East Africa hunger crisis campaign

We worked with our campaign supporters and other NGOs to raise the alarm on catastrophic hunger in East Africa. While the UK government underwent many changes over that time, Concern’s supporters helped us to hold the UK to its promises to people around the world living in extreme poverty.   

Throughout that time we:  

• Handed in a sector-wide petition with 35,000 signatures form the public, calling for action 
• Sent Prime Minister Liz Truss a letter signed by the CEOs of over twenty humanitarian organisations with recommendations on how to prevent catastrophic loss of life 
• Raised our voices outside and inside Westminster to ensure that the UK government knew that the public were #HungryForAction 
• Colleagues responding to the crisis in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and South Sudan also shared their experiences directly with MPs and civil servants in the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office through briefings, webinars and parliamentary events. 

In May 2023, we saw the Minister for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, announce £143 million in funding towards the East Africa Hunger Crisis. This was a positive step, but still fell far short of £861 million provided in 2017-18 during the region’s last major hunger crisis, and the amount needed to help people recover from the impacts of the crisis. 

While rains have finally arrived in East Africa, after five consecutive failed seasons, the humanitarian crisis is far from over. The heavy rains also brought with them severe flooding, further affecting millions of people who were already food insecure. Close to 40 million people were still facing high levels of food insecurity in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and South Sudan at the end of May 2023. It will take years to recover from this historic drought. 

Read about how people have been affected, and how they’re responding. 

Concern will continue to push for greater action from the UK government and international community to make sure the people affected are not forgotten.