Alarm over West and Central Africa's 'forgotten drought'

As starvation looms in West and Central Africa with fears that millions may lose their lives, a UN food expert, Olivier De Schutter, says the continuous dependence on food imports by African countries is the main cause of food insecurity across the continent even as experts say the developing crisis in the region has been ignored.

"Africa must invest to feed itself and protect its farmers from unfair competition by allowing them to form cooperatives in order to have a voice to negotiate,” said Mr De Schutter when he recently met the media in Africa to discuss the food crisis in the two regions.

The crisis, the combined result of drought, poor harvest and rising food prices, has put the lives of millions at risk but has received very little response from the international community.
The world community does not seem to have a clue what the situation is and this has resulted in the dragging of feet, the chairman of the Network of Pastoralists in West Africa Mr Dodo Boureima said. "It is like what happened in the Horn of Africa, perhaps worse."

"We don’t want to see our women and children suffering because of a late reaction from our governments and the international community. We need to act now, in line with what we have learnt from the past. If nothing is done now, we risk suffering as we suffered in 2005 and 2010," Mr Boureima added in a statement.

"The fact that 300,000 children in the Sahel die of malnutrition-related causes in a "normal" year is a scandal in itself, but also demonstrates the fact that this region is chronically vulnerable to the sorts of food crises that affected so many people in 2005 and 2010," Mr Boureïma said.

Worried

Mr De Schutter who has also expressed worry at the poor response by the international community said, “we must not wait until people are starving in order to act. The world must act in order to avert a full-scale food and nutrition crisis."

"This crisis may look like a natural calamity, but it is in a fact a symptom of our failure to be better prepared and to react more swiftly to early warning signs. The failure of the international community to act, now and in the future, would result in major violations of the right to food,” Mr De Schutter said.

The UN expert is worried that, if action is not taken early, the people affected would start migrating to neighbouring countries. "We must act before people are forced to leave. Let us act now before the situation worsens. When they start migrating, it would be difficult to manage."

As a solution, Mr De Schutter said, any short term emergency assistance “must be combined with sustained actions to tackle the underlying causes of famine across Africa and the developing world.

"In the short term, cash support is needed. The international community must also ensure that emergency food reserves are pre-positioned in risk-prone regions, so that where local purchases are not possible, humanitarian agencies have access to food stocks below the market rate.”

"We must also invest in climate resilient agriculture, diverse farming systems, agro-forestry, reservoirs to capture rainfall, to allow agricultural producers to withstand droughts.

"Each country must adopt a drought strategy that clearly defines which action must be taken, by which authority, with which resources, in order to assist the communities affected.

In Niger, six million people face starvation while in Mali another 2.9 million are affected with Mauritania having some 700,000 potential cases.

Can't wait

In 2010, about 10 million people suffered starvation in Mali, Chad and Niger.

Oxfam Regional Food Security Advocacy Coordinator in West Africa Al Hassan Cisse said: "We can't wait until the next crisis hits the Sahel before learning the lessons of the past. We need to invest now in programmes that help people become resilient to the challenges of the world around them.

"If we continue to wait, we invite crises that destroy lives and livelihoods and ensure that the Sahel never manages to escape the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger. But the solutions are there if we are ready to think differently and act smartly."

In a response to the crises, a network of non-governmental organisations in the Sahel region has issued a report on how to prevent the situation which seem to have become a feature in the region.

"Governments and humanitarian actors need to fundamentally change the way they think about and respond to food crises in the Sahel, moving beyond definitions of what constitutes an "emergency" and thinking more about prevention measures by tackling long-term root-causes of vulnerability," reads the report.

"Such an approach, including investing in small-scale agriculture, Disaster Risk Reduction and developing pro-poor social protection programmes, would be far cheaper and more effective in saving lives than waiting until crises strike before responding,” the report added.

It is not clear if the international community would heed to all the calls for assistance. If they do not, millions would die. Another African situation for 2012 could be just like what happened in the Horn of Africa.