What has the erratic weather—drought, flooding—meant for the people of Kolda in southern Senegal? It’s made them among the most food-insecure in the entire country, said Greg Matthews, a humanitarian livelihoods officer with Oxfam America, who recently returned from a field visit.
“In the village of Karcia bordering the region of Sedhiou, the overall production has dropped by 80 percent compared to last year,” added Isaac Massaga, an Oxfam America humanitarian program officer in Senegal. “A woman we talked to said she harvested 400 kilograms of rice last year and only 80 this year—on the same size of land.”
Massaga said lack of rain has also hurt the production of vegetables, an activity that usually provides a substantial source of income for women and their households.
Peanuts, the cash crop that many farmers in the Kolda area depend on to support their families, have taken a severe hit as well. During the last harvest in October, production plummeted by 60 percent, said Matthews, leaving families with less money to buy food. And at a time when they need to purchase even more of it to make up for what their fields couldn’t produce, the shortages are beginning to take a toll.
When there is a lack of food—or money to buy it—families resort to other ways of coping. They may borrow food or cut down on the number of meals they eat each day. Often, they turn to searching for wild foods, such as roots, fruits, or grasses
“In the south, families showed us the clover-type grasses they were collecting for their households,” said Matthews. “People told us how they had borrowed rice from family or friends, or money so they could buy a kilo to feed their children.”
Normally January and February are times of plenty around Kolda. Farmers have cash from their harvests. They have stocks of food. Their families can eat three times a day, every day. But not this year.
“Now, they’re saying they’ll eat, definitely once, usually twice, and maybe three times—if they have enough money, or if they happen to sell a goat,” Matthews said.
To get cash, more people are resorting to a hard—and environmentally destructive—solution: They are fanning out into protected forests and cutting trees, which they then turn into charcoal. Senegal’s capital, Dakar, has an enormous appetite for charcoal, said Matthews, as it is the main cooking fuel used there. Neighboring Gambia is also a big market.
“You see huge trucks filled way higher than they should be—filled with thousands of sacks of charcoal—going into Gambia,” Matthews said.
“In our conversations with Abdou Seydi, the regional director of rural development for Kolda, he expressed deep concern about this phenomenon,” said Massaga. “It’s not only accelerating deforestation in an already fragile ecosystem, but it also heavily affects the soil fertility, and thus impacts the medium-to-long-term agricultural productivity in Kolda.”
But without alternatives for feeding their families, people are not likely to stop cutting trees added Seydou Wane, the executive secretary of FODDE, a local organization Oxfam works with.
What complicates the food situation in Senegal is that while one community may be struggling to ensure there is enough to eat, just a few short miles away another community may be faring fine—a disparity that makes generalizations impossible. Poor rainfall was not universal.
“We went into one village, Balkamissa, and the first thing I saw were these stacks—chest high—of millet that had been harvested, dried, and stored under a tent,” said Matthews.
As bountiful as the harvest may have been in Balkamissa, it’s clear from the assessment missions Oxfam has undertaken that many families are struggling and need help to make it through to the next harvest. In a three-phased response, Oxfam plans to help tens of thousands of Senegalese meet their immediate needs, recover some of their losses, and better prepare for the next time trouble strikes. And among the initiatives around Kolda will be income=generating activities so families won’t have to rely on dwindling forests for their survival.
In February 2012, key governments and institutions from the region and the wider Islamic and Western world will meet in London to chart a way forward. They must seize this opportunity to refocus on the Somali people that past policies have failed, developing more coherent strategies to ensure that aid and protection reach those who need it and addressing the root causes of the protracted conflict and chronic vulnerability in the country.
]]>In the briefing note, "A Shift in Focus – putting the interests of Somali people first", Oxfam said that at times international policies towards Somalia have been inconsistent, with support for state building and military interventions exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the country and undermining the international community’s own relief efforts.
“It is time for a new vision of engagement that meets Somalis’ immediate and future needs, while providing the space for a negotiated peace process that puts Somalia on the road to recovery. Those attending the London Somalia conference must seize this opportunity and help start the process to address the causes of the conflict in Somalia and put the interests and aspirations of the Somali people center stage,” said Oxfam America Senior Fellow Scott Paul.
The agency said the London conference is an opportunity to stake out a new approach to the country by shifting the emphasis away from security concerns and taking practical steps towards an inclusive political solution to the conflict and crisis. Sustained international aid is essential, both to save lives now and to help the Somali people rebuild their future, but to be effective this must be kept clearly separate from any political and security efforts.
Oxfam said that although responsibility for Somalia’s decades long crisis lies first and foremost with factions inside the country, international engagement has at times made matters worse. For many governments involved in Somalia current military action is seen as improving security and stability, both in neighboring countries and in Somalia itself, but reports from inside the country tell a different story.
Population tracking reports show that nearly half of the people displaced in January were fleeing insecurity, largely from areas seeing a return to armed conflict. Camps where civilians have sought refuge have been struck by warring factions on opposing sides, along with hospitals, a feeding center and more than one aid agency compound.
Aid agencies offering life-preserving assistance have also faced obstructions from warring factions on both sides of the conflict in trying to reach those in need.
“The US has a duty to promote adherence to international law by all parties to the war in Somalia – and although the US may not have influence with all armed factions within the country, it does have leverage to ensure that AU and TFG forces in Somalia and their allies comply with their legal obligations to protect civilians." Paul said. “The US must use that leverage.”
Oxfam said that the success of the London Somalia conference will be judged on whether it results in:
“When my kids are having fun, when they’re not hungry, when they jump left, right, and center, that’s the most pleasure I get,” she said.
But with rain in short supply, Senussi is worried about what the future will hold. Across the Sahel region of West Africa, a number of conditions are converging that could trigger a new food crisis. Low rainfall and water levels, poor harvests, lack of pasture, and high food prices are all causing serious problems, even as people are still trying to recover from the last food crisis in 2010 which affected 10 million of them.
“If the rain does not fall, it will be a disaster for us,” said Senussi. “The animals and the people need the rainy season. Pastures grow during the rainy season. Without rain there is no life. We’ll have to migrate but now we don’t know what will become of us.”
For many families, hunger is a hardship they have long endured.
“Usually, a family should eat three times a day, but now that is not the case,” said Koubra Hamid, a 40-year-old mother of eight children who lives in Sallal, Chad. She has only enough food to prepare one meal a day for her family—a ball made of rice or flour and served with a sauce.
That single meal a day is all Hamid’s family has had for several years. They don’t have the resources for more. To buy grain in the market, families may first have to sell one of their animals to get cash.
“If we had animals, we could feed our children more often,” she said, but as the pastureland has shrunk, so has the size of their herd. And in the harsh calculus herders know well, the 13 camels Hamid’s family has held onto don’t add up to full stomachs for her children.
“To prepare two meals a day in one household like ours, the head of the family should own at least 30 animals,” said Hamid. “Our only source of income comes from the rain. Rain falls, grass grows, animals graze this grass, then we sell the animals to provide for us. If the rain doesn’t fall, we cannot talk of life here.”
Nor is it easy to speak of hunger and its devastating consequences.
“The truth is, we don’t have the right to say that someone has died because of hunger,” said Ashta Hamid, Senussi’s older sister. “We cover this and say they died because they were sick, but really, lack of food kills.”
In Chad, where crop production from a recent harvest was down 50 percent, reports have indicated that 13 out of 22 regions could be affected by food insecurity.
Oxfam is gearing up to address the needs of the most vulnerable people in the region and in some places across the Sahel the organization has already been working with communities to increase their resilience.
In the village of Kouzi Wahid in northern Chad, Fatna Bakhit is growing tomatoes, watermelons, turnips, and onions with seeds and gardening tools she received from Oxfam. She’s counting on the produce to help tide her family over: The last harvest was poor and they lost most of their crops. And her husband has now gone off to look for work.
“When this effort bears fruit, I will be able to take care of my small family whilst awaiting support from my husband,” said Bakhit.
A shorter commitment won't get the job done. It takes time to help people build skills and infrastructure, to get policies changed, and to ensure that governments spend their money more effectively.
Smart development demands monitoring and evaluation. Organizations should be accountable to report not only what they do, but also how they measure it. Don't believe stories that guarantee long-term impact after one or two years' investment; that's barely time to lay some groundwork.
We all crave the easy answer, the quick solution, but if eradicating poverty were simple, people living in poverty would have sorted it out long ago. They may lack resources like land, but they certainly don't lack intelligence or insight. Poverty is a global challenge—one that we can overcome together, but listening and learning from people living in poverty, and developing solutions with them, takes time and sustained effort.
This issue of OXFAMExchange includes inspiring stories, but they are just snapshots from a family album: moments in a long journey together. Each story is ultimately about perseverance and the need for long-term commitment.
In a new report, Crises in a New World Order, Oxfam said that while governments’ and agencies’ response to emergencies has greatly improved it still remains ‘too little, too late’ and is often determined by the vagaries of media and political interest rather than level of human need.
“Coping with the expected strains on the humanitarian system will mean a shift from global to local. We are already seeing the center of humanitarian action moving away from the Western world to the local and the national but this move needs to accelerate.
International aid agencies cannot just pitch up, patch up and push-off, they also have to ensure that people and countries are better prepared to withstand future shocks. Having local organisations already on the ground that are primed to go will increase both the speed and the efficiency of the aid effort and ultimately will save more lives,” said Jane Cocking Oxfam’s Humanitarian Director.
This shift is vital as significant demands will be placed on the humanitarian system through the expected rise in the number of people exposed to disasters, the rising number of weather-related disasters and the failure to resolve conflicts adequately and turn round failed states.
Humanitarian work can be effective in an emergency but more emphasis should be placed on preventing crises from escalating. Not only would it save lives, but it would also save money. The UN estimated that in Niger in 2005 it cost $1 to save a malnourished child’s life. Once Niger’s food crisis was in full swing it cost $80.
Too little has been done to prevent and reduce the risk of disaster. Aid to programs that reduce the risk of disaster stood at only 0.5 per cent of total aid spending in 2009. National governments have committed themselves to this work by signing up to the international agreements on disaster risk reduction. While many have developed policies and legislation too little effective action has happened.
Bangladesh is an example of the importance of this work. In 1991 a cyclone struck Bangladesh killing an estimated 140,000 people. A similar sized cyclone hit the country in 2007 killing 3,406 people, still a high death toll but much reduced due in part to the government’s efforts at implementing early warnings and evacuating people to safety.
“Shifting more money to preventing and reducing the risk of disaster makes eminent sense but it does not mean taking it away from urgent humanitarian response. It is not the case of either or. We will still need the funds to immediately respond to dire human crises,” said Cocking.
This vision of a new humanitarian world is fraught with challenges. Ensuring the quality of aid and the principles that guide humanitarian action will not be easy.
Over the last two decades a great deal of effort has been done to lay down minimum standards and quality of humanitarian aid. National governments and local organisations will need a great deal of support, and in some cases encouragement, to adhere to these standards.
The more fundamental challenge will be upholding the principles of impartiality – aid based on need - and independence – aid free of political interest. Many Western donors tend to focus on their spheres of influence and interest which may not coincide always with meeting human need. Non-Western donors are now becoming more important funders of humanitarian operations. But they too have their own particular interests. For example the Arab and Muslim countries in 2011 gave generously to Somalia, Libya and Yemen. These decisions reflect political and cultural affinities but also raise questions of how aid is to be targeted to human need.
New entrants into the operations of humanitarian aid will pose challenges to impartiality and independence. The increased involvement of the private sector in supporting the aid effort is welcome and has many benefits but running aid programmes themselves will challenge humanitarian principles given that commercial interest sits uncomfortably with putting human need first and foremost.
Read the report here.
Western-based donors, INGOs and the UN provide only part of the answer. Already, new donors and NGOs from around the world provide a significant share of humanitarian aid. Future humanitarian action will rely on them, and on the governments and civil society of crisis-affected countries even more. The UN and INGOs will be vital, but their contribution will increasingly be measured by how well they complement and support the efforts of others, and encourage every humanitarian actor to uphold humanitarian principles.
]]>Across West Africa a new food crisis is looming over a population that has already endured three of them since 2005. The last—in 2010—affected 10 million people.
But with early action, the hardship and loss so many have suffered through in the past seven years could be softened and that’s what Oxfam America’s humanitarian workers Isaac Massaga, Julie Savane, and Greg Matthews are taking the first steps to put in place. They are just back from Boulal, a collection of villages in the north, where they were working to identify the greatest needs and the responses that would best fill them—now, and longer-term.
“We’re in a good position now to mitigate the serious consequences of an acute food crisis and to help people not resort to selling assets and cattle to meet their basic needs,” said Matthews, speaking from the Oxfam office in Dakar, Senegal’s capital.
Selling valuables—livestock, farm tools—is one of the strategies poor families without cash employ as a last resort when faced with no other way to get food: They’ll use the money to buy it in the market. But in selling these important assets, they are also limiting their ability to make a living, and that drags them deeper into poverty. Halting that cycle is key to averting a crisis.
During the last growing season, rainfall in Louga was erratic, said Matthews, sometimes coming in great gushes and sometimes not at all. For the crops—millet, cowpeas, and peanuts—the result was dismal. The yields are off dramatically.
One farmer Matthews spoke with said he and his family had just consumed the last of the millet they had harvested in the end of October—300 kilograms worth. That was five times less than he would get in a good year. And the next planting season is still four months away.
How will people manage? Some, like the millet-grower, will pursue petty commerce, such as hunting for wood that they can sell as fuel in the market. But for many herders facing lean times, their strategy is to migrate with their livestock in the hope of finding pasture elsewhere.
In Boulal this year, that migration has started much earlier than usual, said Matthews.
“The hardest months for pastoralists are April, May, and June—right before the rains begin,” he said. “But they’re starting to experience that now, in the beginning of February, so most of their productive animals have already started to migrate.” That means families must take their kids out of school prematurely and abandon other livelihood efforts, like gardens and small shops, that could help support them.
Poor harvests are also adding to the stress herders are feeling. With fewer crops pulled in from the fields that means fewer leftovers of leaves and stalks to feed to the livestock. And as the health of their animals declines, so does the value of sheep, goats and cattle.
Coupled with all of this, said Matthews, are climbing prices in the markets. A 50-kilogram sack of rice that once could be had in a trade of one sheep now costs a herder two or three.
“Because of all this, people are starting to employ early coping strategies,” Mathews said. “They are starting to change the way they eat and manage their finances to prepare for a long, hungry season.”
But even as they take these steps, the future hangs heavily.
“People are really worried about what will happen a month from now,” Mathews said. “Most of the food reserves are already exhausted.”
Among the responses Oxfam is weighing are cash transfers—a tool that would allow hard-hit families to carry on as they would normally. With cash, they could buy the essentials they need during this critical period but not have to sell vital assets to do it, said Matthews. A second approach might be to help herders get access to fodder for their livestock, which provides both food and income for families.
But longer-term, the goal is to help communities become more resilient.
“The bottom line is working with communities to take charge of the issues and find solutions themselves,” said Matthews, pointing to a milking cooperative that had worked successfully in the area for a while. “It’s not about money. It’s about having, at the base community level, the desire to work together and the capacity to manage working collectively.”
This means acting on information from early warning systems and not waiting for certainty before responding, as well as tackling the root causes of vulnerability and actively seeking to reduce risk in all activities. To achieve this, we must overcome the humanitarian-development divide.
]]>This report demonstrates what Oxfam has achieved during this past, challenging year. Although this is still in many respects a humanitarian situation we are also working on innovative longer-term programs – involving existing and new partnerships with local organizations – to help in the wider reconstruction effort.
]]>Thomazeau—home to about 52,000 inhabitants—is a rural community in western Haiti, surrounded by mountains and little-touched by the earthquake two years ago. In fact, it was an area that saw a large influx of arrivals from the capital immediately after the quake. But it is also economically deprived.
Most people here are “planteurs”—small-scale farmers living off their land and selling what crops they can. But poor roads are a major problem in getting goods to markets. And, as Dumel pointed out, there are few economic opportunities available in the community.
That’s also true across Haiti, where an estimated 75 percent of the population is not in salaried employment, and jobs are scarce.
Finding work is especially challenging in rural areas, where even the most casual of jobs are hard to come by. This was a major issue in Haiti, as much before the earthquake as now, and it is hampering people’s ability to rebuild their lives.
According to an Oxfam survey last year, finding work is the top priority for most Haitians. And that’s why a project which Oxfam supports in Thomazeau is raising the hopes of many women.
The women have their own section within ODECT known as RAFARE. That stands for Rassemblement des Femmes pour l’Accès aux Ressources Économiques, or Rallying Women to Access Economic Resources. Its goal is to try to improve the economic status of women. The group owned one milling machine and earned money processing grain brought to the center by farmers and merchants. Oxfam hired RAFARE after the earthquake to help provide milled cereals which formed part of food kits that were distributed in the outdoor camps where people had sought shelter.
Oxfam is now helping the women again—with funds and training, including enlisting the help of expatriate Haitian experts with specific skills. The group is modernizing its service center and expanding its operation.
The small building where they’re currently located will double in size, allowing the women to have storage facilities where they can stock processed and unprocessed grains and market milled cereals. Oxfam has helped them to purchase two new grinding machines and is providing training and other equipment. The goal is to enable the women to run their operation as a full-fledged business. They will buy and sell locally produced grain throughout the year, rather than just seasonally; and during lean times, in between the harvests, they can sell surplus stocks in the local market.
“It will bring more economic opportunities here. There will be more jobs and more money coming in,” said Marie-Claude Estenfile, general secretary of RAFARE. “There was always a shortage of grains being sold in the local markets from April to June, but we will be able to provide processed grains during that period.
It means people won’t have to travel an hour or more to some of the markets, like in Croix des Bouquets, 24 kilometers away, to buy what they need. It will be easier to purchase food locally and we will help to strengthen the supply chain. The markets will be busier; the money will benefit the local economy.”
Having proper storage facilities and being able market their own cereals will enable the women to work all year round, and not just stay open for business during the busy harvest period.
“It will guarantee people’s food security here,” said Dumel, adding that it will also create new jobs. “During the lean periods, people would have to buy imported rice and grain from other places. But we will have stocks to sell and supply to the local markets.”
RAFARE’s members are excited about the project.
“It gives me hope for the future,” said Hermircie Alfred, 40. “I hope we can buy and sell the grains locally all year round; and we can make more profits.”
“There are very few job opportunities here,” Alexina Augustin, 45, a mother of eight. “The only jobs we can really find are selling cereals and this project will help us. I lost my home and land a few months ago during flooding and now I can’t send my children to school. This will be a lifeline for me,” she said.
]]>The forecast predicts this short wet season will bring an average amount of rainfall to Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Coupled with humanitarian assistance and anticipated decreases in locally produced cereal prices, the rain means that the food security situation in Kenya and Ethiopia is likely to improve over the next few months. But in southern Somalia, the situation remains dire, with an estimated four million people in crisis and 750,000 men and women experiencing famine.
In many areas of the region emergency conditions are expected to persist well into 2012. Households remain extremely vulnerable to additional shocks as the severe drought has depleted herders’ assets and reduced crop production. Several good seasons are required to rebuild herd sizes, improve harvests, and reduce debt levels.
In some areas flooding and mudslides are common during the rainy season. For example, in Ethiopia’s Somalia region localized flash floods have already been reported in areas along the Wabishabelle river, affecting an estimated 18,000 people with damage to crops and livestock.
The rain and a drop in temperature are also likely to kill cattle that have already been weakened by a lack of food and water—further undermining the ability of herding families to earn a living and recover from the drought.
In addition, the rains and the risk of contamination of water sources can lead to an increase in water-borne diseases such as typhoid fever, acute watery diarrhoea (AWD), cholera, and hepatitis A. Outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, particularly those spread by mosquitos, such as malaria, dengue and Rift Valley Fever are likely during the rainy season, and increases in cases of pneumonia and respiratory tract infections are common. More than 1,200 cases of dengue have been confirmed in Kenya’s Mandera District since Sept. 23. Flooding in Turkana and Pokot, areas in northwest Kenya, has caused a spread of malaria in the Upper Rift Valley, with outbreaks in Turkana, Kakuma, and surrounding districts.
Displaced people within Somalia and those who have crossed into Kenya and Ethiopia are particularly vulnerable as many of them are living in overcrowded conditions, with limited access to water and sanitation facilities and inadequate shelter. Outbreaks of measles, acute watery diarrhoea (AWD), cholera, malaria, and pneumonia have already been reported in camps in Mogadishu. In Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya five measles-related deaths and 113 cases were reported during the last week of September.
But as people’s needs increase, the rain makes it harder to reach them: Rivers flood their banks, bridges break or get washed away, and roads become impassable. In Ethiopia, access to refugee camps in Dollo Ado is already challenging as the rains make airstrips and roads impassable.
In Kenya, Oxfam is mapping the accessibility of certain areas and working with partners to devise contingency plans to meet the needs of people there. Public health promotion teams are doing environmental clean-up and awareness-raising campaigns. Boreholes are being rehabilitated and chlorine kits and water purification tabs have been distributed. In the areas where Oxfam has been distributing cash to vulnerable households which will be cut off during the rains, a double payment was made to cover the period between October and November so people do not go without.
In Ethiopia Oxfam has expanded its public health promotion and acute watery diarrhea preparedness activities, with a particular focus on women who manage water and sanitation at the household level. Oxfam teams are working with aid groups and other local partners to ensure a strong response to any outbreaks of acute watery diarrhea. As the rains commence, water trucking is being reduced and teams are supporting regional and zonal authorities to ensure emergency stocks and water treatment kits can be mobilized. Cash for work activities and market-support activities are ongoing and animal health interventions, such as vouchers for veterinary visits and vaccinations, have started up.
In Somalia Oxfam partners have been preparing for outbreaks of acute watery diarrhea by setting up distribution posts in camps for displaced people. The posts contain oral rehydration sachets, sugar, salt, soap for washing hands, and chlorine bleach. Partners have also increased the frequency and methods for public health messaging and are working with committees to oversee the water and sanitation services.
In Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, the UN, government, and non-governmental groups have prepared contingency plans to respond to any increase in needs: Strong coordination and monitoring is essential.
The delivery of food aid remains a key concern. In Kenya the World Food Programme (WFP) has reported delays in food aid distribution in Wajir, Garissa and Mandera as roads are impassable. Roads in Garissa and Hola, key entry points into the Dadaab refugee camps, are completely cut off.
Ongoing conflict, insecurity, and restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Somalia are the key factors which will hinder a more effective response to the increased needs caused by the rains. For example, armed groups in many parts of South Central Somalia are not allowing mass public immunization campaigns despite outbreaks of deadly diseases like measles.
The recent military incursion by Kenyan forces into Somalia, as well as insecurity in refugee camps on the Kenyan side of the border, is also impacting on the humanitarian situation in certain areas of Kenya and Somalia. Fighting in Somalia is likely to cause further civilian displacement and casualties at a time when thousands of people risk imminent death due to famine.
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