Sahel Food Crisis: Help not reaching the hungry, Oxfam says
Insufficient funding and delays in food delivery are threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands in the Sahel region of West Africa, international agency Oxfam said, adding that there is little excuse for setbacks when the international community had been warned of the magnitude of the unfolding crisis for months.
11 August 2010
Insufficient funding and delays in food delivery are threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands in the Sahel region of West Africa, international agency Oxfam said, adding that there is little excuse for setbacks when the international community had been warned of the magnitude of the unfolding crisis for months.
“We’re now at the peak of the emergency and the next few weeks will be critical for hundreds of thousands,” said Etienne du Vachat, head of Oxfam’s humanitarian response in Niger. “With two long months still to go before the harvests, this crisis demands a much more generous and faster international response.”
More than 10 million people across the region have been suffering from a food crisis since March, following drought and erratic rains last year that caused poor food harvests and water shortages.
The current aid available is seriously insufficient, Oxfam said, and cannot meet large-scale needs. By the end of July, only one-third of the resources required to help save lives had been delivered.
“Recent announcements by key donors are welcomed and needed, but this must be matched by actual deeds,” said Kirsty Hughes, head of Oxfam’s policy and campaigns department, who has just returned from the region.
“It’s appalling that aid has arrived so slowly, since agencies began warning last November about the severity of the situation.”
In Niger, the World Food Program recently announced that it would be rapidly scaling up its operations to feed 7.9 million people this year. In Chad, two million also face hunger, with many children badly malnourished. In Mali, Oxfam reports that people are not receiving the help they need because of a deteriorating security situation in the northern part of the country.
Because of the severity of the situation, cash and voucher-based programs should be used as quicker, cheaper and more effective alternatives to food aid, Oxfam said. Currently only a fraction of the most affected communities are targeted for cash distributions, a number that must increase.
