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The BBC's Andrew Harding says getting aid deeper into Somalia "is very slow, very complicated and... very dangerous""
The UN's food agency is set to hold emergency talks in Rome as the drought crisis deepens in the Horn of Africa.
More than 10 million people are thought to be at risk of starvation. The UN has already declared famine in two areas of southern Somalia.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged donor countries to supply an extra $1.6bn (£980m) in aid.
Earlier the Red Cross said it delivered food to one of Somalia's worst-hit areas, controlled by Islamists.
Working through a local committee, the Red Cross delivered lorry-loads of food for 24,000 people.
Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access.
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The FAO says this is not meant to be a pledging conference.
But that is exactly what humanitarian agencies want - they say they are short of more than $1bn to help the victims of what the UN describes as a growing famine.
The Rome meeting is meant to explore long term solutions like irrigation to boost agriculture in the areas facing ever more frequent droughts.
The aim being to end the reliance on food aid.
Analysis
But that is exactly what humanitarian agencies want - they say they are short of more than $1bn to help the victims of what the UN describes as a growing famine.
The Rome meeting is meant to explore long term solutions like irrigation to boost agriculture in the areas facing ever more frequent droughts.
The aim being to end the reliance on food aid.
But the World Food Programme says still it cannot reach 2.2 million people inside Somalia as refugees are continue to pour over the Kenyan and Ethiopian borders.
The UN says East Africa is experiencing the worst drought in 60 years. Somalia is thought to be worst-hit, but Ethiopia and Kenya have also been affected. The meeting of ministers from the G20 nations at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation headquarters in Rome was requested by France, the current chair of the G20 group of powerful economies.
Analysts say the drought has been caused by the lack of rains and the failure of governments to adequately finance agriculture and irrigation schemes.
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