“It is hard not to be able to feed your children,” says Adama Diallo. “You can’t be at peace. You can’t sleep at night.”
Diallo, who lives in the village of Tankanto Escale, Senegal, is no stranger to hunger. Each year in the run-up to the fall harvest, those who depend on agriculture experience a lean season, when the last of the stored food runs out and they must cope as best they can—reducing their meals to a minimum while they eke out an uncertain income from day labor, trading, and in some cases mining for flecks of gold.
But this year, the lean season in Senegal—as in much of the western Sahel—began months early, and the consequences have been harsh. More than half a year on a sparse diet of millet and rice has left many children severely and visibly malnourished. And farmers, many of whom have had to sell off their labor-saving equipment and draft animals to buy food, face the difficult task of cultivating crops while hungry and fatigued.
Diallo’s own story is not unusual: after the disastrous harvest of 2011, her stocks of food ran out quickly, and she resorted to a hand-to-mouth existence as a trader in the marketplace, beginning each day with no money and only borrowed goods to sell, and ending with—if she was lucky—enough food to get through another day.
“If the food is not sufficient,” she says, “we only give it to the children.”
Diallo’s struggles didn’t go unnoticed: Oxfam’s partner FODDE (in English, Forum for Sustainable Indigenous Development) included her in a program to distribute cash to the people most in need in this emergency. So recently she traveled to a credit union in the nearest large town, presented her cash voucher card and ID, and received enough money—provided by Oxfam—to feed a household of 10 people for a month (about $8 per person).
Why distribute cash rather than food during a food crisis?
It is a surprising fact that in the midst of a food crisis, marketplaces may be overflowing with food. In the Kolda market, for example, which serves Tankanto Escale, some local farmers – despite the crop failures—have managed to gather or grow a few items for sale. They ran out of rice months ago, but traders have filled that gap and many others by importing goods from other regions.
As long as food is available, there’s no need for an aid provider to undertake the costly and time-consuming process of shipping it in. Yet people who have lost their harvest—and with it their main source of income—may not be able to afford the food that’s there. For that, they need cash.
Cash payments quickly go to work in the local markets, benefiting not only the people who receive the money directly but also the local farmers and vendors they buy from.
And cash provides flexibility. A food distribution might involve fixed rations of beans and grains—the non-perishables that can travel long distances— but people who receive cash can buy a variety of foods, including eggs, fresh fruit, and vegetables. Furthermore, those who have pressing medical concerns can make the choice to spend some of their money on doctors and medicines.
So in southern Senegal and some of the other crisis-affected regions, Oxfam is focusing not on providing food but on providing the means to purchase the foods and critical services that are available locally.
Diallo used her first payment to buy rice, soap, and cooking oil. “Once we received the cash, there was a big change,” she says. “Before, we ate twice a day, but never enough. The children ate three times a day, but it never filled them. After the payment, there was enough for everyone.”
The money not only helped her meet immediate needs—it released her from the daily imperative of earning money in the marketplace, so she has had a chance to plant her fields. Which means that if this season’s promising rains continue, she will likely have a harvest in October or November that will help her get back on her feet.
“Now I have peace,” she said, “and I am sleeping well.”
Read blogs about Oxfam’s cash and public health programs in Senegal.
Read about Oxfam’s response to the food crisis throughout the western Sahel.
Donate now to the Sahel food crisis fund.
]]>On distribution day in the village of Louga, women and children sat patiently, waiting for their names to be called as workers carefully measured each family’s allotment. Here, every grain is precious. Though Oxfam has selected the most vulnerable villagers to receive the food—widows, divorcees, and people caring for orphans—in reality the sorely needed calories will be shared widely among many. It’s one of the survival strategies common in Louga, where the homes sit close together along dusty paths and the temperature soars to 104 degrees.
“Solidarity here in this community is very strong,” says Khadidja Idriss, a mother of six children. She shared with 10 other families some of the food she received on distribution day, which included 75 pounds of corn, 9 to 11 pounds of beans, a little more than two quarts of oil, and close to a pound of salt.
“My neighbors have virtually nothing either, but they will even feed my children if I’m out. We help each other, regardless of how little we have,” Idriss says. “This is how we survive.”
Before the distribution, Idriss , who suffers from increasing pain in her legs, had been struggling to find enough food for her family. Meals consisted of corn flour mixed with water, and a sauce made from leaves gathered by her children.
“The children often don’t manage to sleep and they cry because they are hungry,” said Idriss. “Sometimes I have no words of comfort for my children. I boil water with a bit of salt for them to drink, which will fill them up.”
But there is no comfort like food, and when Idriss learned that her family had been selected for the distribution, she could hardly wait to convey the news.
“I told my children straight away and they were so happy and joyful and haven’t talked about anything else since,” she said.
The day before the distribution, a neighborhood child, propped near the doorway of Adoaga Ousmane’s home, chewed on a pit from a piece of fruit . The fruit was long gone, but the chewing helped stave off hunger. For Ousmane, caring for a house full of children and grandchildren, hunger has been no stranger. Her family, too, was among those selected to receive the monthly rations. And like Idriss, her share went far beyond her own threshold.
“I shared the food I received with three other families,” said Ousmane. “I can’t eat my food while other people go hungry. We always share if we can. There is a strong feeling of solidarity in the village. I have to help others who are in need as they would help me if I asked.”
]]>On the edge of the Taffoga cooperative, in a clearing among the huge mango trees that populate the community, we are welcomed by about 30 women, who describe the horticultural work they are able to carry out with the support of Oxfam, through its local partner ATAD. In the vegetable plot they have planted cabbages, aubergines, gombo (a local vegetable), onions, and garlic. These will enable the women to improve the variety of their diet and they will be able to sell any surplus.
Ramata Zore stops for a few minutes to talk to us while her colleagues water and weed the plot. She is 25 and has 4 children to look after. And at the moment she is on her own, as her husband has gone to the Ivory Coast to look for work.
“The vegetable plot is a help to me, because what I get from it goes somewhere towards feeding my family,” she says. “If I sell some of the vegetables, I can buy millet, which is the staple part of our diet. Also, in these difficult times, we make a recipe based on millet with a few cabbage leaves, which the children love.”
But gardeners here face a daily struggle: Water.
“There isn’t enough water and the wells are drying up,” says Zore. “We’ve had to organize ourselves into two groups: one group does the watering one day and the other does it the following day. In fact…after a few hours of watering, the well is dry and we have to wait a while before we can fill up the buckets again”.
After we have been talking to her for a few minutes, we notice that the coming and going of the women up and down the rows is starting to slow. The four wells on the perimeter of the garden have dried up and the women are congregating around them with their buckets and watering cans, waiting for the water levels to rise again.
“I live in Taffogo and in spite of our having large fields for growing crops, we’ve only harvested four sacks of millet this year, compared with the 20 we can get in a normal year,” says Zore. “But it’s a long time since we had a normal year. Last year, the floods destroyed much of the harvest. We go from one catastrophe to another, either because of too much water or too little.”
“Before, when rain wasn’t in short supply, we had 15 small sheep and cattle,” Zore says. “But we’ve had to sell them all and have now only got one small goat left. As I’ve got nothing else, I’ll have to sell her to buy seeds for next season.”
How to feed her children is always on Zore’s mind.
“Often they tell me they’re hungry and all I can offer them is comfort,” she says. “If there’s something to eat, I give it to them, and if not, I ask the neighbors.”
“My dreams?” Zore asks, surprised at my question about her wishes for the future. “To have enough food to feed my family and a house built of bricks, instead of a shack like the one I live in now. I’d also like to keep up the vegetable plot for five years. Then, if I manage to find something else to do which will enable me to supplement my income, I’ll be able to start a small business. I want to carry on with the vegetable plot and earn money to help my children.”
Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.
]]>The singer and his band, The Orchestre Daande Lenol (“voice of the people” in the Fulani language), held an all-night concert in Wodobere village to raise funds for affected communities.
Maal paused during the concert attended by 1,000 people in the remote village to speak about the food crisis in Senegal and other parts of West Africa. “There is a need to act fast to avoid the situation getting worse. We saw children who don’t even have water to drink. Everywhere it is dry, wells have dried up, and dead animals are littered everywhere.”
The morning after the concert, Maal visited the village of Mbelone located two and a half miles from Wodobere. “We face serious problems here. Our livestock are dying before our eyes,” said Ely Hamady Diallo, the chief of Mbelone, to Maal and a group of journalists. “If we humans do not have food to eat how can we feed our animals? Every other day we lose an animal -- the livestock are our livelihood.”
“I am here with Oxfam to call on governments and the international community to come and help,” Baaba Maal said to journalists after listening to the villagers. “We are demonstrating that artists are not just there to perform and make money. We can be agents of development.”
More than 18 million people are affected by the food crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa owing to irregular rainfall last year, a lack of animal fodder, poor harvests, and lingering vulnerability from the 2010 food crisis. Rising food prices across the region and political conflict in Mali compound the situation. In Senegal, 850,000 people are affected. Oxfam’s response to the crisis will include: cash transfers so families can purchase food and agricultural inputs like seeds, as well as assistance to ensure people have clean water, sanitation, and hygiene assistance. With sufficient food and seeds, families stand a much better chance of a successful harvest this year.
Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.
]]>“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 aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.
]]>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.
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 aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.
]]>The conflict in northern Mali, one of the driving factors of last week’s coup d’état and the temporary closure of borders, had already posed a major risk to vulnerable communities in Mali and the region. Now there are signs that the escalation in the country’s instability is further affecting the already serious food insecurity across West Africa, meaning a rapid increase in humanitarian assistance to the region is urgently needed.
While Oxfam and other agencies continue to operate and provide assistance to vulnerable populations in zones affected by conflict, a further degradation of security may risk hampering humanitarian access and provision of basic services to areas of greatest need.
In Northern Nigeria, an increase in conflict over recent months has also affected communities who are struggling with the food crisis. Some border posts in Borno and Yobe states have been closed due to growing violence, while at other borders exports have been dramatically reduced, having a major impact on the ability of hard hit countries such as Niger and Chad – where 9.7 million risk going hungry this year – to import food. There has also been a sharp downturn in the migration of workers – an important way that families cope in hard times – due to fears of violence.
“The Sahel was already facing a serious and complex food crisis this year, and the growing security concerns in the region risk aggravating the situation further,” said Al Hassan Cissé, Oxfam Regional Food Security Policy Manager. “Regional food markets are not able to function properly in such conditions, meaning greater assistance is rapidly needed to protect millions of people who risk going hungry across the Sahel.”
Responding to the increased humanitarian needs of displaced people, Oxfam is already providing food, water and sanitation to refugees and host communities at three sites in the Tillabery region of Niger, as well as the Fassala transit camp in the Nema region of Mauritania. Preparations are also being made to provide assistance to 19,000 refugees in Burkina Faso. Overall, Oxfam plans to reach 350,000 people in Mali and 1.2 million people across the Sahel with humanitarian assistance.
“The insecurity in Mali must not prevent the urgent efforts needed to deal with the other crisis in this country: the lack of affordable food that threatens the lives and livelihoods of 3.5 million Malians,” said Eric Mamboué, Oxfam Country Director in Mali. “While Oxfam continues to work alongside others to tackle this crisis, dealing with the urgent nutritional needs of the Malian population must remain a top priority for all actors in the country, and access to desperately needed humanitarian assistance must be ensured”.
Some 13 million people in the Sahel are facing a major food crisis in 2012 as poor rains and locust attacks led to a drop in cereal production of 25%, while in some regions such as Gao in northern Mali prices of food remain over 70% higher than the five year average.
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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.
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.”
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.
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.
Donate now to Oxfam's Ivory Coast/Liberia Refugee Crisis Fund.
]]>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.”
]]>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.
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.
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.”
]]>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.
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"Much like the Cairo speech, we are hoping the Accra speech will signal a new era of engagement, respect and partnership with Africa," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. "This historic visit, so early in his presidency and on the heels of important commitments at the G8 in Italy, signals the importance President Obama places on African development."
Millions of Africans live in extreme poverty, and are now hit hard by the global economic and climate crisis. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is expecting losses of up to $245 billion this year as a result of the global slump, which is almost seven times the amount it receives in global aid. In Ghana, a resource-rich country, the life expectancy is a mere 58 years and 70% of people in the poor northern regions live on less than $1 a day. Despite the economic crisis, Africa continues to attract large investments to extract the riches that lie below ground, producing billions in government revenues. By 2015, oil revenues in African oil-exporting countries will exceed the amount needed to meet key social development goals by $35 billion annually—but investing this money wisely is not a sure thing.
"Africa is rich in natural resources like gold, diamonds and oil, but, too often, these resources have contributed to corruption, conflict, and human rights abuses," said Offenheiser. "But important progress can be made to turn this around. President Obama can help by supporting increased transparency and the disclosure of payments from US and other companies to African governments to help ensure responsible use of billions of dollars of government revenues per year."
Oxfam praised Ghana's recent commitment to transparency in the country's nascent oil sector and urged President Obama to encourage the government to follow through on these commitments and encourage other African governments to follow the positive steps the Ghanaian government has taken to date.
Oxfam also noted that key reforms are needed to make the US foreign aid system as effective as possible in reducing poverty and creating prosperous communities throughout the developing world. The US currently lacks a coherent assistance strategy for many of the countries it is trying to help. Oxfam is calling on the US to keep recipient country governments and their public informed on the nature and amount of American aid, help the recipient country to manage its own development, and ultimately, let each recipient country lead its own development agenda.
"American generosity is undermined by a reactive approach that prioritizes relief efforts—like food aid—that saves lives, but doesn't address underlying causes of poverty and hunger," said Offenheiser. "If the US wants to use its aid consistently help the poor in countries such as Ghana, it needs a global development strategy to guide the US government's efforts to fight poverty."
Climate change is already impacting the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor people in Africa, as a recent Oxfam report details. Tackling these impacts is essential to addressing food security and broader development objectives. President Obama must commit to help bring about a comprehensive global climate strategy that will help poor communities cope with the impacts of global warming, from failed crops to dwindling reserves of clean water and displacement caused by extreme weather events.
"Global hunger and poverty is a human tragedy exacerbated by faltering investments in agricultural production and the growing impacts of climate change," said Offenheiser. "We are pleased to see President Obama follow through on his commitments to reassert US leadership and address the challenges facing the billion people around the world without enough food."
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