02 August 2005

ActionAid, a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) that is currently appealing for the ravaged Sahel region in West Africa, today (Monday 1 August) expressed its concern at the high levels of malnutrition and chronic starvation in Niger and neighbouring countries.
 
ActionAid plans to work with two partner NGOs already well established in Niger. Its first priority will be to help people preserve their livelihoods by, for example, providing fodder for their livestock.  Later it hopes to help people who have lost livestock and other assets to rebuild their herds or to grow crops sustainably using micro irrigation.
 
ActionAid has a wealth of field experience in West Africa, and specialists in emergencies regarding chronic hunger.

ActionAid said:

• drought and locusts have brought on this crisis but people are starving because of the extreme poverty in the country. Niger is the world’s second poorest country in the world and yet there has been a lack of long-term commitment from the international community in addressing the causes of poverty there
• once the people of Niger have recovered from the immediate crisis, we want to see a long-term improvement in their lives.
• there should be international and regional action to prevent similar disasters in the future. ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) should restore the funding and powers of the regional anti-locust organisation (OCLALAV) to the levels which enabled it to fight the last locust emergency successfully in 1987-89
• ActionAid supports Hilary Benn's proposal for a $1bn per year UN contingency fund. It would help to avoid the problem of donor governments responding slowly, and often selectively, to developing emergencies.