Sahel food crisis underscores need for leadership in fighting hunger
In these countries drought has devastated food production and livestock. High food prices have made whatever supply is available out of reach.
Aid agencies are asking where is the leadership among world governments in responding to this crisis? Action Against Hunger says a "high-level political response is needed to galvanize the effective and urgent delivery of aid as well as to ensure more funding." The response among donors to this point has been "paltry and slow."
Malnutrition rates among children are fast on the increase. In Niger, Action Against Hunger reports that "nearly half a million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, with a risk of permanent damage or death if they are not treated urgently."
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is increasing its response in Niger to fight off child malnutrition. WFP director Josette Sheeran says, “We are massively scaling up special nutritional help for children under two years of age, whose brains and bodies face permanent damage from acute malnutrition." Deliveries of corn-soya blend and Plumpy’doz are literally 'life-savers' for children.
The UN and aid agencies will need more funding. In Chad, there are malnutrition rates of 27 percent in some locations. People in Mali, Burkina Faso and northern Nigeria are also suffering.
A crisis of this magnitude underscores the need for the U.S. to appoint a food ambassador to coordinate the international response to hunger. The Roadmap to End Global Hunger legislation, currently in Congress, is languishing as hunger receives only sporadic high-level attention.
Visit Action Against Hunger for more information on the Sahel Food Emergency.
photo courtesy ACF-Sahel, courtesy S. Hauenstein-Swan
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