A crisis appeal to support the millions of people at risk of starvation in east Africa has raised £30m in a week.
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) launched its appeal for funds on 15 March, amid warnings that the world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of the second world war.
Famine has already been declared in parts of South Sudan, and Somalia, areas in north-east Nigeria and Yemen are said to be on the brink. Roughly 20 million people are affected.
In Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia and South Sudan, drought and conflict have left millions of people in need of food, water and medical treatment.
Social media and SMS have helped to speed up donations from the British public to donor agencies, after the DEC broadcast appeals for cash to the region led by Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne and Golden Globe winner Bill Nighy.
“It’s doing phenomenally well,” said Saleh Saeed, the DEC’s chief executive.
“DEC members are working around the clock to get clean water to millions of people in desperate need. Here in the UK people up and down the country have shown huge generosity, but the humanitarian needs across east Africa are on such a large scale, we all need to do more.”
The UK government has said it will match pound for pound the first £10m donated by the public.
Initial analysis by the DEC suggests the scale of the public response may be stronger than that of the previous east Africa appeal, before the famine in Somalia in 2011. Changes in the way donations are received makes direct comparison impossible, however.
Saeed said that while DEC appeals continue to rely on strong broadcasts from television news outlets, social media had played a “phenomenal” role in the current appeal, motivating additional fundraising from volunteers.
Social media has been instrumental in other public fundraising campaigns for the region, most notably one for Somalia, led by the actor Ben Stiller.
Stiller’s campaign has raised more than $2m (£1.6m) to fly food and water to Somalia through Turkish Airlines. The movement began after a French entrepreneur and Snapchat star, Jérôme Jarre, campaigned for the airline – the only one to fly to Somalia – to donate a plane to carry food to the country.
The initial target for the campaign, which has a GoFundMe page called Love Army for Somalia, was $1m. With that goal reached, the objective now is to raise as much as possible through what it is hoped will become an ice-bucket-type viral challenge, where others are nominated to donate.
Stiller nominated Cara Delevingne, Emma Watson, Lewis Hamilton and Alyssa Milano to give to the cause.
Last week, Stephen O’Brien, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, warned that without collective and coordinated effort “people will simply starve to death” and “many more will suffer and die from disease”.
He said an immediate injection of $4.4bn for Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and north-east Nigeria plus safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid was needed by July “to avert a catastrophe”.
The largest humanitarian crisis was in Yemen, he said, a country engulfed by conflict, where two-thirds of the population need aid.
O’Brien said Somalia needed $2bn this year. Only 7.4% of that money has been received by the UN so far.
He said current indicators mirror “the tragic picture of 2011 when Somalia last suffered a famine”. But he added that the UN’s humanitarian partners now have a larger footprint, better controls on resources, and a stronger partnership with the new government, which recently declared the drought a national disaster.
Of the $4.4bn urgently needed for food security, health and nutrition, only 10% has been committed, according to the latest UN figures. The US and the UK have traditionally been the largest donors to the countries concerned, but Donald Trump has already proposed deep cuts to foreign aid.
