Somalia is a country whose national pride and statehood are challenged by an unscrupulous opportunism of internal and external actors bent on profiting from the status quo. Many Somalis and non-Somalis are struggling to understand why Somalia is deprived of responsible leaders who are capable of guaranteeing the provision of basic services and protecting its citizens from disasters and diseases. Famine in Somalia is an important and innovative addition to Somali scholarship, and the authors are well-positioned to present this provoking study. Maxwell and Majid draw from their background as expatriate experts in food security to cast the 2011 famine in a new light, specifically by investigating the politics behind it. The study is both exciting and exceptional. Explaining, first, that the famine was not so much an event as a process, the authors present new insights into the actions and inactions that led to the famine, along with well-supported conclusions about the many individuals who were responsible. They stress the question of accountability throughout and insist that some individual or group should be held criminally accountable. But since they identify numerous causal factors, it is unlikely that any one villain can be singled out.

Famine is frequent in Somalia, which has also experienced a major drought at least once every decade. But Maxwell and Majid point out (following Alex de Waal and other observers) that while famines are always attributed to natural causes, politics and bad leadership are equally responsible. They distinguish earlier famines, which were indeed triggered by environmental and climatic causes, from the more recent ones, which they link to political failure, production failure, market failure, and response failure. The 2011 famine was further aggravated by a myriad of internal and external dynamics: the Western counterterrorism adventures, the regional countries’ military interventions, the Mogadishu government’s corrupt practices, and Al-Shabaab’s violent activities. They point out that the ongoing war between Al-Shabaab and the government, protected by African Union Forces (AMISOM), was a major factor that obscured the famine. AMISOM launched a series of attacks against Al-Shabaab at the very time the famine crisis was spiraling out of control. Rather utilizing its drones for tackling the famine, the U.S. used—and continue to use—them to monitor Al-Shabaab activities. As a consequence, a quarter of a million people died in 2011.

Maxwell and Majid also blame both Western and non-Western humanitarian agencies—the so-called traditional and non-traditional organizations—for responding so late to the famine. The withdrawal of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the Al-Shabaab–held territories not only aggravated the disaster but also complicated the famine response. The Turkish aid agencies were subjected to occasional Al-Shabaab attacks due to their close links to, and willingness to work with, the Mogadishu government, which appointed certain individuals to work with them. The authors also show how the phenomenon and practice of gatekeepers (the so-called black cats)—in which war profiteers manage the flow of aid food in Mogadishu—exacerbated the famine as some “businesspeople” sought to enrich themselves from the disaster. Many Somalis and non-Somalis are well-aware of the predatory use of IDP camps as a place to attract international food aid not for the relief of famine victims, but for profitable purposes.

The main victims of the 2011 famine were from the marginalized communities of the riverine and inter-riverine areas of Bay, Bakool, and Shabeelaha Hoose (Lower Shabelle), Jubbada Dhexe (Middle Jubba), and Jubbada Hoose (Lower Jubba), the very same communities that suffered the most from the great famine of 1992 (in which 300,000 people died). Maxwell and Majid do an excellent job of including Somali voices that are often suppressed in public discourses and rarely heard in academic literature on Somalia. Their study is particularly timely, since currently yet another disastrous drought is plaguing northwestern Somalia (Somaliland), northeast Somalia (Puntland), and some parts of central Somalia (mainly Mudug and Galguduud).

Maxwell and Majid also discuss communities that were less affected by the famine, including the Digil and Mirifle communities (the Dabarre, the Gelidle, the Yantar, and the Hubeer) and the Bantu/Jareer living in Baydhabo, Diinsoor, Kurtunwaarey, Qansaxdheere, Qoryooleey, and Sablaale towns. (Other important towns that are not mentioned but were relatively unscathed were Afgooye, Buur Hakaba, and Wanlaweyn. See Bernhard Helander’s Slaughtered Camel: Coping with Fictitious Descent among the Hubeer of Southern Somalia [Uppsala Universitet, 2003] about the resilience of the Hubeer community). The authors provide a thorough analysis of the socioeconomic factors encouraging both resilience and failure and also analyze why mechanisms such as “absorptive capacity” and “adaptive capacity” crumbled and collapsed in the affected areas. In some cases local livelihood systems were destroyed because of external demand; for example, sesame production was exponentially increased for export to foreign markets while sorghum—traditionally kept for subsistence and drought relief—was substantially reduced. Like the 1992 famine, the 2011 famine did not affect the pastoral nomads, since camels are drought resistant. Months before the famine declaration, many people began to “cry to” their relatives abroad, calling upon them to help at a time of difficult drought. Those who stayed suffered less death than those who panicked and fled from their territories.

Based on literature produced by specialists in the food security sector and oral interviews conducted in Kuwait, Kenya, Qatar, Somalia, Turkey, and the U.K., the book marshals far-reaching data and provides a meticulous and painstaking analysis of the collective failures responsible for the famine. It is a pity that the authors do not talk more about the role of the Mogadishu regime and counterterrorism activities in worsening the crisis, but this is a relatively minor issue. Famine in Somalia will be of particular interest to all those involved in contemporary Somali politics and conflict—practitioners and policymakers—who are urged to read this book and consider its findings seriously. Although Somalia of 2011 experienced many difficulties and challenges, these continue to exist in 2017.