World Watch: Niger's forgotten food crisis
Starting with last December's tsunami in Asia, the past year has had its fair share of natural disasters. The Atlantic hurricane season has been so virulent that storms are now named according to a second alphabet—the Greek alphabet—for the first time since storms were assigned names in 1953. And now, humanitarian relief groups are rushing aid to Kashmir to deal with October's 7.6-magnitude earthquake before winter bears down on the region.
But as aid groups and their donors race to help out in each successive disaster, those helping in each previous one are struggling to hold the world's attention and financial assistance.
That has been sadly true with Niger, where a famine has resulted in nearly 200,000 undernourished or malnourished children. One third of the country's population faces food shortages. Food rations did not begin to arrive until nine months after the United Nations and aid groups first warned of a potential famine in the West African country in the continent's Sahel region.The situation has improved since international attention seemed to peak in July and August, with rain benefiting next year's harvest and emergency rations providing immediate aid. However, a recent assessment by the U.N. says that agricultural production may not meet the country's food needs beyond the next six months and that fewer than half of households in the country's rural regions enjoy food security.
To date, the U.N. has received about 60 percent of its $81 million request, and donations have slowed since the famine in Niger first hit the airwaves with the BBC's televised images of starving children.
"It wasn't on the radar when it was happening. These are small francophone countries in Africa. And, it was shocking that it ever made it onto the radar," says Stephanie Bunker, an official at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "And then, boom, it fell off."
The United Nations is holding a conference in Dakar, Senegal, this week to discuss how similar hunger problems can be avoided in a region that has a history of food shortages, often brought on by drought.
"Certainly, factors such as drought and locusts contribute to these crises, but there are also structural and cultural factors," said Herve Ludovic de Lys, director of the West Africa regional office of the U.N. humanitarian affairs office, which is organizing the conference.
Reducing poverty is one of the key tasks for the region, especially after Niger citizens sold valuable assets such as livestock to buy food that had increased in price during the crisis. That has now limited their ability to earn money.
"High prices and resulting food access problems are making this year's preharvest lean period especially hard, further exacerbating what is generally a difficult food situation at this time of the year," according to the famine warning system of the United States Agency for International Development.
Meanwhile, in Malawi, a southern African nation, nearly 5 million of the country's 12 million citizens are facing food shortages of their own, according to the United Nations. Aid has been slow to arrive there too as humanitarian resources—and the world's attention—are stretched thin.