Good morning everyone.

On behalf of the Congressional Hunger Center, I also want to welcome you to this very special forum on the current famine in the Horn of Africa and long-term proposals on how to prevent this tragedy from repeating itself again and again.

I want to thank the Congressional Hunger Center’s International Policy Director, Margaret Zeigler, for all her hard work in coordinating today’s presentations.

I am especially pleased to be here with Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson, with whom I serve as Co-Chair of the Congressional Hunger Center.

I do not want to take up much time with opening remarks because I believe we are all here to learn from the insights of our distinguished panelists.

But I do want to mention a couple of concerns.

In January, when the 108th Congress convened, our distinguished colleague from Virginia, Congressman Frank Wolf, held a forum in January on the famine in Ethiopia. He had just returned from a trip to the Horn of Africa, and the pictures and information he brought back were horrifying.

Even more horrifying is the nightmarish knowledge that we have all seen this before – in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

According to USAID, at least 14 million people are now in need of emergency assistance in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Sporadic and inadequate rainfall over the past 18 months has once again resulted in a full-scale food and humanitarian crisis. Livestock have died; crops have failed; and the poor people of these nations have sold off the majority of their possessions in a last ditch effort to meet the immediate needs of their families and children.

In a nation where more than 80 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, those possessions are meager indeed.

As Save the Children has stated, “Imagine that everyone in America’s heartland has lost their crops and livestock – and are trying to live on a couple of slices of bread a day for months.”

In Ethiopia alone, the estimated 12.6 million people affected by the crisis -- many of them children -- will require over 1.5 million metric tons of food aid during 2003.

In Eritrea, 1.4 million people out of a total population of 3.3 million – that’s more than 40 percent of the population – require urgent assistance. And at least another half million are teetering on the edges, ready to fall into crisis in the absence of humanitarian intervention.

Today’s panelists reflect not only the best efforts of the United States to respond to the current crisis, but many of our most forward thinkers in the area of development.

What must we do – at the federal level and at the non-governmental level – to help break the cycles of poverty and famine that have so devastated the Horn of Africa?

What programs are already in place and achieving success – in Africa or elsewhere – that we can draw upon as models?

What is the cost of investment in long-term development in the Horn of Africa?

What are the costs, both human and material, if we fail to invest today in long-term solutions?

And what must the Congress, working with the Executive Branch, do to ensure that longer-term development programs are funded and achieve the desired results?

To set the framework for today’s discussion, we will begin with a 3-minute video on the importance of food aid and how it works in the field.

Following the video, we will introduce all of our panelists and immediately go to their presentations.

Following the Video on Food Aid –

Recently, the Famine Center at Tufts University and the Harvard School of Public Health issued a very important study, Risk and Vulnerability in Ethiopia: Learning from the Past, Responding to the Present, Preparing for the Future. This study details why it is important to saving lives for the U.S. and the international community to maintain high levels of support during the current emergency. More importantly, the study describes why we must invest in long-term solutions so that the people of Ethiopia and elsewhere can escape the trap of hunger and poverty.

These are the issues that our distinguished panel will address. I would now like to introduce all of our panelists, beginning with ---

INTRODUCTION OF PANELISTS

MS. LAUREN LANDIS, DIRECTOR OF THE FOOD FOR PEACE OFFICE AT USAID.

We are very privileged to have Director Landis with us this morning. PL 480 Title II food aid is the primary resource of the United States for responding to critical food needs of vulnerable people around the world. Food for Peace seeks to ensure that Title II emergency food aid is provided to the right people in the right places at the right time and in the right way. I would like to note that America has responded generously to the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and we need to thank USAID Administrator Natsios and Ms. Landis for this fact. Ms. Landis was in Ethiopia and Eritrea in July, along with senior UN officials, and I very much look forward to her remarks.

If you go to InterAction’s Web Site, you will find a listing of 28 non-governmental organizations directly engaged in emergency assistance and long-term development projects in the Horn of Africa.

In August, eight of these groups – Africare, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Church of Latter-Day Saints Charities, International Orthodox Christian Charities, Lutheran World Relief, Save the Children and World Vision – announced their renewed commitment to addressing Ethiopia’s immediate and long-term needs.

We are privileged to have representatives from these NGOs here with us today, as well as from Friends of the UN World Food Program. They reflect the very best of the American people, and reflect our dedication and commitment to breaking the vicious cycles of hunger and poverty that afflict over 800 million people around the world.

OUR NGO PANELISTS ARE:

• MR. DENNIS WALTO, WHO IS WITH THE ETHIOPIA COUNTRY OFFICE OF SAVE THE CHILDREN
• MR. RICK LEACH, DIRECTOR OF FRIENDS OF THE UN WORLD FOOD PROGRAM.
• AND MR. DOUG NORRELL, WHO WORKS ON LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS FOR CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES

SO, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, I WOULD NOW LIKE TO TURN THE MICROPHONE OVER TO OUR FIRST SPEAKER, DIRECTOR LANDIS.

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