“I harvested practically nothing,” Founé Danfakha says of her 2011 yield. She grows groundnuts, maize, and rice in Bembou, a small village about 50 kilometers east of Kedougou, near the border with Mali. The 60-year-old mother of five children and grandmother of four says, “If the rain comes normally, I can get 20 sacks of groundnuts. Last year I got only five.”

Danfakha has about five acres of land. She says her last harvest was dismal: She got three bags of rice, which is about 30 percent of the normal harvest. She planted about an acre of maize, but harvested none at all.

No seed, no harvest

Danfakha is sitting in front of her home, with her four-year-old grandson on her lap. The boy is quiet, and seems to have little energy. Danfakha says she is feeding everyone in the household regularly, despite the fact that the food she grew last year lasted only two months after the harvest in November. Usually she grows enough to last four months. She says she is meeting her family needs with money sent from her daughter, who is digging for gold in a nearby mining area.

When the rains start, Danfakha’s daughter will come back to help her prepare her fields and plant. “I think we will have to cover our needs growing groundnuts,” she says. “I don’t have enough rice seed, but I think I have enough groundnut seed.” When her daughter comes back they will have no income from mining while she works in the fields, so it is a calculated risk.

“The situation is difficult here. There’s a problem of rain,” Danfakha says. “It’s been irregular. If there’s not enough rain, there won’t be a harvest. And if there is no seed, there’ll be no harvest.”

Oxfam is collaborating with local organizations in Kedougou to help farmers there and in other areas of West Africa with crucial agricultural support, so they can plant this spring. Oxfam is also planning work that will help keep drinking water clean and safe, and provide food or short-term employment for cash wages, so farmers can meet their food needs over the summer while they work their fields.

Oxfam is organizing assistance for 1.2 million people in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Gambia, and Niger who are coping with food shortages due to poor harvest and high food prices. Please contribute to our West Africa Food Crisis Fund.

She planted a maize field and hoped to grow a ton, but only got one 50-kg bag. She says the poor result was due to “lack of rain, lack of good equipment for cultivation, and lack of money to pay for labor.”

Her situation is rather typical in the small village of Bandafassy, about 15 kilometers from the town of Kedougou in eastern Senegal, where erratic rain last year hit farmers hard. The resulting high demand for food grown in other parts of the country is pushing up prices, and forcing farmers who were already struggling to feed their families to find creative ways of coping.

Erratic rain prevented any decent harvest

Camara is the one in the family responsible for agriculture, but her husband Nicolas Keita helps prepare fields for planting and the harvest – when he is not away mining for gold to earn cash.

Keita says they planted in early June, but by the end of the month it had stopped raining, and what they were growing dried out in July. They replanted in August, and invested in some fertilizer. The rains were intermittent in September and stopped altogether in the beginning of October. "The rain gap in June and July prevented any decent harvest," he says.

"Things are going to go badly," Camara says she realized after the harvest. "But we will make every effort." She turned to gathering wild fruits in the forest, such as the seed pods of the baobab tree and jujube berries to feed her family.

To earn money, her mother-in-law began making clay pots for storing water; Camara walks 15 kilometers to Kedougou (carrying a 10-pound pot on her head) where she sells the pots for about $5 each. If she can make a sale, she buys food and returns. In a good week, she can sell two or three pots.

Camara reports that after a good harvest she can feed her family for about six months, but this past year the food only lasted about four. She says she is down to her last two bags of rice, one of which she wants to save for seed. “We will always find a way to get by,” she says with a certain resignation. The threat to farmers like Camara is that of another year of diminished harvests: Successive bad years can lead to a downward spiral that even the most resourceful farmer can’t avoid.

Oxfam is designing programs to help farmers like Camara get the resources they need to plant crops this year, so that when the rains come people will have an opportunity to grow what they need for food. Cherif Sow, who works for the Kedougou Association for Action and Development, an Oxfam partner, says the need for support in the area is crucial. “We have to help the communities as quickly as possible to help them survive the lean time, otherwise it will have an impact on their agricultural production.”

Oxfam is organizing assistance for 1.2 million people in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Gambia, and Niger who are coping with food shortages due to poor harvest and high food prices. Please contribute to our West Africa Food Crisis Fund.

Sustained, broad access for aid provision, freedom of movement for civilians, and the opportunity to plant this year’s crops are vital to save lives and will only be fully possible with a cessation of hostilities within and between the two countries.

Jon Cunliffe, South Sudan Country Director for Save the Children: “A toxic combination of conflict, rising food and fuel prices, and severe cash shortages is having a devastating effect on the civilian population in both countries. With the rains on the way the situation could not be more critical. We urgently need the fighting to stop so that we can get access and children can be protected from violence, deprivation, displacement and recruitment.”

In Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, reports suggest continued instability means that some families have not yet planted their seeds, which could potentially lead to severe food shortages later in the year. The insecurity also means children are not going to school. Access to all areas is needed urgently before the rains make getting assistance to communities even harder.

The conflict and hunger in South Kordofan and Blue Nile are driving record numbers of people across the border, with an estimated 151,000 refugees from these states in Ethiopia and South Sudan. In May, in a single day, 700 people arrived at Yida camp in South Sudan’s Unity State. This compares to an average of 287 a day in April, and 83 in February and March. Recent arrivals take the total number in Yida to nearly 30,000, increasing the pressure on agencies already struggling to cope with water stress, sanitation, violence, reproductive health and child protection.

Ibrahim Kallo, emergency field coordinator for the International Rescue Committee in Yida said: “Those arriving in the camp in recent weeks are visibly exhausted and malnourished after walking for four or five days with little food or water, and some children show signs of severe malnutrition. Women are being raped and assaulted, both on the journey and once they arrive. Fear of hunger is likely to trigger a further wave of displacement in the coming weeks, as people try to get out before the rains make the trek across the border more arduous.”

In Jamam Camp in South Sudan’s Upper Nile agencies are struggling to provide 37,000 refugees with even as little as five litres of water per person per day, far less than emergency standards. Despite hydrological surveys and many attempts to drill new boreholes no sustainable new water sources have been found and thousands of refugees will need to be moved. The rains will make things harder – potentially causing flooding and spreading disease.

Agencies are also concerned that supply routes to camps could be cut off, restricting their ability to bring in medical and other supplies, as well as making it harder to conduct medical evacuations. Instability in Unity state has already led some agencies to evacuate staff from Bentiu and consider direct flights from Juba to the camps, which would be expensive and cause delays.

"After more than ten months of fighting, with no sign of peace, we're on the path from crisis to catastrophe. The coming rains could make life for refugees unbearable and bring the threat of waterborne disease. The world needs to wake up to the true cost of conflict for people who have already suffered so many years of war," Oxfam's Deputy Country Director for South Sudan, Johnson Byamukama said.

/ Ends

Agencies signing the release: Christian Aid, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, Refugees International, Save the Children

In an open letter to Congress that appeared in today’s Roll Call and CQ Daily ahead of the House Foreign Affairs markup, the activists urged Congress to oppose earmarks and set-asides for special interests that cost both dollars and lives.

“As leaders and activists fighting corruption and defending human rights in our home countries, we often risk our lives to change our countries for the better,” said the letter signed by John Githongo, CEO of the Inuka Kenya Trust, Nader Nadery, Chairman, Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, and Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, among others. “The United States can be our partner by directly supporting our efforts to lead change on the ground.”

USAID recently began to prioritize “Implementation and Procurement Reform,” sending more resources directly to recipient governments, businesses and organizations, while shifting away from large, inflexible contracts that historically bypass local governments and organizations. USAID is also beginning to hire local organizations and businesses to do development work, spending money through local country governments and financing civil society watchdog groups to ensure the funds are well spent. This long-term approach will bring about lasting change and long-term impact in the fight against poverty.

“USAID’s plan to move toward providing assistance directly to governments and civil society groups can actually help root out corruption at its core and achieve better development results,” said Paul O’Brien, vice-president for policy and campaigns at Oxfam America. “This is a small portion of assistance—less than a third of USAID’s resources— but this shift can have a huge impact on fighting corruption.  What remains to be seen, however, is if Congress is going to stand with the people on the frontlines of the fight against corruption or side with entrenched special interests.”

“We know that as members of Congress you want to “follow the money” to protect taxpayer dollars,” said the activists in the published letter. “However, USAID’s overreliance on contractors often makes it more difficult for us to follow the money.”

“The mothers we know and love deserve more than one day of praise for the incredible contribution they make toward improving our world,” said Ms. Davis.  “This year, give the mom in your life a gift that will continue changing lives for years to come.” 

As an Oxfam Ambassador, Kristin Davis has seen firsthand the impact these gifts have on mothers and their families.  A water jug ($18) can help a family store and transport clean drinking water; a vegetable garden ($30) can help a mother jumpstart a small business and provide security for her children; or you can help restore a pre-school ($35) so a mother can comfortably send her children off to grow and learn in safety.  There are over 70 life-changing products to choose from at OxfamGifts.com. 

“What better way to honor a mother in your life than to help a family in need,” said Stephanie Kurzina, vice president for fundraising and communications at Oxfam America.  “With a gift from Oxfam America Unwrapped, you can say ‘thanks mom’ in a truly meaningful way.”

Oxfam America’s Unwrapped catalog offers items that symbolically represent the organization’s lifesaving work, and each purchase is a contribution toward Oxfam’s many programs that help people living in poverty throughout the world.  All gift contributions are general donations to support Oxfam America’s mission of fighting poverty, hunger and social injustice in over 90 countries around the world. Gifts are fully tax-deductible.  For more information on how to gift better for a special mother in your life, visit OxfamGifts.com.

Camera-ready art and Oxfam America spokespeople are available to the press.

Rockefeller’s $450,000 commitment for this calendar year will help start the initiative in Senegal to enable poor farmers to strengthen their food and income security by managing risks through a four-part approach—improving natural resource management (community risk reduction), accessing microcredit ("prudent" risk taking), gaining insurance coverage (risk transfer), and increasing savings (risk reserves).

Since the first warnings of drought and poor harvests in Africa’s Sahel region emerged in late 2011, vulnerable communities in many areas of the region have been threatened by a looming food crisis. That crisis is now real, and 15 million people across seven countries are vulnerable to its impact.

“Breaking the cycle of hunger and malnutrition and building resilience of the most vulnerable through long-term investments in agriculture is critical,” said David Satterthwaite, Manager, R4 Rural Resilience Initiative at Oxfam America.

“The Rockefeller Foundation is proud to support Oxfam America in helping smallholder farmers build resilience, one of the core pillars of the Rockefeller Foundation’s work,” said Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, Associate Director, The Rockefeller Foundation.  “Poor farmers are often the most vulnerable, especially in a time of crisis, and it is critical to help them manage the risks they disproportionately face to both their food and income security.”

This particular grant is intended to improve rural resilience for farmers by implementing a holistic risk management package of improved natural resource management, microcredit, microinsurance and savings in farming households in Ethiopia and Senegal. This grant specifically relates to investments that the Foundation is making to build New Partnerships and Financing Approaches for Implementation.

For the 1.3 billion people living on less than a dollar a day who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, vulnerability to climate-related shocks is a constant threat to food security and well-being.  In response to this challenge, the United Nations World Food Programme and Oxfam America have launched the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, known as R4, referring to the four risk management strategies that the initiative integrates. R4 builds on the initial success of a holistic risk management framework developed by Oxfam America to enable poor farmers to strengthen their food and income security through a combination of improved resource management (risk reduction), microcredit (prudent risk taking), insurance (risk transfer), and savings (risk reserves).

The original framework, called Horn of Africa Risk Transfer for Adaptation (HARITA) project, involved a network of global and local partners including Oxfam America, Swiss Re, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Relief Society of Tigray, Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution, Nyala Insurance Company, Africa Insurance Company and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University. In its three of years of delivery this pilot has scaled up from 200 enrolled households in one village in 2009 to over 13,000 enrolled households in 43 villages in 2011.

Through R4, farmers will be able to pay for their insurance premiums through labor in food-and-cash-for work programs. Their labor will contribute to community projects such as irrigation or forestry to reduce the impacts of climate change on their villages. More prosperous farmers will pay their insurance premiums in cash. Over time, as the poorest farmers become more prosperous, they can graduate from the need to pay through labor, and begin paying in cash, helping to ensure the project's commercial viability and long-term success.

Over a period of five years, Oxfam America and WFP plan to scale up and evaluate the R4 approach in 4 countries. In addition to continuing efforts in Ethiopia and the new work in Senegal, this will include two additional countries as the initiative progresses.