Publisher's Synopsis
In a world awash with food, famine is certainly preventable. Yet during the Ethiopian Famine of 1983-5, and Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward" in China between 1959-61, millions of people died for want of food.;Prevention depends on three factors: accurate and timely identification of who is starving, and where they are; a concerned public who can pressurize governments to respond swiftly and effectively to need; and a host government willing to allow the media and aid agencies immediate access.;All these factors were missing in the great famines of Ethiopia and China. Instead, as this ARTICLE 19 report documents, negligence political manoeuvring, censorship and disinformation were rife in the respective governments. The aim of the report is to campaign for greater freedom of information within countries vunerable to famine, and to alert a wider public to the very real possibility that famines can and do occur silently, with massive loss of life. Those countries with relative press and media freedom remain the major agents in preventing famine because they alone have the power to persuade donor governments to act.
