The Middle Ground: Telling a Better Story about the Famine in the Horn of Africa

It’s been two months since global officials have officially deemed the famine in the Horn of Africa as the worst to hit the world in a century. During those same two months, I’ve released Coffee Story: Ethiopia and have been speaking to audiences about a broader landscape of possibility in Ethiopia that includes coffee. Coffee Story is the result of five years of work, during which time I never imagined the book would be released to this crisis. But now, eight weeks into speaking, writing, and thinking about the reality of the Ethiopia situation—one with massive problems, massive potential, and massive changes happening daily, I can tell you that this dialog might just have been what this book was made from since the beginning.

Jonathan Ledgard, the Africa correspondent for The Economist magazine, released an article on September 5^th that asked how much further we’d come as a global society since the famine of the 1980’s. He interviewed me for the piece, and what follows are my extended answers about the response to the famine, the pattern of media, and patience.

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Three Ways to Do Something About Famine in Africa (From Forbes.com)

A guest blog by Majka Burhardt on Frederik Allen's Leadership blog on Forbes.com.

...There is enormous opportunity here to rewrite the long, sad story of famine and turn it into something much more promising and much more accurate for the Ethiopia of today as it becomes the Ethiopia of tomorrow—using Ethiopia’s own resources. Ethiopia is not Somalia, but all of the countries in the Horn of Africa are being lumped together in the current headlines in a devastating manner, in part by association and in part because the very real drought does cut across national lines. The Horn is a region of more or less than a million square miles with between 100 million and 200 million people, depending on how you define it. The region’s entire story is much more complex and ultimately hopeful than just the famine. Focusing on only the famine is like saying that all of Europe is financially and morally bankrupt just because of the recent doomsday chatter about Italy....

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