Hvis en ny massesult i flere vestafrikanske lande skal undgås, må det internationale samfund skride til handling nu, hedder det
DAKAR, 14 December 2011 (IRIN): Aid agencies are warning donors to act now to avert (undgå) a drought and food security crisis that could mean over 11 million people sink into further food insecurity, poverty or malnutrition.
Millions of farmers and pastoralist families have still not yet recovered from a drought and poor harvest which destroyed their livelihoods and eroded their food security in 2009.
Governments, UN agencies and NGOs estimate six million people are highly vulnerable to food insecurity and possible related impoverishment and malnutrition in Niger
Other figures constitute 2,9 million in Mali; 700.000 – over quarter of the population – in Mauritania; and over two million in Burkina Faso; while in Chad 13 out of 22 of the regions could be affected by food insecurity.
Poor rains in parts of Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso – as well as pockets in other countries in the Sahel – have led to poor cereal production. That, combined with other factors mean for many, the lean (magre) season, which traditionally starts in March or April, could come as early as January.
Contributing to Sahelians’ vulnerability are:
* very high regional food prices – the cost of cereals in the region is 40 percent higher now than the past five years’ average, according to NGO Oxfam;
* a drought as recently as 2009 which meant despite good rains in 2010 poor farmers and herders had sold off all of their food or animal stocks and not had time to rebuild them; and
* lost remittances not only from returnee workers from Libya, but also potentially from Europe.
Re-stocking can take a decade
– The intervals between these crises are getting smaller, so there is a very small amount of time to recover in between them, Thomas Yanga, regional director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said last week:
Poor herders in 14 areas of Niger lost 90 percent of their livestock in the 2009 crisis, according to a government study.
Oxfam’s Niger country programme director, Mohamed Aly Ag Hamana, told IRIN it takes at least three years to rebuild a small stock of sheep and goats, and up to 10 years to build up cattle stocks.
The Sahel is chronically vulnerable to malnutrition, food insecurity and drought – even in good harvest years one third of Chad’s population is chronically undernourished, according to the Sahel Working Group.
In 2010, despite very strong harvests, 250.000 children in Niger were acutely malnourished, said Cyprien Fabre, ECHO (EU aid) head in West Africa.
– This year the harvest was poor-to-average, not catastrophic, but the region could still face crisis, noted Remi Dourlot, spokesperson at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
While cereal production overall in West Africa is 25 percent down on 2010, according to the Permanent Inter-State Committee to Prevent Drought in the Sahel (CILLS), Chad and Mauritania face 50 percent drops on 2010.
And drops of 28 and 38 percent respectively compared to the past five years, according to Oxfam’s economy justice campaign manager Eric Hazard.
Already in crisis
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