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.
]]>“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.
]]>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.
“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.
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.”
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.
]]>A long trek from the outskirts of the Baidoa in Bay Region brought the family here—to a new camp for displaced people called Booli Qaran, which, ironically, means “looted wealth of the state.”
It’s here that Oxfam’s partner, SAACID, has opened another center for community therapeutic care, or CTC, one of 14 the organization is now operating across the city. And it’s here that Sahro’s son, Ahmed, has been receiving care following months of sickness that left him increasingly weak.
“I really don’t know exactly what is wrong with him, but I think the problem is linked to hunger,” says Sahro. “This nutrition center is extremely important for us. Without it, hundreds of children would have already died from malnutrition.”
Implemented in partnership with Oxfam, the CTC program has been treating children since 2009. It is now admitting more than 3,000 malnourished children, like Ahmed, every week.
“We were displaced after drought killed all the animals we had. We had goats and some cattle; we also had a small farm which we cultivated in order to sustain our lives; but unfortunately there has been no rain at all, and this caused everything to die,” says Sahro.
“We endured a very difficult trip from Bay to Mogadishu, because we traveled on foot for almost 155 miles. I was carrying my sick child on my back, while my husband was carrying another child who is older than my youngest. We begged from Bay to Mogadishu—from district to district and from village to village, for food and water. In reality, we were very lucky to survive. We know of so many families who have lost relatives or children. We thank Allah, who has allowed us to come to Mogadishu together and survive.”
Opened on July 12, the Booli Qaran camp was established for rural families flooding the capital in search of food, services and employment. More than 5,000 people now live here in difficult conditions. The day after the camp opened, SAACID set up a CTC center, which, like the others it operates across the city, have been working hard to save lives.
Ambiyo, a mother of triplets, knows well how important the centers are. She brought her triplets—daughters Qaali and Naciimo, and son Abdirisaq—to one of them recently. Qaali was immediately referred to the SAACID’s outpatient therapeutic program section at the clinic, when she was found to be severely malnourished and in need of immediate treatment. Ambiyo notes that her daughter was in a state of complete frailty back then.
Her other 2 children—Abdirisaq and Naciimo—were placed into the supplemental feeding program section, which treats moderately malnourished children. As treatment has continued over two months, they have all been recovering.
“All of my triplets were weak, especially Qaali, who was so weak and sick and refused to breastfeed at all,” says Ambiyo. “The other two were weak and thin, but still breastfeeding. I was so worried that Qaali wasn’t going to make it. We were well received when I first came to the clinic and the nurses immediately said that they could help us.”
“Our daily life depends on what my husband earns with his work as a barber, and that is not enough for such a large family,” says Ambiyo. “I hope my triplets will recover from the sickness arising from malnutrition problems, especially Qaali who is the weakest. So far, so good.”
SAACID’s senior staff and management lived through the last great Somali famine of 1991-1992, and find this new crisis heartbreaking.
SAACID-Somalia’s Country Director, Raha Janaqow, said, “I had hoped to never see such a hell in Somalia ever again. Yet, here we are, 20 years later, having endured 20 years of statelessness and anarchy; having to see another generation of Somalis suffer and die of starvation. I have seen so much suffering, and still I weep. I no longer know where my tears come from. All we can do is keep helping as much as we can with the resources we have, and hope for a better time.”
]]>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.
]]>Water
During earthquakes, like the one that rocked the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, water systems, with their extensive network of pipes and pumps, often collapse. Repairs can take time—time that people who depend on that water to stay alive don’t have.
Without water, people can’t last much beyond three days. That’s why Oxfam focuses much of its emergency response on rushing to provide survivors with a safe supply.
With years of experience responding to emergencies around the world, Oxfam’s water engineers know how to build temporary systems with speed and efficiency so that people can get the water they need. Oxfam trucks water into remote regions, drills for it through desert floors regions, erects massive storage tanks, hauls in generators, repairs pumps, lays temporary water lines, and hands out plastic buckets so people can tote water back to their homes.
And there’s an internationally accepted standard of delivery Oxfam strives to maintain in every crisis. It calls for providing survivors with about four gallons of water per person per day—an amount intended to cover just essential needs.
Here are some of the critical components of an effective emergency water system:
Sanitation
Ensuring that disaster survivors living in camp conditions have safe ways to dispose of waste is crucial to helping them live in a healthy and dignified environment, so creating latrines is a key element of Oxfam’s humanitarian programming.
As quickly as possible after an emergency, we begin constructing simple latrines consisting of holes or trenches in the ground surrounded by light structures of poles and plastic sheeting to provide privacy. As soon as we have the time and resources to do it, we add concrete slabs to stand on to make the latrines cleaner and easier to use.
Oxfam also builds bathing facilities that are designed to be safe and private.
Oxfam makes sure that the displaced communities themselves are involved in the construction and maintenance of their sanitation structures, and in order to help ensure that women and girls feel safe using these communal facilities, we take care that women in particular are involved in decision-making about their location, design, and construction.
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