FRANCAISAction Contre la Faim - Comments
5) The institutional learning
-Thanks to its experience, ACF is aware of the political issues at stake in its programmes and analysed it in the review Géopolitique de la faim. Nevertheless, the way the organisation estimates humanitarian needs and works out the number of beneficiaries, gone from 3 to 5 million according to its own figures between 2001 and 2003, is questionable. In the ruins of the Somali capital city, for instance, ACF counted the displaced persons living in so-called “camps”. Year after year the organisation reported a nearly uninterrupted increase in the number of such camps and of their inhabitants. Such a trend though is misleading. Indeed, the few expatriate employees seldom remained in Mogadishu more than six months because of their insecure position. ACF alone could not assess properly all the camps: short of being able to circulate freely and without armed escorts, its personnel could not get a clear picture of the whole town at a given time. While there was a high turnover amidst the population of the camps, the situation didn’t allow to conduct a reliable survey and to avoid double counting: were counted both the closing camps and the opening ones. Some sites were counted several times. Somali is a Cushitic language transcribed into the Roman alphabet in 1972. Thus the word Ali is written Cali; and Hashi, Xashi. Consequently it happened that the same camp entered twice in an alphabetical list, depending on whether anEnglish or a Somali spelling was chosen. Moreover, most of the names of these camps were given on the spot by various migrants on the move. Either the name of the camp changed depending on the day it was assessed, or it was given in Somali, Arab, English or Italian – for example the industrial zone of Mogadishu was twice counted under the name of factory or warshadaha.
