¹ú²úAV

 

Melissa Fleming 00:00

It's a shocking and terrible fact that right now in our highly developed world children are still dying of hunger. My guest this week, Reena Ghelani, sees too many starving children.

 

Reena Ghelani 00:14

You know, you expect children to cry if they're suffering, but they don't even have the energy to cry. And the other thing is I found that the mothers or the fathers, they're also silent. You know, luckily, many children survive when they get treatment. They are able to keep living.

 

Melissa Fleming 00:40

Rena is the United Nations Famine Prevention and Response Coordinator. We spoke just after she got back from drought-hit regions in Ethiopia. She told me what she had seen there. From the United Nations, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night.

 

 

Reena Ghelani 01:07

What I saw was¡­ I mean, famine and hunger is the face of a child. And so, we saw many, many, many, many families at the brink of devastation. But I also saw a lot of hope. So, you know, we staved off a famine in Somalia last year. Our humanitarian colleagues on the ground did a remarkable job. And I heard a lot of voices of families who had faced the most horrible things, including losing children, but very much pleading for looking forward and saying, you know, ¡®Help us to help ourselves get out of this.¡¯ And it was¡­. It's been quite humbling to see people actually climb out of such horror and actually say, ¡®We're not giving up.¡¯ So, you know, for me, I took away from that that we can't give up either.

 

Melissa Fleming 02:01

You just described famine is the face of a child. Why did you say that?

 

Reena Ghelani 02:09

Well, most famine, hunger actually, is¡­children are most affected basically by hunger. And those who die first are usually the children, and really young ones. I've seen¡­ You know, I've been in countless malnutrition wards, and it's just crowded. They're crowded in Ethiopia, Somalia, northern Kenya with babies who basically are dying of disease because they're malnourished from not facing enough food. So, it's famine is the face of children. It is a child's face.

 

Melissa Fleming 02:46

I'm getting this picture myself from the Ethiopian border with the South Sudan. And I remember one of those scenes and babies being weighed and their stick arms being measured. Why is it¡­? Because we know that the parents will do anything. They'll stop eating themselves to feed their children. Why is it that the children end up malnourished so much quicker than adults?

 

Reena Ghelani 03:17

It's largely just because their bodies are¡­ the nutrients that they need, they're not getting. And they don't have the level of ability to fight disease yet that we have developed as adults. And so, often it's caused by malnutrition, but it's the diseases that kill them first.

 

Melissa Fleming 03:38

Okay, so the parents are hungry too.

 

Reena Ghelani 03:41

Absolutely. And when I was in Ethiopia, in Tigray actually, what we found was that communities, like you said, parents will do anything. We'll all do anything to save our children. And it was the younger women actually that were facing malnutrition first. Because they had¡­ and usually lactating women and women who¡¯ve just given birth and have young babies. They will stop eating to ensure that their children get the food first. And so, you do often see also that sort of situation where it's the mothers also.

In the Somali region of , the communities displaced by the historic drought need emergency life-saving assistance.

But the women I met this week asked for this assistance not to be forever, and move to sustainable support to help them rebuild their lives and dignity.

 

Melissa Fleming 04:15

Right, because to produce the breast milk you actually need to eat more.

 

Reena Ghelani 04:17

Exactly. So, it's a double bind, right?

 

Melissa Fleming 04:22

You were actually in Tigray, I know, for months. And before that, before this job, you were actually working at OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. And I know that office and the Secretary-General and everyone was calling for access into Tigray. And now you had access. And one of those big concerns was that people were starving. We couldn't get humanitarian aid in. So, what did you see? Can you just describe what you encountered.

 

Reena Ghelani 04:53

So, I was with a group of emergency directors from across the UN and NGO system. Some of my heroes today actually. And we were the first¡­ We went in a convoy, and we were the first to actually refuse to be denied access. We sat at checkpoints for hours and days until we finally got through. So, we sort of broke through. And then when we crossed it was literally days after the conflict had finished or suspended at that time, I will say. And we went to villages that had not yet seen any humanitarian workers.

Apart from what you see when a war just ends - death and destruction - we met with communities there who had faced horrendous torture and violence. Lost everything. And in some ways, when you see people so traumatized, what you see is that they've lost all dignity, and they're trying to process what happened. And you see this very blank, expressionless look. And that was community after community that were just starting to face what had happened to them.

And then we did see, on the other side, you know, the aid workers start to ramp up the operations and get out. People had lost everything. They had lost everything. And we did see very, very hungry people. But what we saw was a lot of people who had been horribly tortured as well.

 

Melissa Fleming 06:28

Can you just describe the scene. Were you meeting them in centres? You said they had lost everything. Were their homes destroyed?

 

Reena Ghelani 06:37

Often after war, going into war sites, you see such hatred, and it's in the form of, you know, a hospital that had literally nothing left. I mean, people had taken the chairs, the tables. It sounds¡­ It doesn't sound violent but that is an extremely violent thing to do. To rip a society of even a pen in a school. And then what we had seen was communities where the women had been raped. The men had been killed. And yes, their homes had been looted and destroyed. But most of all, you know, what you saw was a complete destruction of a community. That's what that sort of violence does. It rips people apart, as well.

 

Melissa Fleming 07:33

You describe this as if this is something that you've seen before.

 

Reena Ghelani 07:39

Unfortunately, too much. I've worked for over 20 years in the humanitarian world. And so, I've travelled and been to many, many countries. And it is a way too common a sight.

 

Melissa Fleming 07:53

So, you're saying that the face of hatred in the aftermath of war is what has been stripped from people. Everything that gives them gives them a sense of dignity.

 

Reena Ghelani 08:09

Exactly, exactly. It's such an important word, the word dignity. And we say it, but you actually see it when it's been stripped from someone. You can physically see it on their faces. You know, people have a hollow look. It's expressionless. And maybe that's shock. But I often see it years later, as well. And for me, it's someone who hasn't yet found a way to reclaim their dignity.

 

Melissa Fleming 08:33

So, when you went into Tigray with the colleagues from the different agencies you had aid with you.

 

Reena Ghelani 08:42

Yeah.

 

Melissa Fleming 08:43

And you were able to provide some relief?

 

Reena Ghelani 08:45

Yes, we were. Basic medicines that had been still in the warehouses. A lot of our materials as well, the UN and NGO materials, had also been stolen. But we had trucks coming in that because we had broken through, now the trucks were all lined up outside to come in as well. So, we were able to start up operations pretty quickly. Emptied the warehouses with whatever was left and started getting the trucks moving straightaway.

 

Melissa Fleming 09:13

Did you see any faces change when they saw that they were going to get some supplies?

 

Reena Ghelani 09:22

I think the communities that had perhaps been a little bit more shielded from that level of violence, there was a sense of at that time joy that the siege in a sense had been broken, and that there was hope coming. So, yes. And then I think for a lot of the mothers who were very concerned about the state of their children, the situation of their children, that was also¡­there was also relief that they were going to be able to get medical care and food etc.

 

Melissa Fleming 09:51

I mean, you're responsible for famine prevention, and you just spoke about a situation in the aftermath of war that you witnessed or conflict. We're seeing hunger as a weapon of war being deployed so often. Is that something that you're working on and something that you're trying to deal with?

 

 

Reena Ghelani 10:15

Yes, it's an issue that unfortunately is also still way too common. I think the first time I really saw hunger being used so blatantly as a weapon of war was Syria, actually, in the early days when they were sieging communities. Unfortunately, that still happens a lot. And conflict is the biggest driver of hunger. Climate is fast catching up. And of course, we have this economic situation. That's a complex cocktail there. But it's still conflict that is the biggest driver of hunger.

 

Melissa Fleming 10:49

I mean, when you¡­ maybe back to that day and those days that you spent in Tigray, did you get a chance to speak to some of these families? And what did they tell you?

 

Reena Ghelani 11:02

Yes, we spoke to a lot of communities. We spent a lot of time with particularly women. They wanted the world to know what had happened to them, and they wanted justice.

 

Melissa Fleming 11:12

And you're saying that what had happened to them was the worst of all things that can happen to a woman short of killing them.

 

Reena Ghelani 11:22

Yes. When we would ask women, you know, ¡®Tell us about who is most likely to be attacked.¡¯ It was the first time where I'd heard, ¡®Any age, any woman.¡¯ It's almost systematically going through communities to strip them of who they are. And it didn't matter what age you were.

 

Melissa Fleming 11:48

What did they say? I mean, you said that you spoke to them. Obviously, you came. You brought relief. You brought food. You brought medicines. But you asked them to tell you what did they need. Was there a common [inaudible] request?

 

Reena Ghelani 12:04

They wanted safety. They wanted security. They wanted to know that this wasn't going to happen again. They wanted to feel that they could live in their home safely. Because without that everything else is¡­ it's irrelevant, really. And then very quickly once you see that communities have some boundaries of safety and security - usually created by themselves, you know, by banding together - then it very quickly becomes the basic needs. But later on, it's always education. Always education. Everyone wants their children, all of us want our children to have an education, to have what we didn't have, right? A better future, a brighter future. And that it always ends up there at some point.

 

Melissa Fleming 12:53

So, just back to¡­ You described young children who were malnourished. What is it like when a child arrives to one of these facilities and is malnourished. What is the treatment?

 

Reena Ghelani 13:10

They're usually treated for whatever disease it is that's brought them there. And then they are given basic vitamins pumped back into their body to help them develop back their immune system and give their body nourishment so their body organs can function again. Usually, when you go into some of these clinics where the worst of those affected are, I often describe it as this sort of deathly silence. It's quiet. And I always found that shocking. The first time I went to one of these centres, I¡­ You know, you expect children to cry if they're suffering, but they don't even have the energy to cry. So, once¡­

And the other thing is I found that the mothers or the fathers who brought them there, they're also silent. It's a very eerie ward to be in. But you know, luckily, many children survive when they get treatment. And once they get the nutrients they need in their bodies, treated for the diseases they have, they are able to keep living. It's those who haven't made it there that I think we really should be worried about.

 

Melissa Fleming 14:23

You said that conflict, and we talked about famine and devastation as a result of conflict and war was one of the biggest drivers of famine. But you also mentioned climate. And I believe you spent a lot of time also in Somalia, which has a combination of both. What is your experience in Somalia been with trying to prevent famine?

 

Reena Ghelani 14:51

The issue is that Somalia is constantly tinkering on this edge. And it has this mix of conflict climate change largely. I mean, the first million people who moved and were displaced last year were not displaced because of conflict. It was because of the drought. And they moved because they couldn't continue their livelihoods. And of course, there's also a lot of economic issues there. So, I strongly believe one of the parts of my job - the prevention part - is really exploring with the UN, World Bank, other financial institutions, climate financiers, and NGOs and governments to see if we can build on something that doesn't keep taking us back to this humanitarian brink. And that's actually¡­ There's a lot of potential.

I was in Somalia in 2005. And when you look at, you know, people often look at countries and only see the negative. I have been absolutely thrilled to see the progress that has been made in Somalia. You know, there is potential for Somalia now. It's at the cusp. We can actually work with the government there, I think, to make sure we're not constantly talking about famine every three years in Somalia. So very complex, very challenging, but there really is hope now.

 

Melissa Fleming 16:17

Excellent. That's hopeful. But meanwhile also in Africa there's this horrific new conflict in Sudan. And already people are talking about hunger. What can you say about what is happening? And how concerned are you for people going hungry in Sudan?

 

Reena Ghelani 16:37

I think all of us are absolutely devastated for what's happening in Sudan, and the rapid unfolding of the crisis there is going to lead to a massive hunger crisis. Already 6 million people on the brink. A lot of the food baskets of Sudan are inaccessible. And this is a massive number of people. It's already also affecting other countries. I was recently in Central African Republic. And the north of that country was dependent on the trade routes through Sudan. And so, we actually had to support the government in getting basic supplies, not humanitarian. Basic supplies up to the north because people were going hungry. And the roads get cut off in Central African Republic so you can't actually¡­ trade doesn't work from other parts. So, it's got a broader regional ramification as well.

 

Melissa Fleming 17:32

And then, of course, all the refugees streaming into countries like Chad that have no resources to support them.

 

Reena Ghelani 17:40

Exactly, exactly. If we don't see some progress towards some level of negotiations, mediation, and peace, then the ramifications are horrendous, actually, for the region.

 

Melissa Fleming 17:57

What's keeping you awake at night?

 

Reena Ghelani 18:00

I would say¡­ I'm going to tell you a story if that's okay. I met¡­ In this job, I met a woman and I tell this story often because she's also someone who's told me, ¡®Tell my story.¡¯ And her name was Kadiata. And we met in an ad hoc displacement camp. It wasn't one that was organized with assistance. And we were talking, she was stirring a pot. She had three or four young children around her. And she had said to me¡­ I said, ¡®What was your day like today?¡¯ And she said that her younger son had been sick, and so she had to pay for medicine. But he'll be okay.

And it was starting to get dark. I went and talked to other people from the community around her. When I was coming back, I saw she was still stirring this pot, but there wasn't a fire on. So, I went over, and you know, with my translator that was assisting us, asked her, ¡®Oh, you're still cooking. What are you cooking?¡¯ And she opened the lid and showed me, and it was empty. And what she had said was that: ¡®You know, my children will slowly fall asleep, and they won't realize they're not getting dinner tonight.¡¯ And she said, ¡®And tomorrow they will be fed. I will find a solution tomorrow. But today I had to spend the money on the medicine.¡¯

And this is not a one-off. An NGO colleague had told me a similar situation that he had seen in Somalia a few months earlier. So, there's many Kadiatas out there. And I thought, ¡®What keeps me awake at night?¡¯ Yes, of course, it's the Kadiatas, but it's actually her, you know, her drive to find, in an odd way, a solution. And that tomorrow she's going to wake up and fight again to find that way of feeding her children. So, what keeps me up at night is - What more can we be doing? What else is there out there that we haven't thought about that we should be finding ways to support the Kadiatas of the world to feed her children tomorrow. They keep trying. We keep trying.

 

Melissa Fleming 20:03

It's actually really, really quite sad stirring an empty pot.

 

Reena Ghelani 20:09

I know. It¡¯s a devasting story.

 

Melissa Fleming 20:11

To give them¡­ until they fall asleep. That is, I can imagine¡­ I mean, after Russia invaded Ukraine, I think the world woke up to the realization that there's so much dependence by many countries on Ukrainian grain, on Russian fertilizer. And this had an immediate effect on food prices around the world. What effect is this having in the places that you're most concerned about?

 

Reena Ghelani 20:43

What it does say is that our food systems, the way the world feeds itself, is broken. And it's too dependent on three or four large suppliers, and corporations. And so, we have to start looking at diversifying so that we don't get into a situation where one war can have such rippling effects across the food system around the world.

 

Melissa Fleming 21:10

A war in Europe.

 

Reena Ghelani 21:11

A war in Europe. Yeah.

 

Melissa Fleming 21:13

Where many of the countries dependent on that grain actually could be growing it themselves.

 

Reena Ghelani 21:21

Yeah, absolutely. They've got¡­ You know, the amount of arable land in Africa that's not being fully cultivated. There's¡­ The potential is there. It has massive natural resources, minerals. So, you know, rethinking some of the ways that Africa is being governed is going to¡­ It's the future. It'll not only have the potential to feed Africa. Africa has the potential to feed the world.

 

Melissa Fleming 21:54

We've focused a lot on Africa just now and a bit on Syria. Afghanistan, though, is a country that you've also spent time in and I'm wondering how concerned are you about the potential for famine in Afghanistan now?

 

Reena Ghelani 22:16

With the situation in Afghanistan, I mean, the devastation that's happened with women's rights, it affects the food system. And it just affects how you feed families and how you produce food. The economic situation of Afghanistan can't cope with this, and we will see the most vulnerable suffer. And as we get, you know, into the winter seasons, that's when you see hunger climb in Afghanistan, normally. And we will continue to see that.

I was in Afghanistan, actually, just before the Ukraine war. I was there in Kandahar the week that the war started. And we were there again with a group of emergency directors from the different UN agencies and NGOs. And we had visited girls who were¡­ You know, at that time, the Taliban had not pronounced about education and the lack of education for girls and working rights for women. But the young girls then, they were absolutely devastated. And they were talking about the fact that they would be unable to work. And many of them were supporting their families, unable to go to school. All of this leads to, you know, hunger basically. They were actually identifying that as one of the issues. How will we feed our communities if we can't work?

And the other thing we did see¡­ We went to, again, one of these nutrition wards. And there would have been three or four children to a bed. And this was the better hospital. And then we heard that the war in Ukraine was likely. It was exactly the day before the tanks went in. And we were sort of, we were just devastated because we were devastated for Ukraine, devastated for the world. But devastated because who's going to focus on these children now? The world's attention is going to turn and we're going to struggle now to keep this going. And I think Afghanistan is facing a little bit of that attention, but not really the sort of, you know, programming that needs to happen right now.

 

Melissa Fleming 24:37

You're Australian. You were born in Uganda. Why were you born in Uganda? I'm just curious.

 

Reena Ghelani 24:44

So, I'm from a family of Indian origin. And we, for a number of generations were in East Africa, Uganda. And when¡­ They went there as traders and to, you know, back in the day to build railway tracks. And they grew into a business community, basically my family. And when Idi Amin, who was quite a dictator, had exiled any Asian Africans, Ugandan citizens, my family fled. My father actually had fled a little bit earlier. He had seen the signs coming. He¡¯s a doctor. And we were fortunate enough for the Australian Government to sort of say anyone that was on their books that had applied, they would take them. So, we were the lucky ones. We had a place to go. And he was able to, you know, immediately work in the medical field. But many others back then, they fled as refugees and restarted their lives.

 

Melissa Fleming 25:45

How old were you when you had to leave?

 

Reena Ghelani 25:47

I was almost three.

 

Melissa Fleming 25:48

Okay, so you don't remember much about your childhood in Uganda.

 

Reena Ghelani 25:53

I don¡¯t remember much at all. No.

 

Melissa Fleming 25:54

But obviously, you¡¯ve still kept a kind of connection to Africa.

 

Reena Ghelani 25:57

Absolutely. I love East Africa very much. And we've gone back. And it's a really interesting time. I have two young boys. And they're learning a lot about¡­ My partner is Belgian. So, they're learning a lot about this other side of their family that wasn't so apparent before.

 

Melissa Fleming 26:16

Because you're living now in Nairobi,

 

Reena Ghelani 26:18

In Nairobi.

 

Melissa Fleming 26:19

That's where you're based.

 

Reena Ghelani 26:20

Yes.

 

Melissa Fleming 26:21

What inspired you to want to work as a humanitarian?

 

Reena Ghelani 26:25

I think I was always interested in social justice. Because of my family's background, it was always an area that I was interested in. And it was only when I was travelling¡­ A lot of Australians take a gap year because it's so far and so expensive to travel from Australia. You take a year, and you backpack around the world. I actually ended up in Kenya. Ran out of money. Looked for a job. Started working for the Australian High Commission there on the refugee programme. And that's when I had an aha moment. Working with refugees¡­ I was on the resettlement programme, so it was the nice part where people get a future and get, you know, a hope. So, I thought it was really a moment where I thought this is sort of the area I want to be in. And yeah, so I returned to Australia. Did international law and ended up after a couple of years of working with the aid programme working with the UN Refugee Agency. And my first assignment was Iran. It couldn't have been more fascinating.

 

Melissa Fleming 27:28

Wow.

 

Reena Ghelani 27:29

Yeah. So that's where the Afghanistan sort of link started.

 

Melissa Fleming 27:32

Because there were so many refugees settling into Iran, which is actually a very generous country when it comes to accepting refugees from Afghanistan.

 

Reena Ghelani 27:44

Absolutely.

 

Melissa Fleming 27:45

And giving them many rights.

 

Reena Ghelani 27:48

Yes. Yeah, very generous.

 

Melissa Fleming 27:50

You mentioned that you were able to work on the kind of happy side of refugee protection, and that is those few who get to be resettled to other countries. I mean, I think in your current job you must be seeing so much that isn't very hopeful. A lot of people just trying to get food to stay alive. Looking for justice. Looking for a longer-term future and stability. Does that get¡­? How does that leave you? I mean, you must feel frustrated a lot.

 

Reena Ghelani 28:24

You know, it's a job where you can either get frustrated. Or the reason I do it is because I want to be part of the change. I actually do see opportunities and hope and, you know, communities themselves see it. So, I sort of feel that, carry that, and really want to be part of a change. You know, level the playing field. Look at sort of how do you lift people out of these situations so that they can help themselves and have their own, build their own lives. I do see it. I don't see it all negatively.

 

Melissa Fleming 29:04

And many of the places you've worked in are not easy for women to operate in. They're not easy for women to live in. But also, for women humanitarians I think to operate in. Have you ever had a problem being a woman?

 

Reena Ghelani 29:21

The old days, I think the humanitarian field was seen as a sort of a not really a place women. It was more of a cowboy scene. You might be familiar with that. It's changing. It is changing. We are in leadership positions, which changes the working environment. Safety is often an issue. I think we have improved on that side of it. No, it hasn't always been easy, but I think it's getting better. And I would absolutely encourage any young woman to really keep engaging and talk about any of the constraints that prevents them from doing the job. Because then we can start to fix them. We [women] have to start talking to each other about what it is that holds us back in the humanitarian world, because there are ways to work around that and find solutions.

 

Melissa Fleming 30:16

I mean, many of humanitarian colleagues¡­ I mean, most humanitarian colleagues are working in places that other people are running away from. They're working in places where they can't bring their families, that are called non-family duty stations. Is it particularly hard for a woman humanitarian worker to, you know, keep a marriage, have a family? Or is it difficult for both man and woman?

 

Reena Ghelani 30:45

I think there's particular challenges for women. And particularly around if you do decide you want children that starts to affect where you can be. And I think it is different for men and women in that regard still. But, you know, I've worked in many places where we've looked at how do you get young women to stay and find ways to make that balance with family life. Like I said, I think we're getting better at this. It's still very difficult. Sometimes young women do say, ¡®It's one or the other.¡¯ And I say, ¡®No, it's not. Let's look around. There's periods of time where maybe you can't work in the danger zone. But there's other opportunities for you in the field, right? There's other ways of continuing your career.¡¯

 

Melissa Fleming 31:40

You're in Nairobi, and able to travel to the field but come home to your two children.

 

Reena Ghelani 31:44

Exactly. Exactly.

 

Melissa Fleming 31:46

How old did you say they are?

 

Reena Ghelani 31:47

So, my two boys are Kian and Emile. They¡¯re 13 and 11.

 

Melissa Fleming 31:53

What impact do you think your work has had on their lives? How has it influenced them?

 

Reena Ghelani 31:59

They are very much exposed to a range of cultures and different types of people in our world. They've travelled. They've actually spent most of their childhood in New York and now moved to Nairobi. So, we haven't moved around that much while they've been, they've been quite stable. But they are fascinated in the world. And so, you know, my son woke up and was the one that told me what had happened in one part of the world the other day. So, they're following things that perhaps at their age I didn't follow. So, they¡¯ve broadened I think their horizon.

 

Melissa Fleming 32:37

What did they say after they arrived in Nairobi? What was different for them having lived in New York, having grown up in New York?

 

Reena Ghelani 32:45

Yeah, it was very different for them. They obviously loved the green and, you know, being able to run around in a garden. So, all of that part of it was great. And they love the people and the music and the sounds and the life. So, I think they're happy. They love New York, but Nairobi has been a nice change for them.

 

 

Melissa Fleming 33:09

And you mentioned how people have told you how they want a better life for their children. How can we as the international community get better at giving them that?

 

Reena Ghelani 33:22

We absolutely have to ensure that we continue to save lives, the immediate response, but we have really got to speed up how we support governments to ensure that people have a future, not just a life today. And there, you know, there's a lot more risk taking involved.

 

Melissa Fleming 33:47

Can you see a future where there'll be no more hunger?

 

Reena Ghelani 33:51

I have to believe that there's going to be what I call a famine-free future.

 

Melissa Fleming 33:55

Reena, thank you so much.

 

Reena Ghelani 33:57

Thank you. Thanks, Melissa.

 

Melissa Fleming 34:01

Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place.

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit un.org/awake-at-night. Do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people find the show.

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell, to Adam Paylor, and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Geneva Damayanti, Tulin Battikhi, and Bissera Kostova and the team at the UN studio. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier. Additional music was by Pascal Wyse.