North Korea’s fifth nuclear test appears to have been the most powerful of the lot. A female newsreader clad in pink, whose main job seems to be announcing nuclear detonations, was pressed into service to proclaim the joyous event on state television.

But there is one fact about North Korea that she will never mention. In a country that has strained every nerve and sinew to develop nuclear weapons, spending countless billions, at least a third of all children are chronically malnourished. The same is true of a quarter of pregnant women.

For the past 22 years, the World Food Programme has quietly been doing its best to help North Korea’s people survive the ravages inflicted by their rulers. You can be sure that Kim Jong-un’s regime is not grateful; on the contrary, providing humanitarian aid inside a country like North Korea is a supremely delicate business.

In truth, there are few things more sensitive than helping the suffering citizens of authoritarian – or even semi-democratic – states in much of the developing world.

Why? Because the governments of these countries will rarely admit the existence of a problem, especially if – as in North Korea – their policies helped to cause it in the first place.

And of all possible disasters, famine is the one that governments are most unwilling to acknowledge.

The best explanation was provided by Meles Zenawi, a late prime minister of Ethiopia. Remembering the famine endured by his own country in 1984, Meles said the worst aspect was the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. “But the second worst,” he added, “was having to beg for help”.

More than two decades later, Meles was dismayed to discover that wherever he travelled as prime minister, one image that people always associated with Ethiopia was that of emaciated children surrounded by flies.

Other African leaders took careful note. They realised that once the label “famine” attaches itself to your country, there is a grave risk that you will never shake it off.

There are two possible responses to this legitimate fear. One would be to ensure that famine never strikes by following sensible policies. The other would be obsessively to hush-up food shortages whenever they occur.

Sadly, many African leaders have adopted the latter approach. If Ethiopians had to beg for aid, some African governments prefer to make the aid agencies beg for permission to help. In 2011, the United Nations declared a famine in three regions of southern Somalia including the capital, Mogadishu. At the same time, the UN launched a global appeal for $1.5 billion to help Somalia.

When I interviewed Somalia’s then prime minister , he could scarcely contain his rage. He was not angry about the famine – oh no – what really annoyed him was that the UN had dared to tell the world about it. Even worse, the UN had appealed for help on Somalia’s behalf.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Abdiweli Mohammed Ali. “But what I can say is enough relief came to Somalia and we provided enough relief to those affected by the famine.”

A few streets away from his office in Mogadishu, thousands of people were huddled inside displacement camps, including emaciated children with wisps of reddened hair – a telltale sign of malnutrition. But, warming to this theme, Mr Abdiweli told me: “I don’t believe there’s a famine in Mogadishu. Absolutely no. You know the aid agencies became an entrenched interest group and they say all kind of things that they want to say.”

So the task of alleviating humanitarian disaster in Africa often begins with gently coaxing the government in question to accept the existence of the problem.

This is the stage that the UN has reached in Nigeria today . The ravages of Boko Haram have inflicted terrible food shortages in Borno state, large areas of which were previously controlled by the Islamist gunmen. Once the killers were driven out, they left behind a wasteland in which few crops had been planted.

In fairness, the Nigerian government bears no responsibility for this disaster. But it remains deeply unwilling to admit the scale of the food shortages in Borno, or allow aid agencies and the UN to escalate their response.

It seems that nothing is more politically sensitive than a straightforward offer of help.

APCsupporter:
I think corruption is in our blood. Just 3 months ago a school headmaster stole buscuits provided by El rufa'i for small school children. Can you imagine

LoveMachine:
This is an artificial famine. The food is there. The problem is corrupt officials diverting government donations. When 30+ trucks disappear something is wrong.

APCsupporter:
I think corruption is in our blood. Just 3 months ago a school headmaster stole buscuits provided by El rufa'i for small school children. Can you imagine

LoveMachine:


I'm not saying people are not dying. I'm saying that there is enough food/donations that have been provided. PMB released grains and other donors have sent goods but they aren't reaching the destination. Regardless of how many tons of goods are provided it will do no good if the devils of the NE keep diverting the aid. I say artificial famine because yes they haven't farmed in 3+ years but provisions are in place for them to not be suffering. The officials are bastards who have no shame.

imhotep:
.