Appealing for action using Rhetorical Strategies.

What would it take to curb hunger menace in Somalia

Faisal Dahdal

Colorado State University – Global Campus

ENG 102 – Composition II

Prof. Kunze

06/18/2017

ABSTRACT

Somalia is a sub-Saharan country in Africa with a population of 12 million people(Bremner, 2017). The country is faced with hunger calamity contributed to majorly by drought and terrorism activities. This research seeks to address the mitigation measures that would be taken to solve hunger disaster in Somalia. In so doing, recommendations have been made to offer tentative solutions to the danger.

What would it take to curb hunger menace in Somalia? The hunger jeopardy in Somalia is greatly influenced by two key fundamental factors. The rise in terrorism activities and drought. Somalia being a sub-Saharan country, it experiences long durations of drought in most part of the year. Crops, as a result, cannot do well unless mitigation measures such as irrigation are put in place. Today, more than half the population is starving with a larger number of deaths due to hunger reported daily. The worst recorded being between 2010-2012 (Alvar,2012) where more than 260,000 people lost their lives due to famine and in 1992 when 220,000 people were confirmed dead (Clark,1992). Drought causes crop failure and death of cattle leaving the pastoral communities living in Somalia at the mercy of the world.

Nevertheless, Somalia faces a major security threat posed by radicalized group Al-Shabab that has destabilized the government and paralyzed government operations. The group launches frequent attacks on government officials and have in the past cordoned certain towns and made them their territories. Notwithstanding, the radicalized group perpetuates corruption and smuggling of illegal goods and money laundering activities (Peterson, 2014).

Curbing the hunger in Somalia calls for two critical interventions. World organizations and unions must deal with the two urgent issues affecting the country. The terror group and their activities must be stopped. Intervention by external countries and unions by sending troops and channeling resources towards the fight against the radicalized group. In the past, the group is in record interfering with government projects by demanding a lumpsum amount of money. The end result is a country in the double tragedy of both drought, famine, and terror.

To bring to an end the food menace, donors and world organizations should channel funds to Somalia to establish irrigation systems and alternative cropping patterns that are adaptable to drought (Murray,2015). With the rising population, Somalia is at risk of losing more lives in the near future than experienced before. The country has no stable government and thus intervention by superpower countries like the United States in the fight and subsequent stabilizing of agriculture sector would save more lives both from the danger of famine and attack by the illegal militia group.

The approach of using external countries with a well-informed security system is the remedy to save the country. The access of sophisticated machinery and tracking systems by GPS can be fundamental in locating hiding places of the radicalized group. Administering direct combat is the best strategy that would ail the country to acquire stabilization(Peterson, 2014). Once the influence of the radicalized group is tamed, there would be room to implement projects like irrigation, infrastructures such as roads that can facilitate movement of the farm inputs and machinery.

However, the approach taken to curtail the radicalized group may cause more harm and damages. In the event of direct combat, there are expected retaliatory moves from the terror group. These could involve grenade attacks, suicide bomb killers and occasional attacks which can further destabilize the country. More soft ways may be explored to intervene the situation. Such approaches like consensus to get to know the grievances of the radicalized group thereby signing a peace agreement.

In conclusion, the hunger menace in Somalia is a function of drought and terrorism. Terrorist activities have hindered any mitigation measures to curb the drought that adversely affects Somali citizens. Their interference with governmental and non-governmental organizations activities have led to a continued period of long suffering without intervention. By suppressing the terror group and heavily investing in agriculture, Somalia once again would have shy of relief from hunger.

References

Peterson, S. (2014). Me against my brother: at war in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda. Routledge.

Clark, J. (1992). The debacle in Somalia. Foreign Affairs, 109-123.

Alvar, J., Vélez, I. D., Bern, C., Herrero, M., Desjeux, P., Cano, J., ... & WHO Leishmaniasis Control Team. (2012). Leishmaniasis worldwide and global estimates of its incidence. PloS one, 7(5), e35671.

Murray, C. J., Laakso, T., Shibuya, K., Hill, K., & Lopez, A. D. (2007). Can we achieve Millennium Development Goal 4? New analysis of country trends and forecasts of under-5 mortality to 2015. The Lancet, 370(9592), 1040-1054.

Bremner, J. (2017). Population, Food Security, and Climate Change: Africa’s Challenges. In Africa's Population: In Search of a Demographic Dividend (pp. 403-414). Springer International Publishing.