The system for monitoring global food crises appears to have been suspended after President Donald Trump’s executive order froze US foreign aid.
The website for the US-funded famine early warning systems network (Fews Net) was not accessible on Friday. A banner said reports and data were “currently unavailable” without elaborating.
Fews Net is considered the most important tool for judging levels of hunger and preventing deadly famines. Its data helps humanitarian organisations decide how to distribute food aid to tens of millions of people around the world.
The organisations fear suspending Fews Net will put lives at risk when hunger levels are near an all-time high. Parts of war-struck Sudan have tipped into famine, while 2 million people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state are expected to face starvation by the middle of this year.
Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development, said: “Fews Net is a vital live-saving tool. It allows food to be shipped and support to be put in place before a food shortage or crop failure turns into famine.
“Without Fews Net,” he added, “global humanitarian responders will be flying blind, with less advance warning of where famine could strike.”
Trump’s executive order, one of many signed after his inauguration as president on 20 January, halted all US aid funding for 90 days while reviews were carried out.
The US is the world’s largest single humanitarian donor, accounting for more than 40% of funding last year, and the abruptly issued order has thrown the global aid sector into disarray. There are reports of healthcare-related projects in southern Africa closing within days of Trump’s order and of local workers losing their jobs.
Several charities and United Nations agencies have already laid off staff and halted work. Dozens of senior officials have been placed on leave at the US Agency for International Development (USAid), while hundreds of contractors working on the agency’s programmes have been furloughed.
The executive order made exceptions for military aid to Israel and Egypt, and for emergency food aid.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration granted a waiver for the continuation of “life-saving humanitarian assistance”, including a programme that helps 20 million people living with HIV access antiretroviral drugs.
This does not appear to have included Fews Net. USAid did not respond to a request for comment.
“Everyone in USAid is in a defensive crouch about how to proceed,” said a US official who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorised to speak. Other waiver requests covering assistance to refugees had been made but were “immediately shot down”, the official said.
“Fews Net is not strictly food aid, so it will need a waiver,” they added.
The early-warning network was set up in 1985 after a famine in Ethiopia in which 1 million people died. It monitors hunger crises in 29 countries, including Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The platform is coordinated and funded by USAid, gathering complex data on market prices, nutrition levels, livelihoods, trade and weather patterns. It classifies hunger crises according to a five-phase scale of increasing severity and predicts their trajectory up to nine months in advance.
Dave Harden oversaw Fews Net as an assistant administrator in 2016, and credits the system with preventing a famine in Ethiopia that year by giving enough warning of drought to stockpile food.
He describes Fews Net as “the gold standard for famine monitoring” that allows “deeply detailed long-term risk assessments”.
“This preparation is fundamental to the humanitarian system and saves enormous amounts of lives, reduces damage and allows for better resilience,” said Harden. “If you don’t have it, people die. That was the difference between Ethiopia in 1984 and 2016.”
