 all too familiar pictures of hunger in the Horn of africa have returned to our screens as recurrent drought, soaring food prices, conflict, and entrenched poverty leave 12 million people across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya without enough food and water to live.  Rainfall has been exceptionally low and as the region enters the three-month dry period, with malnutrition already widespread, there is a real risk of large-scale loss of life. The prices of staple foods such as rice and maize are at record levels in many areas, while the value of livestock, many people's main asset, has plummeted. The deaths of hundreds of thousands of animals leave many unable to provide for their families.  Dealing with the immediate crisis, the lack of food and water, will be immensely challenging and requires a rapid injection of emergency relief. That is why the Disasters Emergency Committee has launched its appeal. But we urgently need to break the cycle of emergency response, which leaves donors and affected communities limping from one crisis to the next.  Several years of inadequate rainfall has meant low crop yields and weakened herds. Pasture, grazing land and migration routes that semi-nomadic herders have traditionally used in times of emergency have been sold off, or allocated for tourism, or national parks. Pastoralists have suffered years of neglect through lack of investment in basic services, such as education, animal health and improving roads that help them to get to market. More live i 