Locusts and Poor Rainfall Spawn Food Crisis across the Sahel

Posted: 23 August 2005

A one billion dollar emergency fund could go a long way toward preventing the suffering many people now face in the Sahel. World leaders will have a chance to act on the fund at a United Nations summit in September.

Sand stretches as far as the eye can see behind Abu Ould Mohamed, a cattle farmer in the Gao region of northern Mali. The barren land is testament to the hardship Ould Mohamed and countless others like him are now enduring. Across northern Mali, 2.2 million people—about 20 percent of the population—face severe food shortages or famine if they do not get help.

Mali is just one of the West African nations grappling with a food crisis that is slowly sapping life out of the Sahel. Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Niger are all facing the same problem set off by a combination of locust infestations and erratic rainfall.

“Look at the landscape around us,” declared Ould Mohamed. “It is incredibly dry!” The consequences have been severe for herding families throughout the region. Ould Mohamed has lost two-thirds of his livestock. Only a small herd of goats remains—animals that he and his family will go to great lengths to keep alive, even at the expense of their own needs.

“I only have 10 precious goats to rely on now,” said Ould Mohamed. “When one of them is too weak, we share our meager food ration to keep it alive, even if we have to deprive ourselves and our children.”

In this region, livestock is equivalent to a bank account. It represents wealth and security—the same way a house does to westerners. But a recent Oxfam assessment in northern Mali revealed pockets of severe need among cattle breeding communities—need that donor governments had largely ignored, despite a World Food Program appeal in December. By early August, just 14 percent of the $7.4 million requested had dribbled in to the program’s coffers. Oxfam’s data showed that more than 70 percent of the families in the northern Bourem region were surviving on one meal a day—or less.

“Governments must fully fund the World Food Program appeal for Mali immediately,” said Natasha Kofoworola Quist, Oxfam Great Britain’s regional director for West Africa. “Every moment they delay, more lives are put at risk. This food crisis is affecting countries across West Africa.”

In neighboring Burkina Faso, the government is asking for aid to help more than 500,000 people in 16 northern provinces. Locusts and drought wiped out the harvest last year for an estimated 24,000 families. In northern Nigeria, an invasion of grain-eating birds has devoured the crops of 42,000 farmers.

And in Mauritania, many communities in the southern part of the country are at risk. The rains are late and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization is concerned that there is a shortage of seeds for planting. The recent coup d’etat in the country now threatens to disrupt the assistance aid groups are trying to deliver.

A One Billion Dollar Solution

One way to prevent crises like these is through an emergency fund that would disburse money when countries faced a severe and sudden need. Now, they must wait—sometimes for months—for donations to trickle in to various UN appeals. For too many people, that wait spells death.

When world leaders gather for the UN summit in New York in mid-September, Oxfam will urge them to expand that fund from a meager $50 million to $1 billion.

“It is outrageous that the world waits until children are dying before acting to save them,” said Phil Bloomer, Oxfam’s director of campaigns and policy. “The UN launched their appeal for Niger in November 2004, but it wasn’t until international TV crews arrived that money really started coming in.”

If leaders agree to the proposal, UN member states would pay into the permanent fund, so that when countries such as those in West Africa need help, money would be available immediately.

“Starvation does not have to be inevitable,” said Bloomer. “World leaders must set up a UN emergency fund to stop food crises from ever happening again.”

Taking on Locusts in Mali

Starting in December, Oxfam began to tackle the locust problem in the Gao region of northern Mali. In collaboration with the Land Protection Service and with the government’s Department of Rural Technology, Oxfam has produced a series of radio announcements to tell people about how to combat a possible return of the pests this year.

In January, to help protect livestock already weakened by lack of food, the agency launched an animal health program in northern Mali and helped to vaccinate 280,000 cattle. Oxfam also supported cattle farmers by subsidizing the sale of animal feed. More than 346 tons of feed were sold to 6,920 farmers at 40 percent of the current market price.

Additional programs that Oxfam has been working on in Mali since May include voucher-for-work projects and seed fairs. Through the voucher program, up to 50,000 men and women will work for nine hours spread over three days in exchange for vouchers worth $4. The public works projects they will undertake include the construction of dikes and tree planting.

Losses in Mauritania

Mauritania suffered the greatest devastation from the locusts. In some areas, people lost all their crops and all their pastureland. Recognizing that a major food crisis was looming, the Mauritanian government and the World Food Program sounded the alarm early—with good results. The World Food Program appealed for $31 million and quickly received 82 percent of that amount.

Oxfam conducted an assessment in October. By February, the agency had picked the sites in which it would set up projects and by April had launched a food-for-work program in Mauritania’s northern Brakna region. More than 35,000 people benefited from the program.

“I’ve participated in the rehabilitation of dikes in my village,” said Khadijetou Mint Lekhjine, a resident of Aguenita. “For this work I received some wheat, pulses, and oil. Before this program we only had one, or a maximum of two, small meals a day. Now we are able to eat three times a day and in better proportions.”