700,000 million euros

(ES)

The euro has been subject to speculative attacks on financial markets. The EU has responded in support of countries with debt problems providing a supportive response to strengthen the euro. Now it's about creating a permanent tool to anticipate and resolve possible future crises. It is the European Financial Stability Mechanism.

Finance ministers of the 17 euro-area countries have signed the Treaty establishing the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). The ESM's initial maximum lending volume is set at €500bn.This amount ensures the best credit rating in the financial markets to raise funds at low interest. Its capital stock of €700bn will ensure that lending can effectively be made up to this amount and consists of €80bn in paid-in shares and €620bn in callable shares.

As the number of hungry rises, more resources will be needed to meet the need for food assistance. WFP estimates that around USD 477 million is needed to address hunger needs in the region through to the end of the year. Currently, it has a 40 percent shortfall in funding, with about USD 190 million still needed.

EUR 700,000 million = USD 990,000 million
EUR 337 million = USD 477 million

The financial stability of Europe is 2,000 times the food needs of the Horn of Africa in the next six months. Or in other words, the necessary funds to protect EU countries from speculative attacks on financial markets, and thus can be financed at low interest, would cover food needs in the Horn of Africa over 1,000 years. Clearly, this simple calculation does not take into account the increase of the displaced population, the duration of the drought, armed conflict or the increase of food prices in the coming years.

The global economic crisis impoverishes us all, including the poorest. And we are now experiencing the consequences: in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya 10 million people, of whom 2 million are children under 5 die of hunger. Drought is not what kills, not the long marches through the desert for weeks with little food and water up to the crowded refugee camps. It is not lack of resources of humanitarian organizations, or inability to act in conflict zones.

They are killed by indifference, forgetfulness, good intentions and minimum actions. Because in the face, repeated over and over again, of the child dying, just skin and bones, we see only the face of one more child of the thousands who die in Africa every day. And it is not one more girl among others, she is Habibo. She is one year old and suffers severe malnutrition and is on the verge of death. His mother's name is Marwa Maalin and pray God to heal her little daughter.

The denunciation of injustice is the origin of the commitment. Photography is the witness of suffering. Both of us produce emotions such as anger, anxiety, compassion, helplessness, shame, despair ... let us convert these feelings into the engine of solidarity action.

Ten million people without food or water, walking weeks in the desert, they see their children die on the road and that are crowded into refugee camps deserve more than compassion. We can all do something to make the face of Africa is that of this girl in a refugee camp in Kenya.

A young girl in an IDP camp in Kenya’s Rift Valley © Jerry Riley/IRIN

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