Data-Driven Early Warning Against Drought

In October 2020, Chris Funk noted in his Nature's World View contribution that a La Ni?a weather cycle will always bring devastating drought and hunger to East Africa, which ends up threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya. He further contributed the predicted dry conditions from October to December and the possibility of another poor rainy season from March to May 2021.

Kenya's draught creates an opportunity for importers who have to wait for government tenders to whip in tax exempted famine relief. As they say, one's calamity is another's opportunity. The challenge is that the imports do not bring down the costs of food and feed...it escalates rather than reduces. The capacity of governments in Africa, to harness the power of climate and satellite data has been wanting and is itself a reason to think outside the policy institutional box. There is a need to bring in the private sector to participate in the exploration of how to support the governments' agenda in addressing the drought, food, and feed situation.

As well argued by Chris, hindsight is only good in that it allows us to respond, but not prepare. Preparation for governments that lack the infrastructure for data sourcing cannot be relied on by communities. It, therefore, becomes critical for organized frameworks of professionals and their rural communities to now come in and provide a supportive hand to their governments by investing in data and information systems, the organizational frameworks and systems to guide food systems driven preparedness and to create data sourcing and analytics frameworks that can push a policy dimension that responds to what the people guide policy to address.

At a time when communication is commonplace, there is a need to have a changed paradigm in the way people wait for government action on matters that impact them. It is critical that to look at the guiding frameworks as provided by the GODAN Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA) and its support to the implementation of the GODAN Earth Observation Data Cube, to embrace localized investment in youth-led extension and advisory for development (You Lead). This will help in promoting a food system driven transformation, which the South-South, and indeed Africa so much need.