MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network - or FEWS NET - is used around the world to predict and respond to food crises. Now it's gone dark because of Trump administration's spending cuts. Here's reporter Gabriel Spitzer.
GABRIEL SPITZER, BYLINE: FEWS NET was just about to turn 40 this year. It was born in 1985 in the wake of massive famines in Africa, especially in Ethiopia, where nearly 1 million deaths shocked the world and inspired the charity single "We Are The World."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE ARE THE WORLD")
USA FOR AFRICA: (Singing) We are the world. We are the children.
SPITZER: Under President Reagan, the U.S. responded to the crisis by creating a system to predict famine before it happens. Dave Harden oversaw FEWS NET during the Obama administration, including another dark period for Ethiopia. In 2016, FEWS NET forecast a major drought there and warned the risk of famine was high.
DAVE HARDEN: So we were able to send a disaster assistance response team to Ethiopia in advance and prepositioned food and other aid, dramatically different than what you had in the mid-'80s where millions of people died. In 2016 in Ethiopia, nobody died.
SPITZER: FEWS NET combines NASA satellite imagery with climate data and information about conditions on the ground, producing detailed maps showing the risk of famine in different places. The information is widely used by governments, aid groups and the U.N. But since late January, the USAID-funded website where those maps normally appear has been offline.
ANDREW NATSIOS: It's like having a truck full of grain but taking the steering wheel away.
SPITZER: Andrew Natsios is a professor at the Bush School at Texas A&M. He ran USAID during the George W. Bush administration.
NATSIOS: The FEWS maps are the steering wheel for the aid programs.
SPITZER: Natsios' old boss was a noted supporter of FEWS NET. President Bush would reportedly ask to see the color-coded maps every month to stay ahead of food crises. Natsios says the early warning system costs a pittance compared with the value it creates.
NATSIOS: I don't know what they're thinking. We spend $15 billion a year on humanitarian assistance. A lot of that is food. The notion that we can't have a couple of million dollars spent on analyzing the areas of the world that we should be sending the food doesn't make any sense to me. It's silly.
SPITZER: A lot of food assistance is now on hold following President Trump's dismantling of USAID. Emergency aid is supposed to be exempt from the freeze, though humanitarian groups say much of the food still isn't flowing. The State Department did not respond to NPR's request for comment. Alex de Waal is a professor at Tufts University and head of the school's World Peace Foundation, which supports research on justice and nonviolence. He says even if the aid is released, getting it to the right place depends on FEWS NET.
ALEX DE WAAL: This is a key intelligent system of the global humanitarian system. And that prop has just been knocked out from one day to the next by the Trump administration for no good reason.
SPITZER: Experts say FEWS NET was far from perfect. In 2020, it largely missed signs of a famine in South Sudan. Last year, FEWS NET issued a famine alert for the Gaza Strip, which it then retracted under criticism from the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Still, de Waal says overall, FEWS NET has a good record of getting it right. And it's hard to make foreign assistance less wasteful and more efficient if you don't have a picture of where the needs are.
For NPR News, I'm Gabriel Spitzer.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOMMY EMMANUEL'S "THE MYSTERY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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