Six African governments and the UN have announced a new road map to take on the root causes of rising hunger across the drought-plagued Horn of Africa.

Government representatives of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda finalised the new agreement together with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation after months of planning and two days of talks in Nairobi on Tuesday.

"The hard work starts now," said Kjell Magne Bondevik, UN Special
Humanitarian Envoy to the Horn of Africa. "We have identified what works
best and where. The biggest challenge is to scale up successes to
extinguish hunger in the Horn rather than just fighting fires each time one
breaks out."

More than 70 million people, or 45 per cent of the total population, live in abject poverty and face food shortages in the Horn of Africa. In the past six years, four major droughts have hit the region, while Bondevik warned that the food shortages were only hitting the Horn of Africa with increasing frequency.

"The Horn is hit by some of the world's most severe food crises and they are coming faster and more furious because of climate change, environmental degradation, political and armed conflicts and a host of other factors," he said.

"We all now need to show the commitment to end this cycle of despair and disaster, which if not stopped could next see over 20 million people in need of assistance."

The road map sets out a strategy to scale up prioritised interventions across the six African countries and will be supported by the UN FAO and World Food Programme.

"None of this will work, however, unless the best responses are escalated across the region," said Bondevik.

The UN FAO's Assistant Director-General Tesfai Tecle, meanwhile, said that the scourge of hunger in the Horn of Africa would not be solved without "comprehensive partnership".

Paul Gulleik Larsen, Director of the Office of the WFP Executive Director, echoed Tecle's sentiments.

"Breaking the cycle of hunger in the Horn of Africa requires joint efforts
by all stakeholders - governments of the region, UN agencies, NGOs and donors," he said.

"The challenge of meeting Millennium Development Goal One of cutting hunger in half is huge, but it is doable. The fact that six countries have joined this consultation shows an encouraging level of political commitment."