What do you do when your country gets invaded by an army intent on eating your food and leaving people hungry?
That’s the problem facing Liberia, which has declared a State of Emergency after an outbreak of Army Worms, which are devastating crops across the country.
The worms are actually 5-centimetre long moth caterpillars and are some of the worst agricultural pests known.
They can rapidly chew their way through crops, leaving entire fields ruined. Tens of millions of them are marching across the country and also threatening neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone.
One factor that explains how the outbreak got out of control is that, as one of the world’s poorest nations, Liberia has a lack of early warning systems.
Rich countries could and should be doing more to help countries like Liberia to set up systems to detect problems like this and warn people about how to address them.
The same applies to natural disasters and disease outbreaks — better information, shared more effectively, always leads to better outcomes.
And paying to prevent a disaster is always more cost-effective than paying to deal with one after it has happened.
