The United States, other donor nations and the international aid community have expanded their response to famine, refugee migrations and humanitarian disaster in eastern Africa in recent weeks, but threats still exist and the region may teeter on the edge of crisis for years with prolonged human consequences.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on African Affairs heard presentations echoing those points from U.S. government experts working on the humanitarian efforts and representatives from major nongovernmental organizations in an August 3, 2011 hearing.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Don Yamamoto told the panel the United States is providing almost $70 million in assistance to Kenya and Ethiopia to support the refugee camps. In total, the United States has provided almost $460 million to the overall relief effort.

The aid operation in the region has expanded in recent weeks, but some of the people most severely affected still cannot be reached. Al-Shabaab, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, stands in the way, according to Yamamoto.

"Al-Shabaab's continued refusal to grant humanitarian access has prevented the international community from responding to the drought in south central Somalia, which precipitated the famine we are seeing now," Yamamoto said. "The United States is pressing all parties to immediately restore unimpeded humanitarian access to all parts of Somalia."

Officials at the hearing were consistently grave in their assessment of the situation, but they also made a point to praise the governments of Kenya and Ethiopia for opening their borders to refugees from Somalia and assisting international efforts to shelter, feed and care for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Kenya has given over territory to the Dadaab refugee camp, the largest in the world with almost 500,000 inhabitants and growing. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Reuben Brigety told the subcommittee that about 1,200 refugees a week were arriving at Dadaab early in 2011, but now arrivals have reached about 1,200 or 1,300 a day.

Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia said Kenya deserves recognition for all it has done to help people suffering from the drought and the political instability in Somalia that has contributed to this humanitarian crisis.

"The Kenyan government and the Kenyan people have been supportive for two decades and are bearing a tremendous amount of the brunt of the burden now," Isakson said. "We need to acknowledge and appreciate what they have done in that case."

"Yes, sir, you're correct," responded Brigety. "And we do." Brigety also expressed admiration for a recent Kenya announcement that it will allow the U.N. Refugee Agency to expand the Dadaab camp. With financial support from the United States, the U.N. Refugee Agency -- also known as UNHCR -- operates and manages the camp while the World Food Programme provides meals and special nutritional support for refugees who arrive at the camp sometime after travelling for days with little or no food.

Isakson extended similar appreciation for Ethiopia's willingness to help refugees from Somalia.

Even while the international aid community is stepping up its support, these humanitarian officials laid out a grim forecast -- that this disaster in the Horn of Africa will grow worse, that more deaths will occur as a weakened population succumbs to disease and long deprivation.

Representatives from the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) urged a long-range view to help the region lift itself not only from the drought of 2011, but break free from a cycle of drought and agricultural failure. Jeremy Konyndyk, director of policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, said eastern Africa needs a vision for a better future. "Moving forward, we need to invest in a response right now that is not thinking just about the next three months, but about the next five to 10 years and trying to rebuild people's resiliency and livelihoods as quickly as possible."

Wouter Schaap, representing CARE USA, likewise urged the committee to help the region escape increasing cycles of drought brought on by climate change. "There are a lot of things that NGOs and others are doing in these areas around ensuring livestock health, ensuring improvement of natural resource management, vocational training to diversify the income streams that people have," Schaap said. "CARE does a lot of work on savings groups to help ensure asset diversification, so that people have some liquid assets during a drought."

While political instability, violence and poor governance are all cited as reasons exacerbating drought and crop failure in Somalia, Konyndyk said lack of any planning for sustainable development is also a factor. "The sorts of programs the U.S. government has funded its partners to do in Ethiopia and Kenya are a really important reason why the impact of the drought is not as severe as we're seeing in southern Somalia."

The NGO representatives all urged the senators to recognize the urgency of the Horn of Africa disaster to preserve U.S. funding for relief efforts for both the short and long terms.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)