Madagascar Is Experiencing The World’s First Famine Caused Entirely By Climate Change

Several successive droughts have resulted in major food shortages in Madagascar. Image: frank60/Shutterstock.com

Huge numbers of people in Madagascar are on the brink of starvation following four years of exceptionally low rainfall, with climate change having been identified as the single major cause of the catastrophe. Historically, famines have been produced by a combination of factors such as pests, natural disasters, human conflict, and political corruption, yet the United Nations (UN) and other humanitarian organizations say that this is the first to be generated solely by the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

The disaster is being felt most acutely in the so-called Grand Sud in the south of the island, where 1.14 million people are currently food insecure. According to the UN, the number of people living in level five “catastrophic” conditions – the most severe category of risk – could reach 28,000 by October, while 110,000 children face the prospect of malnourishment and “irreversible damage” to their growth and development.

Madagascar is not currently experiencing any of the natural or man-made conditions that are typically associated with famine, leading officials to blame climate change for the current situation. “This is not because of war or conflict, this is because of climate change,” explained David Beasley, executive director of the UN World Food Program (WFP).

Likewise, Issa Sanogo, the UN Resident Coordinator in Madagascar, said that “this is what the real consequences of climate change look like, and the people here have done nothing to deserve this.” Given that the country contributes less than 0.01 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the fact that Madagascans are now becoming major victims of climate change seems grotesquely unjust. As Sanogo points out, “[These] communities [are] suffering daily from the disastrous consequences of a crisis they did not create.”

People living in the south of the country have previously depended on the reliable monsoon rains in order to grow crops, yet changes in weather patterns have seen these downpours become increasingly erratic. The cumulative effect of numerous successive dry years has resulted in widespread crop failure, leaving hundreds of thousands of people with little or nothing to eat.

Reports from those on the ground in the Grand Sud bring home just how dire the situation has become, with many people going to extreme lengths to nourish themselves and their children. “Families have been living on raw red cactus fruits, wild leaves and locusts for months now”, said Beasley.

Meanwhile, WFP spokesperson Shelley Thakral says that “the number of children admitted for treatment for severe acute malnutrition in the Grand Sud between January and March was quadruple the five-year average, according to the latest government figures.”

Worryingly, things are likely to get considerably worse in the immediate future, as Thakral explains that “the next planting season is less than two months away and the forecast for food production is bleak. The land is covered by sand; there is no water and little chance of rain.”

‘Nothing left’: A catastrophe in Madagascar’s famine-hit south

More than one million people need emergency food and nutrition assistance, with 14,000 already in ‘catastrophic conditions’.

People in southern Madagascar are living through the worst drought in 40 years [File: Rijasolo/AFP]

“Look at my child, please help us!” cries the woman.

She hurriedly undresses the five-year-old girl, uncovering gaunt arms and ribs that are painfully visible under the skin. The child allows herself to be pulled around before starting to shake.

The mother and her daughter live in the famine-stricken region of Anosy in Madagascar’s far south.

Penniless, they have another 10 kilometers (six miles) to walk from the village of Fenoaivo to the nearest health centre.

Further along the road, a family holds a silent vigil outside the hut where their father has lain since dying of hunger four days ago.

“We can’t bury him because we don’t have a zebu (cow). We won’t have a meal to serve, which is the most important thing for us,” says the dead man’s daughter Rahovatae by a low-burning fire.

The family has been digging for roots, the only food available while waiting for help to arrive.

“There’s nothing left here where we’ve been digging,” says Rahovatae, a mother of nine, a spade in her hand in the small wood outside the village.

She tears off a piece of one of the cactuses they have been eating for want of anything better.

“I chop off the spines with a knife. It’s horrible, it’s bitter and it sticks to the roof of your mouth. Even when you cook it doesn’t taste of anything. It’s making us weaker,” she complains.

The deserted hamlet where the family lives is one of those known to aid workers as “zombie villages” – home only to small numbers of wasted people who seem to be waiting for death.

Rahovatae and her family are among more than one million people in Madagascar in need of food in a vast area spread over 110,000 sq km (42,000 square miles).

Years with little rain have made farming impossible, while sandstorms have turned huge stretches of arable land barren – effects the United Nations has linked to climate change.

“We planted but there was no rain. Everything that’s planted dies. We don’t have anything left. Some of what we owned we sold, the rest was stolen by bandits,” says Sinazy, a mother of eight in Mahaly.

Her 17-year-old son Havanay is breaking wild nuts inside their little earth-and-straw hut.

“We eat the insides, this white kernel,” he says. “I break these from morning until dusk. But the fat can make you ill. I shake after I’ve eaten it,” Havanay says.

‘Horror film’

World Food Programme (WFP) chief David Beasley has compared the plight of the starving in Madagascar to a “horror film”, saying it was “enough to bring even the most hardened humanitarian to tears”.

Some 14,000 people have already reached a stage the WFP defines as level five, a “catastrophe when people have absolutely nothing left to eat,” says the organisation’s Madagascar representative Moumini Ouedraogo.

Neither the government nor the WFP publicly tracks the number who have died of starvation, but the AFP news agency has tallied at least 340 deaths from local authority figures in recent months.

The UN estimates Madagascar will need $78.6m to provide vital food aid in the next lean season starting in October.

Several aid groups have been handing out hundreds of tonnes of food and nutritional supplements for months with government help.

But this is not nearly enough.

Children attempt to plough a plantation using cattle in Madagascar’s Grand Sud [File: Viviane Rakotoarivony/UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs via Reuters]

In Ambovombe, the main town in the hard-hit Androy region, hundreds have been surviving without help for months.

They beg and eat food scraps from the market – even leather offcuts given to them by sandal makers.

Boiled with a little salt to soften it or grilled, the leather “tears up our stomachs, but it’s because we have nothing. We’re suffering badly”, says Clarisse.

President Andry Rajoelina has launched “several actions” since his 2019 election aimed at “a true transformation in the south,” his chief of staff Lova Hasinirina Ranoromaro said, adding that there is “strong political will”.

The president himself has announced via Twitter that “140 major projects” will be launched in agriculture, water supply, public works and health.

Madagascar has gone through 16 recorded food crises since 1896.

Researcher Paubert Mahatante, the secretary-general of the Southern African Non-State Actors Platform in Fisheries and Aquaculture, says that as well as climate change, other factors including “the population explosion combined with exhaustion of natural resources,” are to blame.

Climate change and hunger in Madagascar: a UN Resident Coordinator blog

In the south of Madagascar, known as the Grand Sud, hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from one of the worst droughts in the region in 40 years, the most senior UN official in the country has said, warning that the population is facing a severe humanitarian crisis.

Issa Sanogo, the UN Resident Coordinator in Madagascar, visited the area recently and spoke to UN News about how climate change is making life increasingly difficult for the people who live there and how the UN is helping those in need.

UN Madagascar

Issa Sanogo, UN Resident Coordinator in Madagascar, meets a young girl who had received food aid.

“We started the visit in Betroka, an area known for its insecurity because of the presence of ‘Dahalo,’ the local name for cattle rustlers, which is now faced with food insecurity due to drought resulting from low rainfall.

We then moved further south to Amboasary and Ambovombe, two areas located in arid lands, where we encountered populations dealing with crop failures. Here, almost three million people are suffering the consequences of two consecutive extreme droughts. In the town of Amboasary Atsimo, about 75 per cent of the population is facing severe hunger and 14,000 people are on the brink of famine.

This is what the real consequences of climate change look like, and the people here have done nothing to deserve this. Nevertheless, I have seen that they are ready to take up the challenge, with our immediate and medium-term support, and get back on their feet.

In the village of Marovato, located only eight kilometers from Ambovombe, the people have not been targeted for help, as they are considered part of the urban population and therefore do not meet the criteria for support.

However, these people have been significantly affected by sandstorms; all of their croplands are silted up, and they cannot produce anything. Most areas in the south are already in a nutritional emergency, so it is inevitable that women and children will be even more affected if we don’t intervene.

UN Madagascar

Climate change has led to creeping desertification in parts of southern Madagascar.

The UN System at work

By integrating and coordinating more aspects of humanitarian aid, we can have an ever-greater impact on communities, and I saw for myself the many ways in which the different parts of the UN System are working closely together, in areas ranging from food distribution and sanitation initiatives, to antenatal and reproductive health care, and agricultural projects. 

For example, we stopped in the village of Behara, which is classified as being close to a famine-like situation. This is one of the communities suffering daily from the disastrous consequences of a crisis they did not create. There, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) were providing nutritional packages to children under five, to treat moderate and severe acute malnutrition. The same communities also benefited from reproductive health services, prenatal and obstetric consultations provided by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). 

The people of Behara are constantly in debt: every time they receive cash transfers, they have to pay back their debts before they can even think of catering to their own needs. We need to create a safety net to help these people trapped in a vicious cycle of debt, and the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are exploring ways to integrate health care and services that can improve livelihoods, so that the population can become more resilient.

Moving further south towards the sea, I was given hope by the enthusiasm I saw from people working on a sisal plantation, which has received assistance from the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Some four hectares of sisal has been planted, but the people we met wanted to grow more, because sisal helps to stop the progression of the sand dunes, which protects their farmland from sand invasion that can make it harder to grow crops.

UN Madagascar

Many children in the south of Madagascar are suffering from malnutrition.

‘The hunger season is coming’

Donors have given generously towards the Flash Appeal we made at the beginning of the year, providing more than $40 million, which has enabled some 800,000 people to receive life-saving assistance.

However, the drought has gone on for longer than expected, and the funds received are insufficient to cover current and future needs. We must act now: annual crops are a problem that will probably become a new crisis in the next agricultural season. Resilience is the solution, and there is an urgent need to implement long-term solutions led by the Government. However, right now people need support and humanitarian assistance to get them on their feet and making a living.

The hunger season is coming. We are in danger of seeing people who have endured the prolonged drought enter the lean season without the means to eat, without money to pay for health services, or to send their children to school, to get clean water, and even to get seeds to plant for the next agricultural season.

If we don't act soon, we will face a much more severe humanitarian crisis.”