US ELECTIONS 2016: Super Saturday: Sanders and Cruz take states but Trump and Clinton hit back

Dan Roberts in Washington

A ferocious week of attacks on Donald Trump appeared to loosen his grip on the Republican presidential race on “Super Saturday”, while Bernie Sanders showed there may also be some life left in the Democratic race.

Conservative champion Ted Cruz won heavily in the Republican caucus in Kansas and won by a similar margin in Maine, before Trump underlined his national advantage with victories in Louisiana and Kentucky.

With 47 delegates up for grabs, Louisiana was the biggest prize of the night and the only state using a primary rather than caucus system. Trump has tended to do better in primaries, where his support among first-time voters and independents can overwhelm the more determined activists who back Cruz.

Trump’s victories – by 4.4% in Louisiana and 3.6% in Kentucky – were by smaller margins than Cruz won his states, meaning the Texan took more delegates on the night. The results suggested neither may reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination outright.

In a speech from Florida delivered after Kentucky was called, Trump fired a warning shot at party leaders tempted to use a so-called brokered convention to introduce fresh candidates, something that could prompt him to run as an independent.

“If they run a third party it will make it impossible for the Republican party to win,” said Trump, warning that a Democratic victory in November could result in a lasting liberal takeover of the supreme court.

“Marco Rubio had a very, very bad night,” he added. ‘I think it’s time he drops out of the race.”

Trump also defended his reference to his penis size in the last TV debate – “I didn’t bring it up, [Rubio] brought it up, but I finished it” – but appeared unwilling to let the initial attacks on the size of his hands go by without one last reference to his golf swing.

“Do I hit the ball good?” he asked. “Do I hit the ball long? Is Trump strong? Huh?”

In the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton lost Kansas and Nebraska to a resurgent Sanders campaign, although her own win in Louisiana, as expected, left her well ahead in net delegates at the end of the night.

Though not as significant as the dozen Super Tuesday contests this week or the large states voting on 15 March, the five states voting on Saturday suggested the race to secure party nominations was far from settled.

In Kansas, Cruz won by 48.2%-23.3% over Trump, narrowly missing becoming the first Republican to win 50% of the vote in any state. He also celebrated an unofficial but symbolic win on Saturday in a straw poll among activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington.

“By any measure, Kansas, CPAC and Maine are all very different sets of voters and I think what it represents is a Republican party coalescing against Donald Trump,” the Texas senator said, at a press conference in Idaho.

Rivets rattling on GOP flight #2016

Read more

Cruz had already shown his popularity among Christian evangelicals and the Tea Party with wins in Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma, but his strong performance in Maine may suggest that a wider group of Republican voters is beginning to tire of Trump’s controversial theatrics.

This week, after another raucous television debate, he was declared a “fraud” by former nominee Mitt Romney and denounced as a national security risk bydozens of Republican foreign policy veterans.

Cruz tried to paint himself, not the distant-third Rubio, as the most likely candidate to prevent Trump from winning a majority of delegates before the convention, but also an inheritor of the same anti-establishment wave. Rubio finished fourth of four in Maine, behind even John Kasich, who is pinning all his hopes on his own state, Ohio, and thus missed out on any delegates at all.

“God bless the great state of Idaho,” Cruz said. “And while we’re at it, let me say God bless Kansas and God bless Maine.” Idaho votes on Tuesday 8 March.

“Now it’s a little bit early, the votes are still being counted … but we have roughly 50% of the vote, and the scream you hear, the howl you hear from Washington DC, is utter terror at what we the people are doing together.”

FacebookTwitterPinterest Bernie Sanders greets supporters before speaking at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/AP

Analysis To Trump, or not to Trump: CPAC crowd ponders an existential question

The gathering of the conservative clans was spared a speech but as voting went on elsewhere, there was angst in the halls and out among the bookstalls

Read more

The Democratic race was harder to read, though there were signs a strong turnout helped Sanders beat Clinton in Nebraska and Kansas.

In an echo of his performance on Super Tuesday, however, Sanders faced an uphill battle in Louisiana, particularly with African American voters. Worth 51 delegates, Clinton’s southern stronghold gave her 70% of the vote.

After Saturday’s voting, according to the Associated Press, Clinton had 1,104 delegates top 446 for Sanders. The winning total is 2,383.

In the Republican race, Trump has 378 delegates, Cruz 295 and Rubio 123. The threshold is 1,237.

Sanders hopes that by showing there is still passionate support for him in states so far outside his New England stronghold, he can regather momentum for bigger battles in states like Michigan and Ohio.

“We’re in an intense stretch of the campaign where success for Bernie means the political and media establishment must take note,” said campaign manager Jeff Weaver, in an email to supporters on Saturday.

Darasa la wanafunzi 278 lina dawati moja huko Mbozi Mbeya

Katika hali isiyo ya kawaida Wanafunzi 275 wa darasa la kwanza katika shule ya msingi Itete wilayani Mbozi mkoani Songwe wanalazimika kukaa chini wakati wa masomo kutokana na uhaba wa madawati shuleni hapo.

Kwa mujibu wa Mwalimu mkuu wa shule hiyo Grace Mkoloma, darasa la kwanza lenye wanafunzi 278 lina dawati moja pekee lililopelekwa shuleni hapo na mzazi wa mwanafunzi mmoja ambaye hakutaka mtoto wake akae chini.

Uwepo wa dawati hilo moja unatoa fursa kwa mtoto wa mzazi huyo kuteua rafiki zake wengine wawili kukalia dawati hilo wakati wa masomo hivyo wanafunzi wengine 275 hulazimika kukaa chini.

Mwalimu Mkoloma amebainisha hayo kwenye mkutano wa wazazi na wadau wa elimu shuleni hapo uliofanyika jana ukiwa na lengo la kuelimisha jamii juu ya dhana ya Sera ya Elimu bure pamoja na kujadili changamoto inayoikabili shule hiyo ikiwemo mlundikano wa wanafunzi madarasani pamoja na uhaba wa madawati.

Amesema shule hiyo ina jumla ya wanafunzi 2000 wa kuanzia darasa la awali hadi la saba na wanafunzi wa darasa la kwanza pekee wapo 278 kati yao ni wanafunzi watatu tu ndio wanaokaa katika dawati moja lililotengenezwa na mmoja wa wazazi wa mtoto ambaye alifika shuleni hapo na kukuta mwanae anakaa chini wakati akisoma.

Mkuu huyo wa shule alisema kwa sasa uhitaji wa madawati shuleni hapo ni madawati 463 kwani kwa sasa shule ina madawati 248 ambayo yamegawanywa katika vyumba vya madarasa 11,hivyo kuiomba serikali na jamii kulitazama suala hilo na kulipatia ufumbuzi haraka iwezekanavyo ili kunusuru watoto hao kutofanya vibaya kitaaluma.

Mmoja wa wajumbe wa kikao hicho Mussa Mlele alisema wao kama wazazi wamesikitishwa na hali hiyo hivyo kuwataka wazazi wenzake kuungana pamoja ili kutafuta ufumbuzi wa tatizo la madawati shuleni hapo badala ya kungoja serikali akisema wanaoumia ni watoto wao wazo lililoungwa mkono na wananchi wenzake. (CHANZO: JAMII FORUMS)

SPOILS OF WAR: Angola is recycling guns from its civil war into steel to rebuild the country

Troops during the Angolan civil war. (Reuters/Wendy Schwegmann)

Over nearly 30 years, Angola’s brutal civil war resulted in the loss of around half a million civilian lives. Although it ended in 2002, the tanks, scrap metal, and guns strewn across the country serve as reminders of the strife.

Now, a local business is doing something smart with all that metal. Luanda-based K2L Capital launched the ADA steel mill—the largest in the country—at a cost of $300 million in December. According to a CNN report, the mill, based in Barra de Dande, in the north of the country, will use scrap metal and guns left behind from the brutal civil war as its primary source of raw material.

The ADA steel mill is a significant investment for the oil-reliant country. Given the recent fall in oil prices, Angola, like other petro-states, is urgently trying diversify its economy away from energy.

“ADA is part of the road to economic diversification as it will bring a new dynamic industry to Angola,” said Georges Choucair, head of of K2L Capital. Choucair reckons that the mill can save the country $200 to $300 million in foreign currency reserves by helping the country import less steel. He is aiming for an eventual production capacity of half a million tons of steel per year—more than enough to satisfy the national demand, leaving some over for export.

Although any diversification of the economy is welcome—as is doing some positive with the relics of Angola’s brutal civil war—steel is perhaps not the best route to resolve Angola’s many economic problems. For one thing, there is a major global glut of steel, pushing down prices and punishing exporters—basically, a similar problem to the oil industry. “Increasing infrastructure and improving human capital might be a better way to diversify,” Rachel Ziemba, managing director of emerging markets at Roubini Global Advisors, told CNBC.

Last November, the IMF recommended (pdf) that Angola focus on “expenditure rationalization” and “prudent spending,” amid feeling that ordinary citizens have not benefited from the country’s oil earnings while the elite live luxuriously. Angola’s government, run by president José Eduardo dos Santos since 1979, has been dogged by allegations of corruption. Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the president, is Africa’s wealthiest woman, generating scrutiny (paywall) over the origins of her fortune.

Sign up for the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief — the most important and interesting news from across the continent, in your inbox.

MOST POPULAR

Why are so many smart people such idiots about philosophy?

SPONSOR CONTENTBY GOLDMAN SACHS

Cars 2025: Infographic

FLY CLEAN: South Africa just opened the continent’s first solar-powered airport

A statue of Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah is seen at his memorial park in Accra .(Reuters/Sahra Abdi)

Ghana, the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence, celebrates the 59th anniversary of its freedom from British rule this year. According toNelson Mandela Ghana’s independence on March 6, 1957, provided much strength and great inspiration to African liberation movements. This article is a foundation essay. These are longer than usual and take a wider look at a key issue affecting society

Ghana was to become the testing ground for Arthur Lewis’ ideas on economic development. The excitement surrounding Ghana’s independence in 1957 as tropical Africa’s first decolonized territory captivated Lewis as thoroughly as it did African nationalists and Afrophiles around the world. Lewis, a St Lucian, went on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1979.

A veritable who’s who of intellectuals of African descent living in the Americas flocked to Accra. They were determined to show the world that Africans could govern themselves and achieve more for their people than the colonial rulers had. They were eager to make Ghana a shining example to inspire independence movements across the continent.

If, then, Lewis saw Ghana as a proving ground for his ideas on economic development, later scholars have viewed the Kwame Nkrumah years (1951-66) as a case study of striking failure.

From a country that seemed on the threshold of robust economic progress, it descended into economic misery and political instability.

Although Lewis was remarkably well informed on Ghana and knew many Ghanaian officials personally, he was not fully prepared for the complexities of his new position. Nor was he prepared for the fragility of Ghanaian economics and politics.

Seek ye first the political kingdom

The expectations surrounding Lewis at the time of his arrival were staggering. Since they were also highly contradictory, he could not meet all of them.

The Ghanaian politicians insisted that Lewis assert Ghana’s economic independence from its former colonial rulers and from the outside world. They looked to him to design financial institutions that would free Ghana from the British economy and promote rising standards of living as well as economic strength. Lewis was supposed to make possible Nkrumah’s famous slogan:

Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things will be added to it.

On the other hand, the British, the Americans, the international financial community, and representatives of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, wanted something quite different. They looked to Lewis to be a moderating influence – procapitalist and pro-Western.

The radical wing of the Ghanaian political elite alarmed the British and the Americans. Perhaps no-one more troubled the Westerners than the Ghanaian prime minister himself, whose political and economic preferences were far from clear at this time.

No one more troubled the Westerners than the Ghanaian prime minister himself, whose political and economic preferences were far from clear. 

The dramatic and heavily charged clash between an economic expert (Lewis) and a political leader (Nkrumah) was repeated again and again in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This was happening as African states, emerging from colonial rule, sought to buttress their political independence with economic progress. Economic advisers and ministers, some of whom were Africans and some not, regularly had to sacrifice their economic projects to the patronage-building ambitions of politicians.

Rarely, however, are observers afforded the opportunity that the Lewis Papers provide to view the underlying tensions involving the political and economic elites that were so often covered up by anodyne formal announcements. The two men saw Ghana’s independence from different vantage points even though they were united in wanting the country to enjoy economic progress.

Politicians versus economists

Nkrumah believed that the political leadership had the obligation to set the economic agenda and that economists should then design programs that would make it possible to achieve these goals.

In contrast, Lewis believed that only the economists could determine what could achieved, and only they could delineate the appropriate methods for realizing these goals. The proper role of the political leaders was to speak the truth to the people and to promote realistic views of what economic experts told them that their countries could accomplish.

W.Arthur Lewis

Arthur Lewis believed that only the economists could determine what could achieved.

Lewis complained that Nkrumah regarded economists as mere technicians, whose task it was to realize the economic dreams of the public and the politicians – no matter how unrealistic.

Nkrumah countered, depicting Lewis and the other economists with whom he worked politically naive, badly misunderstanding the pressing demands that ruling over a decolonized polity placed on the political elite.

Political leaders in fragile, newly independent polities had to build coalitions, use patronage to solidify their political authority and even coerce the opposition. They had to be responsive to the high hopes that their peoples carried about the meaning of political independence.

Even so, Lewis was hardly the dominant economic policymaker in the first two years of Ghanaian independence as some have wanted to argue. He tried to impose his precepts on Ghana for the first eight months when Nkrumah and other ministers regularly sought him out.

But Lewis ceased to count after that. He was distressed as he witnessed the alteration of his development plans to the point where in private correspondence he described the final document as “awful” and “one of the worst plans ever written”.

A policy fraught with danger

As Lewis made clear in all of his writings in this period, the most critical issue in achieving development was raising the investment rate from the customary 4% or 5% that characterized mostly less-developed economies to something in the order of 15% to 20%.

What better way to achieve such a breakthrough than to capture the windfall profits from the rising world prices for cocoa. Yet the chief economic adviser was aware that this policy was fraught with danger.

President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and president John F. Kennedy at a news conference in the White House on March 8, 1961.(AP Photo/WCA)

The state was taxing Ghana’s most dynamic and prosperous region, from which half of the country’s cocoa exports and all of its timber and gold came. It was also the area in which the opposition to the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) was the most intense. It was using a large portion of this wealth in other parts of the country.

Arthur Lewis was right that Nkrumah’s profligate use of political patronage was bound to be self-defeating in the long run. 

In his opinion, the monies had to be spent in ways that could be seen to contribute to economic and social betterment. If not, the political anger would be irrepressible.

Yet Lewis was also aware that the pressures on Nkrumah and the CPP leadership to use these funds to solidify their political support and build patron-client relationships were substantial. The tensions between what the CPP leaders wanted to do with the funds and what Lewis thought the monies should be used for were a constant source of conflict between Lewis and the CPP leadership.

Lewis was right that Nkrumah’s profligate use of political patronage was bound be self-defeating in the long run. Equally valid was his insistence that Ghana’s five-year plan needed to be fiscally sound and should be shorn of its many showy but economically wasteful programs.

But believing that Nkrumah would give Lewis a free hand in economic matters, as Lewis claimed he had been promised, revealed a high degree of political insensitivity – even naivete.

Tensions tearing at the Ghanaian cabinet

Lewis’s position from the outset was an awkward one, if not impossible. On the one hand, the Ghanaians wanted him to lead the country to economic prosperity and economic autonomy. The officials at the United Nations, who paid his salary, as well as those in Britain and the US, looked to him to steer Ghana in the direction of the Western capitalist world.

The tensions tearing at the Ghanaian cabinet, to say nothing of the pressures that came from the growing opposition in Ghana, put Lewis under even greater pressure. The left wing in the party favored radical political and economic policies. They wanted Lewis to promote state intervention in the country’s economic affairs.

Just as adamant, however, was the right wing of the party, who believed that Ghana continued to need support from the great capitalist powers in the world.

Even for an individual of the most extraordinary personal flexibility, let alone a person like Lewis, who was a rationalist through and through, believing that politicians should embrace the right economic thinking – even when the short-run political consequences were unfavorable – navigating these stormy waters would have been problematic.

This is based on an extract from W Arthur Lewis and the Birth of Development Economics by Robert L. Tignor. © 2005 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission.

Robert Tignor, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Emeritus, Princeton University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read theoriginal article.

Sign up for the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief — the most important and interesting news from across the continent, in your inbox.

FLY CLEAN: South Africa just opened the continent’s first solar-powered airport

The airport will generate energy through photo-voltaic technology. (Reuters/Enrique De La Osa)

South Africa has opened the continent’s first solar-powered airport in the Western Cape. George Airport, which serves over 600,000 passengers annually, has launched a clean energy project which, during its first phase, will contribute around 40% of the airport’s electricity needs. Once completed, the airport is expected to be totally independent of the national grid.

The airport will generate its electricity by harnessing energy from sun tapped through photo-voltaic panels which were installed at the cost of almost a million dollars. Airports Company South Africa, which runs the airport, hopes George Airport will be the first of nine airports under its control to run on solar energy as it chases the lofty goal of running airports fully on renewable energy.

During the launch, Dipuo Peters, South Africa’s minister of transport,described the solar airport project as one that “admirably demonstrates the South African government’s commitment to clean energy generation and sustainability, as well as to our country’s increasingly prominent role when it comes to global climate change issues.”

Should they need a working model to look up to for guidance, Airports Company South Africa can turn to India. Last year, at the cost of $9.5 million, Cochin International Airport Limited became the world’s first ever solar-powered airport.

The solar-powered airport is another first for the continent. Last year, Pavegen, a UK based start-up, launched a solar-powered soccer pitch, the first of its kind in Africa, in Lagos, Nigeria.

Sign up for the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief 

FORECASTING FAMINE: Science is warning us that a food crisis is coming to Southern Africa. Will we stop it?

The state of a South African maize field in mid-January. (Reuters Photo/Siphiwe Sibeko)

In April, harvest season begins in Southern Africa. An ongoing drought means the season will yield a historically poor crop. Countries including Malawi, South Africa, and Zimbabwe will have major shortfalls of grain. By one count, more than 20 million people in the region already have limited access to food—notwithstanding the drought. Without intervention, the next year will put those people and millions more at risk of malnutrition or even starvation.

But knowing all this makes intervention more possible than ever.

Famines are a powerful illustration of how suddenly nature can undercut a poor or poorly prepared society. We have paid dearly for our failure to respond to them efficiently. Economist Stephen Devereux has estimated 70 million people (pdf) were killed by famine in the 20th century alone.

Today, analysts employing new sources of information, better technology, and networks of human monitors have made it possible to foresee agricultural disaster far enough ahead so that resources can be mobilized to prevent starvation.

The impending food crisis in Southern Africa has yet to capture the international media’s attention, but it is the subject of ongoing analysis by a network of agriculturists, climatologists and economists. Global monitoring centers, such as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network(FEWS), issue regular updates. If the crisis does devolve into a famine, the world will have known it was coming for at least six months.

How to foresee a crisis

Many different organizations monitor food security around the world. FEWS is a collaboration between five US agencies and two private companies. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hosts another group called the Global Information and Early Warning System(GIEWS). Each group gathers and analyzes data until they determine it is time to sound the alarm about an impending crisis.

Last year a powerful El Niño smothered Southern Africa with hot, dry air, prompting FEWS to issue just such an warning. Many areas experienced the driest start to the growing season in 35 years. South Africa had the least annual rainfall it’s had in a century (pdf). The drought delayed planting of crops by up to 50 days in some places. According to Christopher Hillbruner, a food security analyst at FEWS, that makes it impossible for the region to bounce back this year. “Even if tomorrow it rained beautifully for two months, the crops aren’t in the ground, so it doesn’t matter,” he said.

Agriculture provides food, income and employment for 70% of the region’s population, according to the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Locally harvested grains, especially corn, are a key staple of regional diets.

The growing season for most grains, including corn, begins between October and December. Farmers harvest those crops between April and June. Any interruption of this cycle can have devastating consequences both for those rural subsistence farmers who feed themselves, as well as for urban residents who rely on food grown in the countryside.

Compounding the food supply problem, there was also a drought in the region last year. The cereal harvest in South Africa, the region’s largest producer, was down by more than a fourth from the year before.

Measuring a harvest before it happens

Satellite data is used to monitor the drought’s impact on agriculture. These “remote sensing” platforms measure changes in the air, land, and water through the spectral properties of the Earth. With decades of such measurements on file, it’s now possible not only to chart the temperature, precipitation, and other factors, but also how much today’s conditions deviate from historical norms. The following interactive map shows what proportion of normal rainfall Southern Africa has received over the last five months, using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization.

Researchers combine basic measurements to create more complex benchmarks of crop health. For example, the FAO uses an indicator called the Agricultural Stress Index (ASI) to quantify the cumulative stresses on crops. They publish ASI maps of every country in the world,three times a month, allowing for quick comparisons between different times and places. For example, the maps below illustrate the situation in Malawi at the height of the growing season, for each of the last four years.

The Agricultural Stress Index for Malawi for four successive Februaries. Darker reds indicate a greater chance of crop failure.(GIEWS)

This kind of climate analysis has developed significantly over the last decade, though Hillbruner is quick to note that improvements to FEWS projections haven’t come from big technological breakthroughs, but rather a steady progression of small changes. Their analysis relies on a “convergence of evidence” from many sources, including human monitors, where no single source is treated as authoritative.

Monitoring food economics

Projecting the future of food security requires looking closely at more than just weather. Even when food does make it to markets, it may be too expensive for subsistence farmers who have lost their main source of income to the drought. Economic variables, such as regional food reserves, transportation costs, and local price trends can be as important as crop yields.

Grain reserves will be one major difference between this year’s drought and last year’s. In 2014, a record harvest flowed into grain silos across Southern Africa. This provided an important buffer against food insecurity. Zambia, in particular, benefited from its reserves. It was able to support itself, while also exporting nearly 500 thousand metric tons to neighboring Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately, the leftovers from 2014’s banner year are now almost entirely used up. This year few countries have any significant stockpiles. Those countries that are able are already in the process of negotiating large-scale imports from Europe or South America. Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe have issued new appeals for humanitarian assistance since the onset of El Niño, according to GIEWS economist Jonathan Pound.

Production levels and stockpiles are the big picture for food security, but they don’t guarantee any particular price at the village market. Other factors, such as transportation, can cause local prices to change independent of national trends. Researchers at GIEWS and elsewhere are trying to better understand those local impacts by tracking priceswithin each country. Analysts monitor that data for sudden spikes and issue alerts when they happen. In response to food shortages and depreciating currencies the FAO issued price warnings for Malawi and South Africa in February (pdf).

Fortunately, while regional food prices are up, global food prices are way down from their peaks in the last decade. This may help offset some of the cost of large-scale food imports. Low oil prices will also reduce the cost of distributing imported food, which will further drive down prices for consumers.

Early warning provides an opportunity

According to Hillbruner, the worst of the food crisis won’t arrive until this time next year—just before harvest, when food stocks are most depleted. In a way, that’s good news. “There is an extended period of time before the worst outcomes come to pass, so we have relatively more time to act,” he said.

Food for Peace (FFP), an office within USAID, is the funder of FEWS. In an interview with Quartz, acting director Matt Nims said they’ve been able to make specific preparations based on FEWS projections, including ensuring they have fully-stocked pipelines of emergency food products, and stocking up on specific types of food in their warehouses, such as sorghum, something they wouldn’t have done in a ‘normal year.’

“It put Southern Africa on the watch as far as how much resources we’re going to dedicate,” Nims said.

Local organizers are also preparing. In late February, SADC, the World Food Programme, and the FAO agreed on ten short-term objectives, including collecting better data on those being affected and streamlining logistics for food distribution.

Malawians line up to receive food aid distributed by the World Food Programme.(Reuters Photo/Mike Hutchings)

There are good reasons to believe that a famine can be prevented. Southern Africa faced a similar drought in 1992 and avoided a famine, despite the loss of more than half of its harvest. Imports and changes in local diets compensated for the diminished local food supply.

However, what is more likely to be the on the mind of humanitarians and policymakers is the 2011 Horn of Africa drought which did cause a famine—the worst to hit any part of Africa in many years. It killed as many as a quarter of a million people in Somalia. Humanitarian groups were widely criticized for reacting too slowly, though interference by the militant group al-Shabaab was also a major factor in keeping aid out of the hardest-hit areas.

Fortunately, Southern Africa’s governments are basically stable. Large-scale food imports are already being organized in many places and relief organizations are operating in the regions with the most immediate drought impacts. Unlike other parts of Africa, conflict is not a major barrier to aid distribution.

Even so, preparing for El Niño-related problems is complicated by the need to address more urgent food crises in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Yemen. Planners worry that sounding the alarm about a future crisis can draw attention away from ones already underway.

In the long run, agricultural modernization, development of local markets, and other efforts to build up countries’ resiliency are the best solution to prevent famines. Until those efforts are further along, the world must continue to respond to the crises that inevitably arise.

It’s not yet possible to predict every outbreak of hunger before it happens. Wars erupt. Currencies collapse. Harvests fail in corners of world where monitoring programs aren’t yet active.”The world is a big place. I think we can always be surprised by things,” Nims told Quartz.

And yet, the science of famine prediction is the best it’s ever been. Year by year, data sources improve, as does understanding of the complex interplay between agriculture, climate, and economics. Advance warning may not be a magical solution that can prevent every famine, but at least in Southern Africa the world has both the knowledge and the capacity to prepare for one, and maybe even prevent it, long before it begins.