: This crisis is a potential opening, both for humanitarian response and for new policy directions on Somalia. The scale of this crisis has forced people to do a fundamental rethink of all of our policies and assumptions. It has also put political pressure on actors to do things they wouldn’t have otherwise done for bureaucratic reasons. The challenge right now is just to get food aid in. The second challenge is going to be the immediate transition toward rebuilding livelihoods, and that – between insecurity, state collapse, and Shabaab’s continued presence – is going to be very difficult both logistically and legally, because of OFAC [Office of Foreign Assets Control] restrictions on humanitarian aid [to prevent it from benefitting terrorist groups].

But the broader question is what do we do about governance in this country. Shabaab may be crumbling, but the TFG remains irrelevant and is just a source of massive corruption. I think what we’re going to see over the next year is a rethink about continuing to support the TFG versus finding alternatives. But it’s difficult to get people to think about alternatives when we’ve got such immediate problems.

HEATON: So maybe that will be the slight silver lining from this crisis – that policymakers will see that we need to approach Somalia differently.

MENKHAUS: Yes, it would be a small consolation considering the scale of suffering in the country, but hopefully some new policies can come out that will create a more durable solution to these problems.

The exact effects of the cuts are impossible to know, but the U.S.’ role in the world and international organizations will certainly be curtailed. It’s not even clear how the lead foreign aid vehicle — the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — will be able to stay afloat with the budget for its operating expenses (paying salaries and keeping the lights on) amounting to less than two thirds of what the administration asked for. At $982 million, that’s a 27 percent decrease from USAID operations spending last year.

Here is a chart looking at other important programs that also took a hit (using statistics from InterAction, a coalition of U.S. non-profits):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton already fired back at the subcommittee, telling media that the cuts were “debilitating to my efforts to carry out a considered foreign policy and diplomacy.”

Indeed, cuts to foreign assistance and international organizations (which includes the U.N.) will likely lessen U.S. influence. For example, the Economic Support Fund (ESF) allows the U.S. to give development aid to countries like Iraq, where the U.S. seeks to retain some influence as its military presence winds down. But ESF funds were cut by more than $500 million and will amount to more than 40 percent less than what the U.S. spent two years ago.

The massive cuts also run counter to the advice given to Congress in April by 70 retired top military leaders. General Michael W. Hagee, USMC (Ret.), who co-chaired the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s (USGLC) group, said at the time:

We face tremendous challenges around the world, today, and we must have our military working hand-in-hand with diplomats and development experts to meet these challenges. Without the proper resources for our civilian agencies, our national security is at risk.

Indeed, deep cuts to programs like food assistance and disaster relief aid are particularly striking as the worst drought in 60 years caused a U.N-declared famine in Somalia.

The Washington Post ran a story today titled, “Somalis Flee Famine along ‘road of death,’” which illustrates the perilous journey thousands of Somalis are making to escape the worst famine in a generation. While running this front page story in a major American media outlet is a significant step in the right direction, U.S. reporting on the crisis lags far behind the rest of the world, particularly that in the European Union. In particular, the Post’s story today omitted a crucial detail: U.S. law is preventing much needed aid to getting to famine-stricken areas in the Horn of Africa.

The crisis on the Horn — and in particular the parts of Somalia that are officially in famine –– is the result of the worst drought in at least a generation. But it has also been caused by the protracted conflict related to the 1991 collapse of Somalia’s ruthless Siad Barre regime. The ongoing violence is now perpetrated in large part by a brutal armed group, al-Shebaab, which was designated in 2008 as a terrorist group and has ties to al Qaeda. Al-Shebaab has wreaked havoc throughout Somalia and created one of the most challenging environments for aid groups to operate. They have regularly harassed and targeted relief groups and killed more than 40 western aid workers. In 2009, al-Shebaab also banned international aid agencies from operating. The group recently lifted this ban only to reverse course shortly thereafter while also claiming that the U.N. had exaggerated the severity of the crisis.

Al-Shebaab’s brutality shows little signs of abating. In order to save the millions of lives that hang in the balance, al-Shebaab needs to acknowledge the severity of the crisis, stop denying aid to dying people and allow aid groups to have unfettered access to those who need assistance.

But here’s where the other part of the story comes into play.

The United States has traditionally been one of the leading donors throughout the region, providing hundreds of millions of dollars of emergency aid on an annual basis to Somalia alone. Given the severity of the current crisis and likelihood of it worsening, the Obama administration also needs to take expedited steps to address the legal road blocks U.S.-funded relief groups are facing. If that doesn’t happen, they can’t get up and running again. As I noted on ThinkProgress last week, many U.S. funded humanitarian organizations are eager to return to Somalia and restart programs they’ve had to abandon. As for now, however, they are stuck in a catch-22. The restrictions against working in Somalia — whether the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) restrictions or Executive Order 13224 — remain firmly in place.

Members of Congress have started to express concern about these restrictions and have sent inquiries to the administration asking questions about how they can be swiftly addressed to help save lives. But the mainstream U.S. media also needs to look at the full scope of complexities associated with relief operations and do a better job of telling the whole story. Until these restrictions are either removed, or a waiver process is created, some of the most capable relief groups may be stuck waiting in the wings. And that means hundreds of thousands of people in need of assistance could be waiting for naught.

Somali children are particularly susceptible to starvation.

Yesterday, U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon issued an urgent appeal for aid from the world community. He requested $300 million in aid over the next two months, noting that Somalis are starving to death every day:

Meanwhile, as the U.N. is scrambling to get this aid money, the U.S. continues to spend nearly $300 million a month in the war in Afghanistan, as this Associated Press story from February notes:

The withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will allow for a reduced US defense budget in 2012 but the war in Afghanistan still costs the United States close to 300 million dollars a day. Under the Pentagon’s proposed budget, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will drop to $117.8 billion for fiscal year 2012, a reduction of 41.5 billion from the previous year.

While the U.S. is already a major aid donor to Somalia, the stark contrast between how much it is spending every day in Afghanistan as compared what Somalia needs to prevent mass starvation is alarming.

With more than 10.7 million people in desperate need of food assistance across the Horn of Africa, the U.N. is expected to officially declare a famine in parts of Somalia tomorrow. The last time a major famine was declared in the region was 1984-85, when severe drought killed more than 1 million people in Ethiopia.

Pervasive insecurity and cumbersome legal restrictions created to keep U.S. taxpayer dollars from falling into the hands of al-Shabaab, the armed al Qaeda-linked group that controls much of southern Somalia, has made humanitarian access difficult for many aid agencies. As a result, nearly 3 million people throughout southern Somalia are now in need of assistance. In addition, and due in part to the complexities of operating in a terrorist-controlled area, there is a $1 billion funding shortage.

Last week, in a shift that indicates the severity of the humanitarian crisis, al-Shabaab publicly reversed its 2009 ban on international assistance. At a press conference in the embattled Somali capital, a spokesman noted:

“Whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims, [if] their intention is only to assist those suffering, [international aid groups] can contact the committee which will give them access to the drought-hit areas. We are standing by to provide any assistance they need if their exact desire is helping the drought affected people. Anyone with no hidden agenda will be assisted…and those who intend to harm our people will be prevented to do so.”

Immediately after the announcement, the U.N. began delivering food and medicine to civilians in al-Shabaab territory. To her credit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent an important signal by pledging to “test the willingness” of al-Shabaab and re-start programs. The crisis, however, is urgent and many obstacles remain.

For their part, many U.S. governement funded humanitarian groups are eager to return to Somalia and restart programs they’ve had to abandon. As for now, however, these groups are stuck in a bit of a catch-22. The restrictions against working in Somalia — whether the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) restrictions or Executive Order 13224 — are still firmly in place.

Given the urgency of the crisis, restarting aid programs will require some quick work by the interagency. The legal obstacles for aid dispersal that are currently in place can be addressed by either removing OFAC restrictions or creating a waiver process that enables relief agencies to apply for exemptions. Both steps will likely encounter bureaucratic hurdles that challenge the Secretary’s stated commitment. So the sooner a path forward can be agreed, the sooner the aid groups can get their programs legally up and running.