<Article>The Anatomy of Somalia's Famine, 1992 : Entitlement Approach

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It has been reported that more than 350,000 people died from starvation in Somalia in 1992. The drought, civil war, and the lack of infrastructure such as railway and roads were pointed out as the causes of this famine. We discuss, however, in this paper that none of the traditional factors including food shortages, population pressure, and natural disasters is the true and direct cause of the famine. Certainly, the severe droughts in two years in a row for late 1980s and early 1990s had some effects. At the end of the Cold War, Somalia has ceased to receive any foreign aid, of which the major categories had been food and weapons from the Soviet Union in one period and from the United States in another period. The major victims of this famine were pastoralists, and especially women and children. Another group of famine sufferers were agricultural workers and landless farmers, who exactly are the food producers. There are some evidence which show that at the height of the famine, in the summer of 1992,the per capita food production, i.e., food availability per head of the population in Somalia was not significantly lower than other countries in the region such as Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. In order to understand the true causes and mechanism of the famine of Somalia in 1992,it is argued that Amartya Sen's "entitlement approach" provides a framework for the most comprehensive analysis. Food was used as weapons in the fights among clans. International food aid, UN Peace Keeping Organization, and the U.S. forces under the UN, were all ineffective to prevent this massive famine. Comparing food production and population even in one country may be misleading. Any theory of famine which emphasizes single cause for famine occurrence will fail to explain such a complex phenomenon as famine.
山口県立大学の論文
2000-03-25

<Article>The Anatomy of Somalia's Famine, 1992 : Entitlement Approach

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山口県立大学 | 論文

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