Save the Children and Oxfam released a joint report today
entitled "A Dangerous Delay: The Cost of Late Response to Early
Warnings in the 2011 Drought in the Horn of Africa". The report
argues that early warning systems performed, but decision makers
did not respond to them. In an interview Justin Forsyth the head
of Save the Children UK likened the situation to an alarm bell
that had a very delayed effect. A lot of people were harmed by
the delayed response and the cost of dealing with hunger and
malnutrition was much higher than if it had been addressed
earlier. So why the delay? Using Forsyth's analogy, either
policymakers did not hear the alarm, did not trust it, or
although hearing and believing the alarm, they simply could not
respond to it quickly enough. The report makes some good
recommendations about amplifying the alarm (via the media and
building up capacity of those to communicate the significance of
the alarm up the decision chain). It also makes good
recommendations about helping people respond