The Good Judgement Open forecasting tournament gives a 66% chance for the answer to “Will the UN declare that a famine exists in any part of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, or Uganda in 2020?”
I think that the 66% is a slight overestimate. But nonetheless, if a famine does hit, it would be terrible, as other countries might not be able to spare enough attention due to the current pandemic.
The Tigray region is now seeing armed conflict. I’m at 5-10%+ that it develops into famine (regardless of whether it ends up meeting the rather stringent UN conditions for the term to be used) (but have yet to actually look into the base rate). I’ve sent an email to FEWs.net to see if they update their forecasts.
CoronaVirus and Famine
The Good Judgement Open forecasting tournament gives a 66% chance for the answer to “Will the UN declare that a famine exists in any part of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, or Uganda in 2020?”
https://www.gjopen.com/questions/1559-will-the-un-declare-that-a-famine-exists-in-any-part-of-ethiopia-kenya-somalia-tanzania-or-uganda-in-2020
I think that the 66% is a slight overestimate. But nonetheless, if a famine does hit, it would be terrible, as other countries might not be able to spare enough attention due to the current pandemic.
https://ourworldindata.org/what-does-a-famine-declaration-declare
https://fews.net/
https://www.gjopen.com/questions/1559-will-the-un-declare-that-a-famine-exists-in-any-part-of-ethiopia-kenya-somalia-tanzania-or-uganda-in-2020 (registration needed to see)
It is not clear to me what an altruist who realizes that can do, as an individual:
A famine is likely to hit this region (but hasn’t hit yet)
It is likely to be particularly bad.
Donating to the World Food Programme, which is already doing work on the matter, might be a promising answer, but I haven’t evaluated the programe, nor compared it to other potentially promising options (see here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wpaZRoLFJy8DynwQN/the-best-places-to-donate-for-covid-19, or https://www.againstmalaria.com/)
https://donatenow.wfp.org/wfp/~my-donation
https://www.wfp.org/
https://insight.wfp.org/coronavirus-wfp-ready-to-rise-to-the-challenge-8178a4d0aeac
Did you mean to post this using the Markdown editor? Currently, the formatting looks a bit odd from a reader’s perspective.
Ethiopia’s Tigray region has seen famine before: why it could happen again—The Conversation Africa
https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-tigray-region-has-seen-famine-before-why-it-could-happen-again-150181
Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:38:00 GMT
The Tigray region is now seeing armed conflict. I’m at 5-10%+ that it develops into famine (regardless of whether it ends up meeting the rather stringent UN conditions for the term to be used) (but have yet to actually look into the base rate). I’ve sent an email to FEWs.net to see if they update their forecasts.