ABSTRACT
A primary cause of human misery in sub-Saharan Africa since the mid-twentieth century has been uneven and unpredictable rainfall, accentuated by prolonged droughts. The frequency of droughts in sub-Saharan Africa since the founding of Africare in 1970 highlights the place that famine relief and emergency assistance have assumed in Africare's operations. The extensive work of scholars attempting to reconstruct the climatic history of West Africa has shown that the Sahel has also experienced cycles of drought and above normal rainfall. Civil wars across the African continent during the decade of the 1990s were often the primary generator of refugees, internally displaced persons, food insufficiency, and health threats. Contributing to the environmental aspect of a downward spiral toward civil war in Darfur was Sudan's involvement in the political affairs of neighboring states. Political instability characterized Sudan long before tensions in Darfur broke into hostilities, in fact, from the time of independence in 1956.
