'I am getting older, and I know I do not have many more years left to fight this fight'

By Ronan Scully

For nearly forty years, I have walked alongside the people of Africa, the forgotten, the voiceless, the poorest of the poor. I have stood in cracked, sun-baked fields in Ethiopia where the sky withholds its rain, and in waterlogged villages in Malawi where cyclones and floods have swallowed the last harvest and swept away what little hope remained. I have knelt beside mothers who have gone without food for days so their children might eat, not a meal, but a mouthful. I have helped bury beloved animals with fathers who wept not just for their loss, but for the future that vanished with them, their livelihood, their dignity, their dreams. I have stared hunger in the face, not as a distant tragedy, but as a relentless, daily torment. I have felt the weight of its silence, its shame, its cruel persistence.

But what haunts me most is not the suffering I’ve seen, it is the growing indifference of a world that has the means to act, but too often chooses not to. I do not write from despair. I write from urgency, because time is running out, not only for those whose lives hang in the balance today, but for me. I am getting older, and I know I do not have many more years left to fight this fight. Hunger and thirst in Africa is no longer a distant threat. It is here. It is worsening. And it is being wilfully ignored. But still, there is hope if we choose to see it, to act on it, to care. The people I serve still dream. The children still smile. They still believe a better life is possible. And so must we.

A Crisis Measured in Names, Not Statistics

The most recent Global Report on Food Crises launched this last month tells us what those of us on the ground already know: nearly 300 million people face acute hunger across the globe. In Eastern and Southern Africa alone, 25 million children are growing up without consistent access to food, their childhoods lost not to disease, but to an empty plate. In East Africa, over 61.6 million people are now food-insecure. Another 50 million across West and Central Africa are expected to join them. These numbers are harrowing. But numbers alone don’t break hearts or change policies. So let me put it plainly. Hunger looks like a four-year-old girl in South Sudan chewing leaves to keep her hunger pangs at bay. It looks like a mother in Gaza who goes to bed if she is lucky to have a bed hungry every night so her children might have a meal. It’s a Kenyan farmer watching flash floods wash away his year’s hard work in a matter of minutes. It’s a young boy in Ethiopia watching his only goat, his future collapse from thirst. These are not stories from the past. They are happening now, today, as you read this and if you don't believe me just google it. And they are happening on a scale that should shake the conscience of the world.

Hunger Is Not Just a Tragedy — It’s a Tool

From the bombed-out streets of Sudan, Gaza, Kyiv and Northern Ethiopia to the scorched plains of Somalia and parts of Kenya to the floods and effects of dramatic climate change in Zambia and Malawi, hunger and thirst is no longer just the consequence of crisis, it is also being used as a weapon. It is exploited by conflict, sharpened by climate change, and sanctioned by systemic neglect. This isn’t a crisis caused by a lack of food. The world grows enough to feed every man, woman, and child. Yet we waste one-third of it. And somehow, nearly a billion people still go hungry. This isn’t about scarcity. It’s about injustice. About systems that prioritise profit over people. About political cowardice dressed up as economic pragmatism. And about the silent complicity of the global north while the global south burns.

Climate Injustice: The Scorching Price of Someone Else’s Pollution

Africa is being devastated by climate change and yet, it is least responsible for causing it. The 20 most climate-vulnerable nations contribute less than 1% of global emissions. And yet, they are the ones losing crops, livelihoods, water — and children. A recent UN report is a damning indictment: 116 million people across Eastern and Southern Africa lack access to safe drinking water. Droughts, cyclones, and flash floods, all supercharged by the climate crisis have surged dramatically. Food insecurity in Ethiopia has risen by 175% in just five years. Two in every ten people in parts of Africa now face crisis-level hunger. An Ethiopian farmer told me: “We used to know when to farm. We knew the seasons. Now we pray for rain that sometimes never comes.” This is not a natural disaster. It is the unnatural result of decisions made in boardrooms and parliaments far from the dry riverbeds of Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Kenya or the flooded fields of Malawi and Mozambique. The poor are paying with their lives for a carbon debt they did not create.

Cuts to Aid. Cuts to Hope. Cuts to Life.

Massive foreign aid cuts by wealthy nations like the US, UK, and Canada are slashing life-saving programmes. Self Help Africa like many other organisations is doing everything in its power. We're teaching climate-smart agriculture, planting drought-resistant crops, digging wells, building resilience. But with funding shrinking, we're forced into making impossible decisions, deciding who gets food, who gets water, and who doesn’t. That’s not humanitarianism, it is a global stability issue. That’s triage on a continent-wide scale. Meanwhile, wealthy nations continue to funnel money into arms and fossil fuels. We can find trillions for war, but somehow not billions for water or wheat. This is not about resources. It is about will.

Long-term development builds safer, more secure societies and helps to keep people in their own country. Slashing aid now may save money in a budget line, but it will cost the world far more in the years to come. Babies in parts of Africa especially in conflict areas like Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and other parts of Africa are dying in overcrowded clinics. Women and children are bearing the worst of a crisis they did not create. This is not just about budgets. It’s about life and live's! Ireland cannot fill the aid gap left by the likes of USAID, UK, Canada and some other prominent EU countries.

But we can lead with courage. We can stand up when others step away. Because when humanity is on the line, silence is complicity. And compassion must be action.This is more than an op-ed. It is a call to conscience and to courage. Will we continue to rank suffering by race or geography? Or will we finally rise to the truth that every child deserves to eat, drink, learn, grow, and thrive? Because if we don't, so many children in our world will have no future!

And Yet, There Is Hope — Carried in Courage

I’ve met hope. I’ve seen it in the eyes of Caroline Lekuye in Kenya, who once walked eight miles every day for water. Thanks to Irish support through Self Help Africa and Irish Aid, her village now has a well. She has more than water now, she has time. For her children. For her future. But if that support fades, so does her future. So does hope. And I’ve seen this hope reflected in Irish generosity. In Galway classrooms are raising funds. In Galway farmers are donating harvests. In Irish Aid quietly delivering where others have stepped back.

I’ve spent my life working in communities that many in the world never see. I’ve adopted my two beautiful daughters from Ethiopia. And I can tell you this, a mother and father in Africa wants the same things for their child as any parent in Dublin, Galway, London or New York. They want safety. Education. A chance. The basics of dignity. The people of Ireland have not looked away. Irish Aid, businesses, and individuals continue to stand with us in our Irish organisation of Self Help Africa. It reflects the compassion at the heart of our nation. But we must do more. Not because we are saviours, but because we are neighbours. And neighbours do not let neighbours starve. This moment demands moral courage. It demands that we not just donate, but demand change. That we don’t simply feel bad, but do better. Because hunger is not inevitable. It is a choice. And it must end.

Africa Is Not the World’s Burden — It Is the World’s Promise

We must stop romanticising resilience. Survival is not a solution. It’s not enough to admire people for enduring. We must fight so that they don’t have to. Africa is not the world’s problem. It is the world’s youngest continent, vibrant, dynamic, and innovative. It is the future. But it is being chained by debt it didn’t create, suffocated by systems that extract but do not invest. We must build systems rooted not in pity, but in partnership. Not in dependency, but in dignity. We must invest in minds, not mines. In futures, not foreign profit margins. In ways so that many don't have to emigrate or be displaced from their homes and their lands.

Silence Is Complicity. Compassion Must Become Action.

We are faced with a moral crossroads. Will we be the generation that scrolled past starvation? That looked away while children starved because they were born in the wrong place? Or will we be the generation that chose compassion, not as sentiment, but as strategy? Hunger and thirst is not inevitable. It is a political choice. It is the result of inaction, not fate. And it must end. Ireland cannot plug every hole left by bigger donors. But we can lead with integrity. We can speak when others stay silent. We can act when others retreat. Because when humanity is on the line, keeping quiet is not an option.

A Call to Conscience.

Let’s not just wish for a better world. Let’s work for one. Governments can reverse aid cuts. Media can refocus the narrative. And individuals like you, reading this now, can take action. Support Self Help Africa’s work. Fund a well. Share this story. Talk about Africa not as a place of poverty, but of potential. Visit www.selfhelpafrica.org, call (01) 6778880, or write to Self Help Africa, Westside Resource Centre, Westside, Galway.

Because in the end, we will not be judged by our wealth, or power, or progress, but by how we treated those with the least. And right now, millions of people are waiting. Not for sympathy. But for solidarity.

Ronan Scully is Business Development Representative with Self Help Africa