Anwiam means “in the sand” in the local Twi language. Residents enter the village by passing over a set of railroad tracks separating it from a housing development built for the AngloGold Ashanti mining company staff, behind chain link and barbed wire fences. Anwiam has no electricity and little clean water. “If you compare the company residences with Anwiam, it is like apartheid,” says Hannah Owuso-Koranteng, who works at the human rights and environmental organization Wacam. “The rail line divides them.”

AngloGold Ashanti was blasting in nearby mine pit, and draining water, without any advance warning to the community. Amo says they used to blow a whistle just before blasting, signaling a sudden evacuation. Then, two years ago she and others from Anwiam started attending training sessions with Wacam. These problems, Amo says, were “a violation of our rights to live in a clean environment.” She says they learned that the company should consult them about a blasting schedule, and warn them about water outflows—and pay fair compensation for damages.

Looking them in the eye

The training with Wacam was a real eye opener for Amo, who at first appears to be a very shy woman, concerned that she does not speak English well. But when she starts talking about the injustices she sees in her community, her face changes and she speaks rapidly and without much hesitation. “Now I can sit at the negotiation table and look the company representatives in the eye and tell them we think they should redress some of these issues, and that we should be compensated,” Amo says. “What they are doing is violating our rights, so they have to look at other ways of engaging us, so we can solve these things amicably.”

Stories of injustices like these, and local efforts to redress them, are becoming better known in Ghana thanks to a proliferation of grassroots activists trained by Wacam. Stories in the media abound: cyanide spills, homes damaged and destroyed by blasting, inadequate compensation, loss of farmlands and jobs and income, and involuntary relocation. “People are now questioning whether mining is a good development option for the country,” says Hannah Owusu-Koranteng. “And if we have to engage in mining, what are the methods we have to use?” She says questioning the role of mining in the economy used to be akin to treason, or a threat to national security. This started to change as Ghanaians have become more and more aware of the severe costs imposed by mining on local communities.

This has caused many to consider what mining is bringing to the country: Daniel Owusu-Koranteng points out that with such high prices for commodities like gold these days, mining is now bringing in about 40 percent of Ghana’s foreign exchange, more than exporting cocoa. However mining only contributes about six percent of Ghana’s GDP. “What accounts for this is high capital flight in the sector,” he says. The Minerals and Mining Act requires companies to pay between three and five percent of mineral revenue values, most pay three percent, a rate negotiated by some larger companies. Advocacy campaigns by Wacam and others are pushing this up to at least five percent.

The local activists trained by WACAM have played an important role in the national level debate about mining in Ghana. Each of them has had to take on new responsibilities and learn things about themselves in the process, as they work to improve their community and their country.

Philomena Addo, the subsistence farmer from Akatakyieso and recently elected village representative, is struggling to survive as she is taking on new leadership responsibilities. “We lost almost all our land to the mine. Now we have to go to other communities with land, and we are now share croppers,” she says outside her home. “There is just no land to cultivate here, the areas were all either destroyed or taken up by AngloGold for grazing cattle.”

Nevertheless, Addo says she has truth on her side, and is using her own personal transformation to seek a political solution to the problems in her community. “I used to be very timid,” she says “I would not discuss anything in public. Now I am more confident and I can speak at any level in public, at the community or national level.” She plans to push her agenda and serve her constituents: “It’s a privilege to win this confidence,” she says of her recent landslide victory at the polls.

Unfortunately, that’s just what happened in September and October 2010. Abdoulaye N’Dao, a gregarious retired electrician with grey dread locks says the flooding in 2010 “was the most difficult compared to earlier ones… there was a lot more water.” He says his house had water up to his ankles in some of the rooms; he and his extended family of 25 people were bailing water out of the house and its courtyard for days. “Maybe crocodiles and frogs can live like that,” he says months later sitting in his now drier courtyard, “but not people.”

The heavy rains of 2010 triggered the fifth year in a row of serious flooding in Pikine, and capped off one of the rainiest years for Senegal since 1971. Dakar got a total of 20 inches, more than twice the normal amount of annual rainfall. Oxfam already was working with an organization in Pikine called Eau-Vie-Environnement (Water-Life-Environment, or EVE for short), and deployed $295,000 from Oxfam’s “Saving Lives 24/7 Fund” to help EVE respond.

The needs were urgent in Pikine: Oxfam and EVE estimated that 150,000 people in 3,600 families were badly affected, either completely displaced or living in flooded homes. With help from Oxfam, EVE planned an aggressive response, which included:

A fast survey of the worst-affected areas of Pikine, to identify families in the most need: EVE and Oxfam decided to focus its assistance on 2,812 families (roughly 30,000 people) primarily in seven of Pikine’s 16 districts.

Supporting 116 pumps, to remove water from 643 homes, 7 schools, and 18 mosques: EVE supplied fuel for pumps that moved more than a million cubic meters of water, which is something like 264 million gallons, enough to fill more than 400 Olympic swimming pools. This took 15,000 liters (about 4,000 gallons) of fuel. EVE worked with local authorities to help remove water from 228 roads in Pikine.

Removing waste: household garbage and other waste pose a severe health threat, so EVE supported the removal of 3,000 cubic meters (roughly 105,000 cubic feet) of garbage.

Delivering sand: to build up low-lying areas and shore up buildings at risk of being submerged, EVE delivered 10 truckloads of sand to each of seven districts in the city.

Promoting good hygiene: EVE distributed 2,806 hygiene kits with soap, bleach, clean buckets for storing water, mosquito nets, and water purification tablets. In follow-up visits, EVE estimated that 93.8 percent of the households it visited were using adequate methods to treat water, and that these and other measures likely helped reduce diarrhea cases from 3.12 percent of the households to 1.48 percent.

Direct financial support: With funds from Oxfam, EVE allocated 40, 000 CFA francs (about US$80) to more than 1,500 of the most severely affected households, so they could buy food, medicine, and clothing.

“A revolution”

Abdou Diouf, the executive secretary of EVE, says Oxfam did not just provide some assistance during the crisis and then withdraw along with the flood water. “This is the first time since Pikine has experienced these floods, that an [international] organization has intervened during the flooding and has decided to continue intervening after the flooding,” he says during an interview in his office in Pikine in April. Diouf says EVE was able to use a small amount of money left over from a grant from Oxfam to deal with floods in 2009 to prepare for the 2010 rainy season. When the heavy rains hit in 2010, volunteer assessment teams were already in place and trained to take action.

Oxfam also is supporting EVE’s work in 2010 to help local governments to lobby for funding they can use to improve drainage systems, and keep the pumps running in chronically flooded areas of the city.

Diouf also says the cash transfers represented “… a revolution in our intervention this year. People really appreciated this; I had people coming to the office here to specifically thank EVE and Oxfam for the money.”

Each recipient got about 40,000 CFA francs, which is about US$85. It’s unusual for an aid organization to provide money instead of food, clothing, water, and other assistance. But it allows those affected by the flood to spend the money on what they need the most, rather than what an aid organization decides is best for them.

When Assiatou Niang got her cash, she immediately thought about food. “We had no food, so I bought a bag of rice,” she says. With 30 people living in the household, including most of her nine children as well as those of her injured sister, food was a priority. “I also needed cement to repair the house, and I needed money for daily expenses around the household.” Niang is 58, and recently widowed. The cash helped her feed her family and cover other expenses for about a month over the winter.

Distributing cash is also economically efficient, according to Isaac Massaga, Oxfam’s program officer based in Dakar. “If you distribute rice in a community, you are preventing the local dealers from selling their own stock,” he says. “By helping people access food in the local market, we also help suppliers, and at the same time it helps maintain the market.”

EVE and Oxfam found a credit union that supervised the distribution of the funds to only those with vouchers provided by EVE according to the results of its household surveys. EVE transferred more than US$130,000 to families in Pikine.

Oxfam has rushed aid to Liberia, airlifting 50 tons of relief supplies—such as water tanks, drilling equipment, and sanitation facilities—to assist 70,000 people.

"The border areas are dangerous, and living conditions there are desperately poor," says Chals Wontewe, Oxfam's country directory in Liberia. "There is an urgent need for transportation to help refugees move to camps further inside Liberia, where food and shelter can be safely provided. This needs to happen before the rainy season and further refugee flows make the challenge even harder."

Most refugees are staying with host families near the border, but conditions are dangerously inadequate, with most lacking adequate shelter, clean water, and basic sanitation. Oxfam will provide seeds and agricultural support to host families who by aiding refugees have jeopardized their own food security.

Read more about the crisis.

Donate now to Oxfam's Ivory Coast/Liberia Refugee Crisis Fund.

“This development demonstrates the commitment of the people to make Ghana a model of sustained democracy founded on transparency and accountability” said Mohammed Amin Adam, the convener of the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas. “Ghana has no doubt set one of the highest standards for transparency in the management of her petroleum revenues, judging by the provisions of this law.”

This law requires the country’s Minister of Finance to reconcile quarterly petroleum revenue receipts and expenditures and submit reports to the Parliament as well as publish the reports in the newspapers and online. The law also makes provision for four different types of audits of the petroleum accounts, namely, internal audits, external audits, annual audits, and special audits as well as the submission by the Minister of Finance of an annual report on the petroleum account and the Ghana Petroleum Funds as part of the annual presentation of the budget statement and economic policies to the Parliament.

Apart from providing for ample public access to information on petroleum industry operations, the law provides for the establishment of a Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) – a public-oriented body that oversees the management of petroleum revenues. This is in Clause 53 of the Law that proved highly contentious and one of the major talking points during the parliamentary debate on the bill. In November 2010, the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas issued a press statement and presented a petition to the Parliament when there was an attempt by the legislative body to amend the bill. The press statement read: “It has become worrisome that the members of the Joint Select Parliamentary Committees on Energy and Mines and Finance have proposed amendments to and deletion of some sections of the provisions for transparency, especially those that are critical for effective public oversight by the proposed PIAC.”

Passage of the bill is seen as a triumph for civil society activism. “Despite the delay in passing the bill, I would like to congratulate the entire civil society and the parliament for a job well done, especially by ensuring that all the transparency provisions were agreed upon by both sides of the house,” said Richard Hato-Kuevor, the Extractive Industries Advocacy Officer for Oxfam America. “Now that the bill has been passed, we hope the relevant structures would be put in place as quickly as possible to manage the revenues that will accrue to the state from the sector.” This position was corroborated by Adam. “It is refreshing that the Petroleum Revenue Management Bill which has now been passed addresses most of the transparency concerns of the citizens. Citizens now have the legal basis to demand transparency and accountability,” he said. In Zeba’s opinion, “This should not be restricted to oil and gas. It should be extended to all the extractive resources of Ghana, including industrial fishing, timber, and mining industries, and Ghana should champion this cause in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).”

The monitoring role of civil society is not finished, however. “Citizens must remain perpetually vigilant in spite of all the assurances in the bill and by the President of the Republic to transparently and honestly manage the petroleum resources,” concluded Adam.

The president of the ECOWAS Commission James Victor Gbeho had during the Second Ministerial Meeting on the region’s Mineral Development Policy held in October last year in Monrovia, Liberia set up a 10-member ad-hoc committee to monitor the adoption and implementation of the directive by member states.

“We are supportive of the entire ECOWAS process in this regard and call on all other West African countries to comply” said Eva Kouka, Oxfam America’s Extractive Industries Program Officer for the West African Regional Office. “We expect the regional body to adopt the Regional mining Policy later this year, and by 2014 the Regional Mining Code.”

“This a major step forward for protecting the rights of affected communities in Ghana, where mining is so important economically and where communities have suffered such severe impacts” said Keith Slack, Extractive Industries Campaign Program Manager of Oxfam America.

The Directive which was enacted by the 62nd Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers held in Abuja, Nigeria in May 2009 places obligations on the mining companies to respect the rights of local communities. It provides, among others, in article 16, that “companies shall obtain free, prior and informed consent of local communities before exploration begins and prior to each subsequent phase of mining and post-mining operations; maintain consultations and negotiations on important decisions affecting local communities throughout the mining cycle”. Apart from the protection of the rights of the communities, the directive also aims at environmental protection and transparency and accountability in the mining sector.

“I would like to congratulate the government of Ghana for adopting this directive” said Richard Hato-Kuevor, Oxfam America’s Extractive Industries advocacy officer in Ghana. “Even though this is a bold step on the part of the government, I hope it is not the end. Measures should be put in place to ensure that these laudable principles are enshrined in our mining code for the benefit of all, especially communities affected by mining”.

Mass poverty in West Africa starkly contradicts the abundance natural resources including highly priced minerals. Oxfam America has been working in tandem with some local organizations in the region to ensure transparency and accountability and the protection of human rights in the operations of extractive industries. Recently, civil society organizations in Ghana under the umbrella of The Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas issued a statement raising concerns about the intention of some interests in the legislature to amend some key clauses in the proposed Petroleum Revenue Management Bill 2010 that provides for a citizens-based transparency and accountability framework for ensuring transparent management of petroleum revenues. “We are disturbed about the absence of transparency provisions in the bill especially as regards bidding process for oil blocs” said Mohammed Amin Adam, the convener of the group.

As the bill is being voted, Oxfam America and its partners in Ghana expect the legislature in the country to complement their efforts in ensuring the existence of the necessary legal framework for good governance in the extractive industries.

Oxfam is deploying a team of aid experts and preparing to provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene supplies to refugees in Liberia. Conditions for refugees and host communities in the border areas are very poor, with people receiving inadequate assistance.

“This could become Africa’s latest forgotten crisis. Thousands of civilians are fleeing for their lives yet the international community is failing to respond adequately. The world risks being seriously unprepared for the escalating crisis in West Africa,” said Chals Wontewe, Oxfam’s Country Director in Liberia.

“For more than three months now, the people of Ivory Coast have been living with the threat of violence, intimidation, economic collapse, and sexual assault. The situation is now deteriorating rapidly and urgent action is needed to avert a humanitarian crisis.

“The conditions for refugees and communities hosting them in Liberia are extremely worrying. People are in dire need of the very basics—clean water, food, and shelter,” said Wontewe.

The large influx into Liberia is already putting a severe strain on poor villages, forcing camps and transit centers to be set up, mainly in Nimba county in eastern Liberia and further south along the Ivory Coast-Liberia border.

The crisis in Ivory Coast caused by the contested presidential election in November 2010 has resulted in months of instability and a steep increase in violent clashes in the past week. As well as rising political and military tensions, many banks remain closed, prices of basic goods are rocketing, and more than 500,000 people have lost their jobs.

“The next few weeks will be crucial. Governments, the UN, and aid organizations must respond to the increasing need and ensure relief supplies reach eastern Liberia before the rainy season starts to hamper access,” said Wontewe. “The situation is quickly deteriorating and requires a rapid response.

“This must not be allowed to develop into another forgotten crisis. Growing humanitarian needs will require much more attention than they are getting at the moment, and must be backed up by significant funds and resources.”

 This is an important step in the on-going effort by the ECOWAS member nations to adopt a uniform policy that will standardize the social, environmental, and financial requirements for mines in West Africa. Oxfam America has encouraged this effort because it will require mining companies to obtain the consent of local communities before mines can be established or expanded, and give communities a meaningful role in decisions. After member countries revise their laws, mines will have to comply with more stringent requirements for the environment, and financial transparency.

The committee will also make recommendations on measures to be taken for the effective implementation of the directive and also ensure that it is published in the National Gazette of member-states, a way for the government to show an official commitment to the directive. Senegal has taken the lead by remaining the only member-state to have published it in the National Gazette.

In the same vein, ministers responsible for mineral resources development in the region have recommended the establishment of a permanent forum to deal with matters affecting the mineral sector. This is a major decision at a recent one-day meeting of ministers know as ECOWAS Minerals and Oil Forum (ECOMOF).

Role for civil society

Commenting on these developments, Oxfam America’s Coordinator for Extractive Industries Program at its West Africa Regional Office in Dakar, Senegal, Ibrahima Aidara commends ECOWAS for the laudable initiative but decried the lack of adequate representation of civil society organizations.

“ECOWAS should widen the scope of consultation to all stakeholders including civil society organizations and representatives of mineral-bearing communities to make public policy formulation more participatory, inclusive, and democratic,” he says. “This will guarantee the protection of the rights of the communities and individuals directly affected by the activities of the extractive industries in the region.”

West Africa is replete with a rich diversity of mineral resources, but weak governance structures, corruption, injustice, and political instability have conspired to leave the vast majority among the poorest in the world. The president of the commission, James Victor Gbeho, says the ECOWS directive will have significant effects: “It is necessary to introduce norms and standards that would ensure, at once, the protection of the environment, social impact, harmonious labor relations, sustainable community development plans, and equitable land rights regime and transparent management of natural resources.”

Oxfam America through its Extractive Industries Program and working with its partners has been at the forefront of pushing for reforms in the extractive industries sector in the region to ensure the protection of human rights and the reduction of poverty.

The company previously had lost a court case to Manu when she was accused of trespassing onto what she explained was her own farm land. After hearing of her complaints over the loss of her palm tree, the company immediately opted to negotiate paid compensation rather than defend itself in a messy court case.

In a community where many facing situations such as Manu’s would have resigned to fate, it is seen as a triumph for human rights awareness and activism for Manu to insist on adequate compensation. She negotiated for and actually got paid the sum of 500 Ghanaian Cedi (about $350) for her loss. This is the highest sum ever paid as compensation for the loss of any crop in Ghana.

“The company knows that I know my rights and so they are very careful when dealing with me,” said Manu.

Ghana’s chamber of mines, an association of mining companies, generally sets levels of compensation in such cases. Normally, this body recommends payment of five Ghanaian Cedi (about $3) for a palm tree.

Instead, Manu demonstrated that palm trees are very important to the livelihoods of the people of Dumase because of their multiple uses—namely they produce palm oil, palm kernels, sponges, brooms, palm wine, and palm fronds.

“We have a cause to fight for and a goal to achieve,” says Manu. “Sometimes people are not happy with what you are trying to achieve, but you shouldn’t let opposition stop you.”

Ghana, like most of West African countries, is home to abundant mineral resources. But this has not reflected on the lives of the vast majority of people who remain poor. Oxfam America has been working through its partners like the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM) in Dumase and other communities to enlighten and empower local people to assert their rights when interacting with mining companies.

“Manu has, in fact, fought against the injustice of miners and their Compensation Committee,” says Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, the Executive Director of WACAM. “She upheld her right in line with the provisions of the Mining Act.”

Manu is one the beneficiaries of WACAM’s training programs and regularly puts her newfound knowledge to good use.

“It’s important to empower women in mineral-bearing communities so that they can gain skills, confidence and the ability to make decisions about their lives,” says Eva Kouka-Quenum, Oxfam America’s West Africa Extractive Industries Program Officer.

Diop is a grandmother who lives with 15 members of her family in the city of Pikine, Senegal. When late summer rains pounded the region, this low-lying city fared badly. Its poor neighborhoods lack proper drainage, and the city has become an urban lake. In Diop’s house, every room but one is submerged in the still waters of a flood that acts like it’s here to stay.

“Since 2005, we have been suffering from the floods, but we have never seen anything like what is happening this year,” says Diop.

While flood persists, conditions of life are harsh

The nearby marketplace is under water, too, so for people who make their living by trade, incomes have vanished. And for the many who, like Diop and her family, buy their provisions day to day as they can, there are practically no stores of food in their homes to fall back on.

Health is a worry, as well: the latrines that are now deep in floodwater are slowly releasing their contents into the streets and schools and homes of Pikine, setting the stage for outbreaks of diarrheal and skin disease.  And the standing water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes which, in malarial regions like this, pose serious threats to health.

No one should have to live in standing water

Oxfam has joined forces with Eau Vie et Environment, a Senegalese partner organization, to assist 28,000 people affected by the floods in Pikine. We are removing water from homes, pumping waste from latrines before it flows into the streets, and distributing soap and other hygiene materials to help residents protect their health under these difficult conditions. For those in greatest need, we are also distributing small sums of cash to enable them to buy essentials for their families.

“Our goal is to provide immediate relief to those who need it most but also to address the longer-term problem of drainage with the local and national authorities whose job it is to prevent disasters like this,” says Oxfam’s Dawit Beyene. “No one should have to live in standing water.”

Millions of people in the region—including Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso-- have confronted food shortages as a consequence of erratic rains in 2008 and 2009 that led to poor harvests, withered pastures, and a lack of water. Widespread poverty has compounded those challenges.

For many, the difficulty in the weeks leading up to the this year’s harvest in October and November is particularly acute as they have exhausted not only their food supplies but have sold off assets, such as livestock, in an effort to feed their families.

While Niger has been at the epicenter of the crisis, with about seven million people facing hunger—almost half its population--forecasters are now predicting a solid harvest for the country, even as flooding wiped out some fields and killed many heads of livestock. And a good distribution of rains in Burkina Faso has meant the crops are growing well there, also.

But robust harvests won’t ease the strain for many families who have gone deep into debt trying to feed themselves. One good harvest will not be enough for them to recover.

Additionally, some families have not been able to plant at all: They had no choice but to eat the seeds they intended to sow.

For herders who rely mostly on their animals for food and income, the rains have restored the grass in their pastures, which in turn has improved the health of their livestock. As cattle and goats grow stronger again, their value goes up, giving owners more purchasing power in the local markets.

Families who earn their living from crops grown in rain-fed fields, however, continue to struggle.

“For non-pastoralist communities who depend on a good harvest, we have not yet seen the end,” said Oxfam’s West Africa emergency coordinator, Philippe Conraud, speaking to the IRIN news agency about Mali. “We are still in the peak of crisis, and emergency activities need to continue.”

Trouble in Chad

The problems in Chad are particularly worrisome. About 60 percent of the households, or 1.6 million people, in the western part of the country are grappling with a severe food crisis. For those suffering from malnutrition, access to care can be a challenge: Some patients have to travel more than 120 miles to reach health facilities.

The prices of basic commodities in the markets continue to rise and overall food prices are at least 35 percent higher than the five-year average. Additionally, with the arrival of the rainy season, floods have affected more than 100,000 people in nine regions of Chad, destroying homes and wrecking crops. And now there is a new threat: cholera. Hundreds of cases have been reported.

Looking ahead

Oxfam, which has helped more than 600,000 people snared by the crisis, is calling for a scaled-up response now—and over the long-term.

“Many people have lost everything due to the severity of the crisis. They have lost their livestock, their livelihoods and are now in excessive debt,” says Dawit Beyene, Oxfam America’s deputy director of humanitarian response. “We need flexible and predictable funding to support the development of national social protection systems and sustainable livelihoods, and to increase the provision of essential services to prevent future crises.”

In Chad, Oxfam has been helping people in the Sila and Guéra regions by distributing food and running agricultural and livelihood support projects. In Niger, the ganecy has organized the distribution of food and fodder, provided cereals at subsidized prices, distributed seeds, and bought weakened livestock from herders at above-market prices, distributing the meat for free to the poorest families. And in Mali Oxfam has been distributing food and animal feed as well.

 “The situation in West Africa may seem impossibly complex and difficult to solve but if only the international community would invest in long-term predictable development work we could make sure families are a lot less vulnerable to shocks in the future,” says Raphael Sindaye, Oxfam’s deputy regional director in West Africa.

This is the reality of hunger in the Sahel region of West Africa, where more than 10 million people are now in the grip of a food crisis triggered, in part, by patchy rainfall last year thatled to a plunge in the production of cereals. In Chad alone, the cereal harvest fell by 34 percent. And pasture—critical for the well-being of the region’s livestock on which many families depend for food and income—is severely lacking because of the poor rains.

But the increasing intensity of seasonal droughts is not the only source of the problem. A lack of investment in agriculture and herding, and insecure land tenure also play a role in the suffering some of the world’s poorest people endure.

In Niger, where the crisis stalks more than seven million people, the country’s youngest children are among the hardest hit. IRIN, the UN news agency, reported in late June that acute malnutrition rates  among children younger than five in Niger had spiked 42 percent higher than they were this time a year ago—to nearly 17 percent.  That means almost half a million children are acutely malnourished, according to IRIN. Many others—almost half of Niger’s children—live with chronic undernourishment, said IRIN.

Other countries are affected by the food crisis, too: Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, northern Cameroon, and northern Nigeria.

Early warning systems revealed last fall that the Sahel was headed toward trouble, but the alarms failed to rouse a robust regional and international response. The amount of emergency assistance has, so far, been insufficient to meet the large-scale needs of the region. The West Africa consolidated appeal—a joint humanitarian fund-raising effort by groups working in the region, including the UN—is only 36 percent funded. The appeal includes support for food security activities in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. About $69 million is needed to respond to the emergency in Niger alone. In Chad, the World Food Program needs almost $20 million to respond to rising food needs.

With the next harvest months away, and the approaching rainy season threatening to impede delivery of assistance to more remote areas, concerns of farmers like Fadoul Acheul are growing more acute. He is a 53-year-old father of eight children living on the outskirts of Mongo in Chad and has run out of options that could help tide his family over.

“The mango trees haven’t borne fruit this year, so we can’t sell those,” he said in April. “Also, there isn’t enough water to maintain our family orchard.” The family had used up its store of cereal a month earlier and was relying only on the income Fadoul’s wife made by selling a few items in the market.

The day Fadoul lamented his dry orchard was the day he had to make a decision—the same one many families now confront: selling their livestock. To get food, Fadoul sold his last ram, fetching just enough money to keep his family going for another week.

“Five years ago, the world ignored the warning signs from Niger, failed to act rapidly, and lives were lost,” said Mamadou Biteye, an Oxfam regional director in West Africa. “The international community cannot make the same mistake and again condemn many children to an early death.”

Oxfam has launched an emergency program to provide support to 800,000 people across Niger, Mali, and Chad. In Niger, the organization is helping 400,000 people by distributing food and supplies to the poorest households. Oxfam is also buying weak livestock at above-market rates to help herders who need to sell some of their animals. Meat from the livestock is being distributed to some of the most vulnerable households.  In Mali, the organization will help 200,000 people by distributing food as well as fodder for livestock.  And in Chad, distributions of food and seeds are accompanying agriculture support projects, with a goal of helping 200,000 people.

The media in Ghana are reporting that representatives of all the main political parties in Parliament are sufficiently concerned about the anticipated $1 billion in additional revenue in 2010 that they issued a communiqué calling for the government to stop issuing any new licenses for oil production until it can improve its regulations for the oil industry and clarify how the money will be managed.

An article in the government-owned Daily Graphic newspaper said that the members of Parliament “argued that less than one year before the drilling of the country’s oil in commercial quantities, there was not a single law before Parliament on how the country would manage the oil fields and the expected revenue as well as how to ensure that the environment was not damaged by the companies.”

The communiqué urged the government to use oil money to diversify its economy, and avoid an over reliance on oil that has been so disastrous in other countries in Africa. The communiqué also pointed out that Ghana needs to beef up its tax revenue agency to ensure oil taxes are properly collected and available for social programs to benefits its citizens. The members of Parliament called for the government to use 80 percent of oil funds to improve the “physical and social infrastructure” of the country, save 10 percent for future needs, and use the other 10 percent for stabilizing the budget.

In early 2009 Oxfam America and the Integrated Social Development Center of Ghana (ISODEC) issued a report called Ghana’s Big Test that recommended the country halt new licenses and disclose details of licenses and agreements it makes with oil companies as a means to increase transparency. Following the release of this report, Ghana’s new president John Atta Mills committed to do this, and also said the country would take steps to promote new and better regulations and foster open and public procedures for issuing licenses and setting policies.

To date, the government has not followed through on its commitments to disclose petroleum agreements, despite continued calls from civil society and parliamentarians to do so. Oxfam partner organization ISODEC has continued to promote opportunities to implement recommendations from the report. Steve Manteaw, campaigns coordinator at ISODEC, says that, “Ghana must control the pace of petroleum sector development so that it does not outstrip the capacity of the government and society to build institutions, regulations and standards.”

“The communiqué issued by the members of Parliament, cutting across Ghana’s political spectrum, emphasizes the importance of transparency and responsible management of oil revenues,” says Ian Gary, Oxfam America’s senior policy advisor and author of the Ghana’s Big Test report. “It will be vital for the government to fully consult with members of Parliament and the public at large on the legal framework for regulating the sector and managing revenues so that strong safeguards are in place before oil starts to flow.”

But a hungry child exists in a larger context: if we nourish communities, they can nourish their own children.

The woman on our cover, Fatou Doumbia, and other women in her village in Mali, pooled their resources last year. They set aside nearly a ton of millet as a defense against the hunger they’d seen as food prices spiked. Hers is another face of hunger: determined, resourceful.

After the last harvest, Oxfam reached out to supporters to respond to the food crisis. We’ve devoted much of this issue to looking at what communities have done to avoid the kinds of hardships they confronted. When people living in poverty are hit by a food crisis or natural disaster, they lack resources to tide them over.

Oxfam works to help people build their resilience. Let respect and hope fuel your efforts to support women like Doumbia.