The United States system to monitor famine worldwide has been taken in a non -communication mode among President Donald Trump's order to freeze 90 days on almost all US foreign assistance.
FIDESNET has been created after a famine in 1984 in Ethiopia, as part of the global effort to prevent the devastating impact.
It was designed by US government agencies, including the US Agency for the US Development Agency and NASA.
It is a golden standard in combining weather data and political analysis of drought and food insecurity worldwide.
Besides a model run by the United Nations, the system allows relief officials to target the enemies enemies, and is attributed to alleviating the effects of devastating drought in the Horn of Africa in 2016.
It has been used to try to target aid during the current famine in Sudan with the continuation of the war there.
The networking service provided by the network was stopped as part of Trump's suspension of almost all external assistance, according to a source familiar with Fidssnet operations. The American Agency for International Development did not respond to a comment on the closure.
The network is “madly important”, according to Dave Hardin, who supervised its operation at the United States Agency for International Development during the state of food emergency in East Africa for the year 2016.
He told the BBC: “Since we have a little sheke, we had guard teams, we were able to put food and prior supplies (in Ethiopia) and cultivate it in a remarkable way from what happened in 1984.”
Last Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an order to “stop the work” on all US foreign aid, at a value of $ 70 billion annually, with the exception of emergency food aid and military assistance to Israel and Egypt, pending a 90 -day review to ensure the corresponding of programs with Trump's foreign policy “first America” .
Since then, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio has expanded the scope of projects that qualify for the matter, including the savior of life and shelter, but still there Wide -ranging in the global aid sectorLarge parts of which were raised by freezing.
Fidessnet is run by the American Agency for International Development, who refused to comment, while its website is run by another provider who did not respond to the suspension requests.
On Thursday, Mr. Rubio said in explaining the thinking behind the expansion of the domains of stopping work in line with Trump's priorities.
Supporters of freezing external aid sees donations because they are enlarged and carry a lot of burden compared to other wealthy western countries.
The Trump administration has also pledged to end the financing of external aid for diversity and integration programs, transgender rights, family planning, abortion and other issues targeted by many Republicans for a long time.
The exemption from emergency food aid does not seem to have included the process of tracking famine.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former former US Agency for International Development, described the system as the “best solo resource” in the world to predict food insecurity, adding that in 2011 he witnessed famine in Somalia months ago.
“The client was the United States government … but everything was placed on the Internet. It was really important – it became a global general benefit, (because) any donor in the world can use this, any government in the world can use it,” he said. .
“It is a truly decisive resource … the alert looks when there is a major diet.”
