Together with Africa: Responding to the famine

September 2, 2011

As accounts of the humanitarian emergency affecting some 12 million people in the Horn of Africa circle the globe, the response of Africans and the African diaspora – from Kenya to South Africa, the United Arab Emirates to Minneapolis – has been inspiring. 

• Kenyans for Kenya has collected more than US $7 million. 
• FeedKE raised more than US$15,000.
• A three-day telethon organized by the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Authority in August raised more than $17 million.
• Another telethon, organized by the South African NGO Gift of the Givers and the South African Broadcasting Corporation, raised more than $170,000.
• Ethiopians and Somalis living abroad send more than $1 billion home annually. Remittances from the Somali diaspora to the worst-hit areas in the south of Somalia are up by 10 percent.

For a sense of the scope of this generosity, see Horn of Africa: Thinking outside the traditional funding box on the IRIN website.