“[A]s the worst drought in 60 years again devastates the Horn of Africa, throwing as many as 12 million into desperate hunger … there are hopeful signs that today’s drought need not result in the tens of thousands of deaths that we saw in earlier decades,” World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran writes in the Reuters blog “The Great Debate.”

After describing numerous projects the WFP and its partners have been working on to improve drought resiliency, she writes that “new information and innovations are not enough. Defeating hunger and malnutrition requires political resolve. It requires leaders who will stand up and say, ‘Not on my watch.’ The kind of leadership we are seeing now from the G20 and the African Union who have put food security at the top of their agenda.” Sheeran concludes, “We have the knowledge, the tools and the experience to make sure that never again will a mother endure the agony of holding her child as they starve to death” (8/2).