Sahel Humanitarian Response Plan 2014-2016

More than 20 million people - that's roughly 1 in 8 - in the Sahel do not know where their next meal is coming from. Their struggle is compounded by continued conflict, natural disasters and epidemics.

On 3 February in Rome, United Nations Agencies and partners launche an unprecedented, three-year Strategic Response Plan to bring life-saving assistance to vulnerable families and break the crisis cycle for years to come.

Robert Piper, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, explains how the plan will save lives now an in the future.

 



 

Resilience wasn’t built in a day

By Anouk Delafortrie, Regional Information Officer for West Africa, ECHO

Upon interviewing Lenli Traoré, a small farmer in Tapoa, the easternmost province of Burkina Faso, about how his family will be coping after the failed harvest he pulls a faded photo from his breast pocket. “Paguidamba”, he explains, “was one year old when she died. She was ill and became malnourished. We waited too long to seek medical help.” The loss of his daughter five years ago has left Lenli mourning, prompting him to share the fading depiction of the girl with a big belly so as to keep her memory alive. Touched by his gesture, I come to appreciate the true value of him cherishing his lastborn Dieudonné which he tenderly holds while his wife Kanlafé prepares the family meal.

 

At only 7 months Dieudonné has already been seriously ill twice during the rainy season, first measles, then malaria. And luckily, this time, his mother had been included as a beneficiary of Action Against Hunger’s cash transfer programme in the region. Although initially meant as a form of food assistance, Kanlafé spent almost her entire last instalment on medical bills for Dieudonné. But the family is happy to have had the possibility to seek care immediately. Most of the 75€ that Kanlafé received in 5 instalments during the ‘lean season’, the hardest months of the year when food and water become scarce, were used to buy food and condiments as well as soap for their family of nine.

 

There is no silver bullet to solving the erosion of coping mechanisms which a decade of food crises, shifting climate patterns and increasing food prices have brought upon many families of the Sahel like the Traoré’s. The European Commission’s humanitarian aid department ECHO has been supporting various resilience-building pilot programmes, ranging from seasonal cash transfers for poor households to subsidised health care for the most vulnerable, which could make a real difference if combined and scaled up at the national level.

 

 

 

“Humanitarian aid has its limits,” says ECHO’s head of office in Burkina Faso Eric Pitois. “Our goal is to save lives, and undertake some preventative action. But we have to go further now and encourage donors and governments to commit to long-term policies that will lift these people out of extreme poverty.”

 

Resilience wasn’t built in a dayLooking at all that is being achieved in regions where pilot programmes are running, their immense potential becomes apparent. In 5 of the 63 Burkinabe sanitary districts, ECHO funds programmes to ensure free health care for children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. The results are spectacular in that the average number of visits to health centres by mothers and children has multiplied many times over. This, in turn, is a blessing when striving to prevent children from becoming severely malnourished and dying from lack of care.

 

“Every year at the time of harvest, when parents are busy in the fields, the number of severely malnourished children admitted with medical complications increases,” says Action Against Hunger’s Dr. Issa Sawadogo who provides technical support for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition in Tapoa’s provincial hospital. “Children suffer the most when families don’t manage to be food self-sufficient. Malnutrition really needs to be considered as a public health priority and the solutions should not only come from NGOs.”

 

Brought together under an initiative to build resilience in the Sahel and West Africa – AGIR or the Global Alliance for Resilience Initiative – Dr. Issa’s point of view is gaining ground. The realization that increased agricultural production alone will not suffice to feed an exponentially growing population is sinking in. Infrastructure works and optimizing agricultural outputs can be extremely useful, but if there is one thing that humanitarians in this region are demonstrating, it is that investing in policies which shield the most vulnerable families, who are likely to benefit little from these works and agriculture schemes, from ‘falling in deeper’ is needed at the same time.

 

“Now is indeed the time to take action,” agrees Burkina Faso’s minister of agriculture Mahama Zoungrana. “Resilience should not be a single-sector effort, because it is a multi-disciplinary issue. We need to build on the best practices we’ve seen throughout the years and pull them together in AGIR so as to build long-term programmes that will allow our people to live in dignity.”

 

When asked about this year’s harvest, Lenli replied that the stock of cereals will only cover the family’s needs for 6 months. Alone in his field, shedding blood, sweat and tears to keep his family alive, one realizes it is not by lack of determination nor hard work that fathers like him come to lose their children, but by lack of a safety net.

 

AGIR aims to achieve zero hunger in West Africa by 2032. Rome wasn’t built in a day – and neither will resilience -, but building it on the right foundations can prevent the edifice from collapsing.

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Fighting Drought, Building Resilience in the Sahel one Community at a Time

By World Bank

The Senegal River courses through Guinea, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, making its way to the Atlantic Ocean after traversing some of the driest, drought-prone parts of western Africa.

As with any shared water resource, the Senegal River is a major economic, social and cultural lifeline for over 35 million people, 12 million of whom live in its river basin which has a surface area of 300,000 square kilometers.

The US$228.5 million Senegal River Basin Multipurpose Water Resources Development project approved today by the World Bank Group’s Board of Directors marks a new push to alleviate water scarcity and improve farming prospects for millions of people in the four riparian countries. The project is the second phase of a multi-sector, multi-country 10-year program working to bring more food, energy, irrigation and to meet other development targets.

 

 

Boost for Farming

Take rice, a major staple food and preferred cereal of choice across much of western Africa.  Along the banks of the Senegal River and deeper into the delta, cultivating rice is a major occupation and principal source of food and income security for farming communities whose fortunes largely depend on the availability of water for irrigation.

Currently, irrigated farming is limited. Less than half of the Senegal River basin’s irrigation potential, estimated at 375,000 hectares, is developed. Of the 130,000 to 140,000 hectares that are developed, only 90,000 hectares are really usable. The new project will bring irrigation to 13,000 hectares, enhance regional integration and promote multi-purpose water resources development to increase incomes and improve community livelihoods.

Thilene village, in northern Senegal, is an archetypal example of how transformative impact can be achieved by providing farmers with irrigation. There, a new irrigation system fed by the Senegal River is boosting rice production enabling farmers to achieve record rice harvests three times a year.

“In the past we used to have great difficulties accessing water,” said Mamba Diop, an enthusiastic rice farmer. “Today everybody has water, and everybody can farm all year long.  This has increased our revenues; rural-urban migration has stopped because all the young people are interested in agriculture.  We were even able to electrify our village and send our kids to school.” Diop also serves as President of the Thilene Farmers Union.

A similar story is playing out in neighboring Mali, where the Senegal River is formed through the merging of Bakoye and Bafing rivers.  Here, communities have practiced subsistence agriculture, and lack of irrigation has meant that prosperity had remained elusive until a new irrigation system was installed.

“Our main activity is farming, that’s our only source of income,” said Sambali Sissoko, a farmer in Bafoulabé village.  “We are organized in cooperatives and each one of us has a piece of land where we grow cabbage, onions, eggplant, lettuce and maize. We are now able to water our land, and we will have a good harvest and more revenues.”

Protecting Human Health

Water-related diseases associated with large water infrastructure projects are prevalent in the Senegal River basin, a necessary tradeoff of continuing efforts to meet burgeoning food and energy needs for a growing population that is projected to double every 25 years.

For example, malaria affects over 14% of kids under age five and 9% among pregnant women, the most vulnerable groups. Among the riparian countries, Guinea tops the list with the highest prevalence rate of over 54%, while Mauritania has the lowest prevalence rate of 1.2%.  Mali and Senegal have each reported prevalence rates of 3.1% and 2.1% respectively.

Thanks to proper management of water bodies and distribution of mosquito nets, more and more communities living in the Senegal River basin are close to seeing malaria banished from their lives. The project has already distributed 3.1 million long-lasting insecticide treated bed nets. As a result, the use of nets has increased from 27.6% to 46% overall.

The example from Richard Toll, a town lying on the south bank of the river in northern Senegal, is illuminating.  Commenting about how the battle against malaria is being waged successfully, Dr. Alassane Tall, a physician at the local health center noted that thanks to large-scale distribution of mosquito nets, it is very rare to enter a home in Richard Toll and not find a mosquito net.  “Today, we have almost no occurrences of malaria here,” he asserted.

In an interview, Sall Dieynaba Sy, a mother of two young children attested to the success of the mosquito net distribution strategy, adding “Every day, every night, all year long, my children and I sleep under a mosquito net.”

Fish for Food

After agriculture, fishing is the next most important economic activity in the Senegal River basin. Unsustainable fishing practices and changing hydrology are negatively impacting livelihoods in many communities.

To support development of inland fisheries and aquaculture in selected areas of the river basin, the project is providing funding for strengthening fisheries-related institutions, development of sustainable fisheries’ management programs, support for enhancing the value of fish catches through better storage infrastructure, and finance of aquaculture development programs.

“Fishing is our main activity, that is how we are able to provide for our families,” said Serigne Ba, who has been practicing the craft for three decades and is President of the fishery association in village Thiago, Senegal. “With the new fishing boats and nets, we are able to go further in the river, catch more fish, and conserve the fish for a longer time because we now have refrigerated containers. This allows us to sell fish locally and to markets far away such as Richard Toll.”

Coordination and Cooperation Vital for Transformative Impact

The Organization for the Development of the Senegal River Basin (known by its French acronym, OMVS) was established in 1972 to promote coordinated water and energy development. Jointly governed by Guinea, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, the OMVS is spearheading coordinated river basin planning and investment so that the risks of large-scale water investment are mitigated and the benefits are shared among the riparian states.

Speaking to the importance of a multi-pronged approach to sustainable development of the Senegal River basin, Kabiné Komara, High Commissioner of the OMVS said: “Over 12 million people living along the river used to be the poorest in the area. This project has improved health conditions and contributed to improved livelihoods. Through improved management of fisheries, food security has improved and revenues have greatly increased. In supporting agriculture, we didn’t just establish irrigated fields, but also provided farmers with guidance and training along with small loans that allowed for the improvement of agricultural techniques and sharing of knowledge sharing.”

As the four countries of the Senegal River basin work to improve the well-being of their people, it is clear that active coordination and close cooperation is delivering results.

“The second phase of the Senegal River Basin Multipurpose Water Resources Development project is helping communities to secure economic growth, improve well-being and cope and adapt to climate change,” said Shelley Mcmillan, Senior Water Resources Specialist and project leader. “This model of collaboration holds significant promise in other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.”

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Sound water management key to building resilience in Africa’s Sahel

Agricultural potential waiting to be unlocked – greater attention and investment needed

Sound water management holds the key to building resilience in Africa's Sahel and can free rural communities from the vicious cycle of weather-related food security crises that have plagued the region over recent years, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today at a high level meeting on resilience in the Sahel, focusing on irrigation and water management, with participants from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal.

 

With both drought and flooding posing recurring challenges to the livelihoods of farmers and pastoralists, "water is often a problem in the Sahel, whether too much or too little. And the poorest and most vulnerable are the most affected," he noted.

 

A demanding region, with potential

 

Owing to its often harsh agro-climatic and environmental conditions, the Sahel is one of the most vulnerable regions of the world.

 

Still, agriculture is the most important economic activity in the Sahel.  Local economies and livelihoods in the Sahelian countries depend heavily on soil, water and vegetation, but the state of these resources has been steadily deteriorating as a result of expanding human settlement, erosion and demand for food, fodder, fuelwood and water. 

 

Yet agriculture in the region - put on a path to resilience - holds great potential, Graziano da Silva argued.

 

While the Sahel is characterized by low and erratic annual precipitation, with irregular short rainy seasons, its renewable water resources put regional supplies above the standard water scarcity limit of 1,000 m3/yr per capita.  Indeed, with the notable exception of Burkina Faso, there is no aggregate physical water scarcity in the Sahel.

 

 "The region's agriculture potential, when properly mobilized, could easily go beyond local sales and serve regional and even international markets," said Graziano da Silva.

 

But to unlock this potential, more effective, sustainable and integrated management of water resources for agricultural productivity and rural development is necessary.

  

Getting there

 

The FAO chief urged governments, development partners, academia, civil society and private sector participants at the Dakar meeting to be creative and uncompromising in their search for solutions.

"We have the tools to transform the vulnerable communities of the Sahel into much stronger and more resilient communities, and we cannot wait anymore for the next drought or the next flood," he said.

 

Investments in small-scale water harvesting and water storage have a tremendous impact on rural families, he said.

 

Flexible irrigation systems giving farmers better control over water can significantly enhance their incomes.

 

At the same time, more investment in medium to large-scale irrigation systems through effective partnerships between public and private sectors is needed, according to Graziano da Silva.

 

The event in Dakar was second of two back-to-back high-level meetings on boosting rural resilience in the Sahel organized by the World Bank, the Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS) and the governments of Mauritania and Senegal, with the participation also of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS).

 

The first meeting, focused on the needs of Sahelian pastoral communities, took place in Nouakchott, Mauritania, on 29 October.

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Building communities in the Sahel that can weather shocks

 

By the Food and Agriculture Organization

The time has come to break the "vicious circle" of crises in Africa's Sahel by proactively building up the ability of pastoralist and rural communities to weather drought and other shocks, rather than merely helping them recover from disaster after the fact.

 

"We cannot prevent droughts or floods, but we can put in place measures that will help stop them from turning into famine," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva today told participants at a high-level event here in the Mauritanian capital.

 

The Nouakchott event, focused on the needs of pastoral communities, is the first of two back-to-back high-level meetings on boosting rural resilience in the Sahel organized by the World Bank, the Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS) and the governments of Mauritania and Senegal. The second, looking at irrigation needs in the region, takes place in Dakar, Senegal on October 30 and 31st.

 

A way of life at risk

 

 

Poor weather and high food prices have in recent years sparked recurring food and nutrition crises in the Sahel, leaving many rural families in precarious circumstances and on a vulnerable footing.

 

Among those most affected are the region's estimated 16 million pastoralists — livestock-reliant people who regularly move their families and animals in search of water and pasture.

 

While pastoralism has long offered a way for these communities to cope with bad weather and a lack of productive land, their vulnerability to drought, flooding, and other disasters has been on the rise due to increasing competition for access to water and grazing lands.

 

 And the Sahel is, and will likely continue to be, one of the world regions most affected by climate change, meaning that drought and other weather extremes will increase the pressures being brought to bear on pastoralists.

 

"Resilience works"

 

Often, when a crisis hits, the animals upon which pastoral families depend for food and income — as well as capital reserves — die in large numbers or are sold off to meet immediate needs. Selling animals might give temporary relief, but it also means the loss of a household's only productive assets, leaving them even more vulnerable to future calamities.

 

"This is a vicious circle that we need to break," Graziano da Silva said during a keynote address at the start of the Nouakchott meeting. "The only way to end recurrent emergencies in the region is to change from a reactive to a proactive and integrated approach, focusing on resilient livelihoods," he added.

 

The evidence shows that resilience works and is proving effective at saving not only lives and livelihoods but also money, the UN food chief argued. For example, in 2003-2004, the cost of reacting to and suppressing a locust plague in the Sahel added up to $500 million.

 

Last year, a similar crisis was avoided via the timely investment of $8 million that prevent a new outbreak from occurring, Graziano da Silva pointed out. Similarly, studies show that supplementary feeding of livestock before crisis hits — thereby preventing animals from dying out during drought, disease outbreaks, or other shocks — is 16 times less expensive than buying new animals after mass-die offs.

 

"At FAO, we are convinced that resilience is key to food security and are raising its prominence in our work," Graziano da Silva said. Increasing the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises is one of five new strategic objectives recently established by FAO to focus and guide its work.

 

Building on what works

 

Graziano da Silva highlighted a number of areas where more focused action can help improve the resilience of the Sahel's pastoralist communities, including:

 

• Using mobile technology to improve communities' access to weather forecasts and information on vegetation cover, so they can take their animals to where there is forage.
• Scaling up cash for work opportunities that improve rural infrastructure while offering social safety nets.
• Ensuring not only that early warning and response mechanisms are in place, but that they are triggering early reactions.
• Providing various forms of direct support to pastoralists, especially in the area of animal health.
• Supporting the diversification of livelihoods and accumulation of assets by pastoralists.

 

All such efforts will require a joint effort by local communities, governments and the development community, concluded Graziano da Silva.

 

"To build resilience, we cannot work alone. We need to work in partnership," he said.

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More Irrigation and Pastoralism Could Transform Africa's Sahel Region

By Makhtar Diop, Vice President for Africa at the World Bank

The Sahel region, a vast arid stretch of land linking six countries in West Africa -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal -- is home to some of the most productive pastoralist communities in the world.And yet, assailed by a host of climatic, political and development challenges, their pastoralist way of life is under threat.

 

Here, over centuries, some 16 million pastoralists have perfected the art of survival in the Sahel, raising sheep and livestock in some of the most harsh and unforgiving environments anywhere on the planet. Meat yields fromthe Sahel rival those from some of the best ranches in Australia and the United States. Currently, half of the meat and two-thirds of the milk produced and consumed in the countries of West Africa originates in the Sahel.

 

However pastoralism is facing multiple threats. These include rapid population growth, conflict, volatile food prices, animal diseases, and shrinking grazing areas and water resources. Combined, these factors are steadily jeopardizing the survival of the pastoralists of the Sahel.

 

Climate change is expected to hit Africa hardest. It is increasingly likely that scientific warnings that the world could warm by 2°C in the next 20 or 30 years will come true. In such a case, pastoralism will be imperiled. The effects on the African continent will be dramatically more devastating under a warming scenario of 4°C.

 

Desert and aridity define the Sahel, yet its vast water resources are untapped. In a region where farming is the predominant economic activity, sadly, only 20 percent of the Sahel's irrigation potential has been developed. Worse still, one quarter of the area equipped with irrigation liesin a state of disrepair.

 

Pastoralism matters for Africa's future particularly in the Sahel. So does irrigation. Both affect farming, the dominant industry in the region,which accounts for one-third and more of all economic output in the Sahel. This in turn empowers the women of the Sahel, as women account for the majority of Africa's farmers.

 

Supporting pastoralism with more climate smart-policies; reducing vulnerability to drought, flooding and other disasters; and raising more healthy livestock through timely vaccines, are all necessary to help communities adapt to the ecological harshness of the Sahel.

 

Bringing more water to parched lands in the Sahel will not only improve food production but place more food on family dinner tables, allow farmers to move from subsistence farming into growing and selling greater quantities of food crops for higher earnings in local and regional markets. Climate-smart agriculture can increase yields, put more money in farmers' pockets and help protect biodiversity, improve soil fertility, and conserve the environment.

 

At a time when the global economy is slowly recovering, we want to prime the engines of growth that really matter.

 

The World Bank is hosting two major summits in Mauritania and Senegal focused on threats and opportunities for pastoralism and irrigation to thrive in Africa.

 

I am confident that in Nouakchott and Dakar, we will mobilize new coalitions of countries, development partners, business leaders, and the communities themselves for a new push to transform agriculture with more domestic, regional and international support for pastoralism and irrigation.

 

It can be done.

Adolescent Girls Struggle in Northern Mali

By Plan International 

Adolescent girls were extremely vulnerable during the 10-month occupation of Northern Mali by armed militias in 2012, but they have also been overlooked in the aftermath. Plan International has begun working with the victims of this conflict but, after speaking with many adolescent girls in Northern Mali, it is clear that more must be done.

Plan is calling for governments and humanitarian actors to recognize and address the specific needs of adolescents' girls before, during and after disasters.

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Interview: “Business as usual doesn’t cut it”

This morning (Thursday 26 September), senior representatives from more than 60 countries and international organizations will gather in the margins of the UN General Assembly for a High Level Meeting on the political, security and humanitarian future of the Sahel – one of the most vulnerable regions in the world. The meeting will be chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

 

Speaking ahead of the event, the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, Robert Piper, says that it offers a chance for governments, the UN and the development and humanitarian communities to adopt a new approach to addressing vulnerability in the region.

 

“Business as usual’ doesn’t cut it. We’re going to have a very large caseload of people every year unless we change our approach,” he said.

 

Q. Thank you for your time. What is the situation in the Sahel today?

 

A. Well, the situation today is much better than last year. Last year we had a drought and we certainly had a crisis of fairly epic proportions. This year the situation remains fairly serious, People are still trying to recover from last year’s events and they’ve also been battered by man-made disasters: [the conflict in] northern Mali and so forth.

 

Today we have over 11 million people food insecure across the region. Almost 5 million children are acutely malnourished and we have had a number of epidemics and different health challenges. So it’s a region which is recovering from a very serious period, but [that is] still very fragile and in need of a tremendous amount of support from the international community.

 

Q. What kind of humanitarian assistance do people need?

 

A. I think we need to realize firstly that we have amongst these populations the most vulnerable people on the planet. So ‘business as usual’ doesn’t cut it. We’re going to have a very large caseload of people every year unless we change our approach.

 

One of the problems we have today – as we’ve had almost every year with humanitarian efforts – is that governments tend to want to fund food and nutrition which gives a very immediate life-saving result. They are much more reluctant to fund, say, agriculture or water and sanitation inputs because that has a deferred result.

 

So the problem is the following: If we’re going to reduce next year’s caseload of food insecure people, then we need to give them agricultural support this season. And if we’re going to reduce the number of malnourished children that we’re going to treat next year, then water and sanitation services have got everything to do with [that]. So we need a more balanced response.

 

Q. What will be the focus of the High-Level Event for the Sahel?

 

A. The meeting is dedicated to bringing the international community together in a coordinated fashion. The objective of the Secretary-General is to create a stronger international response to make sure that [everyone] comes together on the new UN integrated strategy for the Sahel which was endorsed by the Security Council a couple of months ago.

 

The strategy brings together essentially three pillars of work of the international community in the Sahel: Supporting and strengthening states across the region; security and borders, and resilience – trying to break the cycle of crises that are creating more and more vulnerable people in the region.

 

Q. What are your expectations for the meeting? What do you want to see?

 

A. Our expectations are pretty high for this. This is a very fragile region. We can’t afford to let it slide another year. Across the region we see fragility. We see fragility caused by nature and climate change. We see the fragility that comes with the most intense poverty on the planet. And we see fragility that comes from man-made crises -conflicts between people over resources, conflicts championed by Jihadists in northern Mali, and refugees being pushed out of Sudan and Central African Republic into Chad. So there’s fragility wherever you look.

 

To respond effectively to that kind of scenario, we need regional governments working together very effectively, and we need an international community in turn which comes in behind that regional community of actors and dedicates themselves to dealing with the structural problems that are unfolding in the region.

 

My expectation is that at the end of the day we [need to be] sure that we are focusing on the most vulnerable people in this region. If we don’t have [them] at the centre of all our policy making efforts and our funding, then we’re not going to build the kind of resilience that we have to see in this part of the world.
 

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UN General Assembly: 4 things you need to know

By the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Dozens of heads of state along with the UN Secretary-General, Government Ministers, leaders of UN agencies and civil society and other dignitaries are gathering in New York for the 68th Session of the United Nation’s General Assembly. The annual event – a series of meetings starting on 24 September and stretching over the better part of two weeks – will see Member States discuss and debate a range of political, economic and security-related issues.

 

Each year, OCHA and its partners take the opportunity to highlight key areas of humanitarian concern, and to advocate on behalf of people in crisis for solutions and support.

 

Here are four key humanitarian issues that OCHA will be focusing on during the 2013 General Assembly.

 

Each year during the UN General Assembly, OCHA and
its partners highlight key areas of humanitarian concern,
taking the opportunity to advocate on behalf of people in crisis
for solutions and support. Credit: UN

1. The humanitarian crisis in Syria must not be overshadowed by the political debate. The conflict in Syria and the use of chemical weapons are likely to continue to dominate discussions over the coming days. Our hope is that this does not detract attention from the country’s severe humanitarian crisis. Some 7 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian support, with more than 2 million having fled the country.

 

UN Humanitarian Chief Valerie Amos has issued similar calls throughout the crisis (including in an opinion piece published at the beginning of September, at the re-launch of the Syria humanitarian appeal in June, and in a statement to the UN Security Coucil in April). On Tuesday 24 September, she will be taking part in a UK-organized High-Level Meeting on Syria.

 

“At the moment we are talking about the whole chemical weapons issue, it is important that that is addressed (and) it is important that we maintain the pressure to get a political solution,” said Ms Amos, in an interview that will be published later today. “But (the) humanitarian issues and the human rights abuses that are really spiralling out of control inside Syria – we need our political leaders to address those as well.”

 

2. We will urge Member States to do what they can to reverse the deteriorating situation in the Central African Republic (CAR). Every single person in CAR has been affected by their country’s descent into insecurity, violence and despair. Since December 2012, 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and a further 60,000 have left the country all together.

 

Persistent insecurity has severely hampered the ability of humanitarian organizations to reach those most in need. Earlier this month, two aid workers with the French NGO ACTED were killed north of the capital of Bangui.

 

On Wednesday 25 September, Ms. Amos and Kristalina Georgieva, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, will chair a High-Level Event that will focus on the situation in CAR. Ms. Amos and Ms. Georgieva visited CAR earlier this year.

 

“We were both shocked by what we saw but felt that there was a very real opportunity (…) for the international community to really make a difference,” said Ms. Amos. “If they would just focus on the Central African Republic and think about the resources required – the support required to begin to build the institutions in the country – and to give much needed financial support to the many organizations operating on the ground.”

 

“So this meeting (will) I hope be an opportunity for that to happen.”

 

3. We will celebrate a new generation of African Humanitarian Champions. Later on Wednesday 25, OCHA will co-host an event with the African Union to celebrate African Humanitarian Champions. The event will highlight the rise of a new approach towards humanitarian intervention in Africa – an approach driven by African governments and civil society, that places increased emphasis on building resilience, rather than addressing needs in the short term.

 

The event will be an opportunity for African governments and private sector representatives to show how they are addressing humanitarian needs, and to convey the changing narrative about Africa’s response to humanitarian situations.

 

4. We will emphasize that building resilience should be at the heart of our support to the countries of the Sahel. People in the Sahel – a region that stretches across nine Saharan countries – are some of the most vulnerable people in the world today. They face food insecurity and malnutrition, health crises, natural disasters and, increasingly, insecurity and violence.

 

On Thursday 26 September the Secretary-General will convene a meeting on the Sahel, which is expected to endorse a new, integrated strategy for the region. One of the three ‘pillars’ of this new strategy is Resilience – the idea that humanitarian and developments efforts should focus on addressing the chronic and structural causes of vulnerability. This approach is already at the heart of much of the work of humanitarian agencies in the Sahel.

 

Ahead of the event, we will feature an interview with Robert Piper, the regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel.

 

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Resilience takes root in eastern Chad

By The United Nations Development Program - PNUD / Chad

Visiting Chad from 14 to 17 September, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark, traveled to the Sahel region of Dar Sila, located in the east of the country, to witness the implementation of a new program of resilience.

 

UNDP and its partners, civil society and the Chadian government are working together there to reduce the vulnerability of communities in all of its dimensions in the village of Goz Beida.

 

In Chad, our new program of resilience empowers local communities to provide health, education and rule of law services

 

 The area is extremely fragile due to its exposure to natural disasters, land degradation and loss of productivity, compounded by climate change and large flows of displaced populations that have added pressure to the local environment and its ability to provide services.

 

Taking advantage of a period of relative peace and stability in Dar Sila, the new approach aims to heal wounds by bringing people together into the same development programme.

 

"The dividend of greater stability has to come in the form of meeting the aspirations of the people for education for their children, proper health care and an opportunity to have a proper livelihood," said Helen Clark in an interview with Radio Sila, a local station that advocates daily for peace and harmony.

 

The program is directly helping to stabilize communities, but also working with local authorities to help people build a better future by generating new sources of revenue and getting access to basic services.

 

In its conflict prevention component, the programme has mobilized local radios, caravans of peace and religious and traditional authorities that have sensitized 65,000 people on issues relating to human rights, violence against women and community conflicts.

 

About 150 mediators, including many women, have helped solve 42 inter-community conflicts using traditional techniques, sometimes covering up to 70 miles on donkeys to promote dialogue and prevent violence in all the surrounding villages.

 

Mobile legal clinics have also helped to promote access to justice by teaching 130,000 people about principles relating to land tenure, marital and community law.

 

Thanks to this relative stability, the programme will encourage local communities to develop, and grow nutritious food, while allowing them to generate new sources of income from it.

 

The initiative will give them access to energy through the installation of generators that are able to complete the most difficult tasks, such as husking grain. One thousand women are being trained in marketing local products and have already contributed a total of US $8000 to run their associations.

In parallel, the program has developed solar panels that will light up homes at night.

 

"This program is wonderful for our women. We re-started our lives from scratch. We have gained a lot of confidence," said the head of the women's groups.

 

The programme also supports the resilience of local and national institutions, increasing their capacity to provide health, education and rule of law services and expand social protection and economic opportunities.

 

The municipality of Goz Beida itself now has 21 elected officials, including two women, and its budget increased tenfold in two years, from US $16,000 to $160,000.

 

For more visit www.undp.org

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Growing resilience through community gardens in Gambia

By Katie Robinson, Canadian Red Cross Society

For the first time in 15 years, communities in Gambia found themselves without food and income following poor rainfall during the 2011–2012 harvest season. Families were forced to sell their assets and livestock, or survive on charity and foraging.

 

The Gambia Red Cross Society – with assistance from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Canadian government – aimed to provide immediate and long-term assistance to vulnerable communities in the North Bank Division and Lower River Region.

 

Using a two-pronged approach, the Red Cross provided emergency life-saving interventions whilst also focusing on longer-term community resilience. Distributions of food, quality rice seeds and fertilizer addressed the immediate needs, whilst the longer-term resilience activities concentrated on women-run vegetable gardens. The Red Cross provided these gardens with infrastructure support, training, drought-resilient seeds, proper fencing and new concrete-lined hand-driven wells.

 

“Before the Red Cross came to support us, we were struggling to feed our families,” says Funneh Touray, who works in the Sukuta Women’s Community Garden in the Lower River Region. “Thanks to their support we are now able to grow our own food, and are no longer facing hardship.”

 

The community gardens are not only thriving, they are generating an income as crops and products like jams and juices are sold to nearby communities. This has allowed parents to send their children to school and pay for health care.

 

Touray is very proud of her community and is looking forward to expanding their garden. They currently have two hectares of fencing around the garden, but only half is currently being used. She is looking forward to the day when more seeds will be planted and there will be more crops to look after.

 

“I have seen a change in my community and I am very happy,” says Touray. “Many organizations have entered my village, but we have never received assistance like we did from the Red Cross. What the Red Cross has done, nobody will forget. We will maintain this garden and continue to work hard to make everyone who supported us proud.”

 

For more go to www.ifrc.org

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Kitchen gardens: one step towards resilience in the Sahel?

By ACTED

 

In the East Batha region, in Chad, located at the heart of the Sahel and badly affected by food insecurity, ACTED is mobilised to help the most vulnerable populations. In order to give long-term solutions to food security problems, ACTED is supporting 35 villages in the set up of kitchen gardens. In each village, several vulnerable households have come together to create a cooperative.

 

Seed and tools have been distributed and are necessary to start a kitchen garden, access to water has been guaranteed and trainings have been conducted, with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID/OFDA).

 

Reaping the fruits

 

Habsita lives in the village of Tchakani, where one of the kitchen gardens was developed. She is 39 years old, married and has eight children. She often finds it difficult to feed eight mouths. In 2012, Habsita had to borrow money during the lean period, when stocks were depleted and prices on the markets are high, in order to feed her family. She then had to use all the earnings from the cereal harvest to repay her debt.

 

Habsita is now part of a group of 25 people that are harvesting a plot of land of one hectare on the edge of the river Batha. The group is working hard, under the scorching sun, to grow carrots, lettuce and other vegetables that will help them cover their needs during the lean period.

 

ACTED supports 35 villages with the implementation of kitchen gardens
and the support to gardeners groups. © ACTED.

 

Habsita is very eager to continue working on the kitchen garden: “The kitchen garden changed my life and can already see the result of my efforts. I am proud to learn and to be able to produce rather than depend on others.” With her child on her back, Habsita is tirelessly working in the field. “work in the field is hard, and not many people can do it. I am hoping that we can continue to work as a cooperative.”

 

In a region where agriculture is showing very meager outputs because of severe shocks, the development of kitchen gardens is one step ahead towards resilience. By varying their food sources, households are improving their food security and nutrition situation. Step by step, communities are reinforcing their livelihoods: “At the end of this year’s work, I will be able to go through the rainy season without having to borrow money because the harvest will be good,” concludes Habsita.

 

For more go to http://www.acted.org/
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http://www.acted.org/

Community-based treatment for malnutrition earns praise in northern Nigeria

By Roar Bakke Sorenson, UNICEF

 

More than a half million children in northern Nigeria have been treated for malnutrition with peanut paste provided by UNICEF. Now villagers refer to the old Hausa kings of West Africa when speaking of the well-being of children, calling them the ‘Children of the King’.

 

KIYAWE, Nigeria, 23 July 2013 – Nigeria’s rates of childhood stunting and wasting are among the highest in the world, particularly in the north, where the country reaches into the Sahel region. In many cases these conditions can be life threatening if not treated properly.

 

In 2009, in collaboration with the Nigerian Government, UNICEF started a pilot project based on research recommending treatment of malnourished children in their home communities, rather than in far-off hospitals or health clinics, a treatment that often comes with an enormous cost for the family.

 

A baby is tested for malnutrition at the health centre. Credit: UNICEF

 

Fatima Yashia is one of the mothers who brought her child, 22-month-old Osman, to the Katanga primary health care centre for treatment. Osman is one of more than 500,000 children who have been through the programme in northern Nigeria in the last five years. Eating ready-to-use therapeutic food over a period of eight weeks, children are able to recover quickly from malnutrition.

 

The Community Management of Acute Malnutrition programme treats children at a decentralized outpatient therapeutic site. There, the mother and child are weighed, and the children are measured and checked for medical complications. Those with severe acute malnutrition are given a therapeutic peanut paste and vitamins. Mothers receive enough supplies to take home for a week and are told to return every week for the next two months.

 

UNICEF supports 495 health centres in 11 states in northern Nigeria.

 

“Even before I came here, I praised what they were doing, and now when I’m receiving, I am still grateful,” Ms. Yashia says. “Many people from the towns and villages praise this programme, and villagers call those children ‘the children of the king’ because they all look so very healthy. And even I received this for my child today, and I am happy. I want to thank God and the Government for this initiative.”

 

For more go to www.unicef.org

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When it rains in Mali, it pours

By Anouk Delafortrie, Regional  Information Officer in Dakar, ECHO

“I am worried about my parents. I’ve not spoken to them since we came here. They’re old. Travel is difficult for them so they stayed behind. My husband tells me they’re fine but I find it hard to believe. I would like to return but we have no money. My husband goes out every day to find work in town. If he finds some we eat, if he doesn’t we don’t,” says Assa with a grave expression while her daughter huddles up to her.

 

Assa shares a dilapidated room with her four children. Her husband, his second wife and their six children live in the room next door. She’s afraid to sleep after the first rains sent mud flowing down the walls. The wooden sticks that form the ceiling look dangerously bent as if they could collapse anytime. But they can’t afford to move to a safer place, they already owe two months’ rent as it is.

 

 

Funded by the EU, teams of Handicap International (HI) are on their daily round of visits in Sévaré, a garrison town on the crossroads between the country’s north and south, close to the town of Mopti. Some 40 000 Malians sought refuge here as conflict up north dislocated their lives. Sévaré itself nearly fell into the hands of non-state armed groups in January 2013 when fighters launched a bold offensive and advanced within 20 km of the town in an apparent effort to take control of its military airport. Fears of a ‘push through’ to the south were what triggered France’s military intervention on 11 January.

 

Six months later people in Sévaré seem to be going about their business except for many of the displaced families who feel stuck in a place that has shown them remarkable hospitality, yet isn’t home. With the onset of the rainy season the window of opportunity to cultivate their land in time for the harvest is slowly closing and with it comes the realisation that they may be dependent on aid for many more months to come.

 

When Assa’s family fled their village in the region of Douentza, with fighters on their heels, they didn’t take any belongings nor did they remember to bring identity papers. Their new neighbours gave them clothes, cooking utensils and a washbasin, but without papers they weren’t able to officially register as ‘internally displaced’ and are thus excluded from certain types of assistance.

 

 

The European Commission´s humanitarian aid and civil protection department (ECHO) funds Handicap International to seek out the most vulnerable families like Assa’s and connect them with services and actors in order to improve their housing situation and provide access to food assistance and health care. HI also helps individuals with physiotherapy or mental health needs. During the visit Assa mentions she has a belly ache.  This could be a consequence of the unpurified water she drinks or a psychosomatic reaction to the stresses of her new living conditions.

 

HI’s psycho-social advisor Laetitia Rancillac has hired five mobile teams, each composed of a psychologist and a social worker, to identify people with specific needs. “It is common for people who’ve lived through armed conflict to experience troubles related to loss and mourning. They’ve lost their bearings, their property, their status; some have witnessed violence which can result in post-traumatic stress disorder,” Laetitia explains.

 

When one of HI’s psycho-social duos visits Fatoumata she complains about a humming in her head, as if continuously reliving the bombardments on the armed group’s  base close to her home. Barely audible she recounts the events: “I was out at the river doing the laundry when the bombing started. Shells were flying over our heads. I saw a woman faint. After that, I couldn’t do anything for three days.” Fatoumata also recalls other events that made a profound impression on her, like when the neighbour’s boy picked up a grenade, threw it in the air and by doing so wounded his friend who, conscious of the impending danger, had started to run away.

 

She took her two children to her brother’s home in Sévaré while her husband stayed behind in Gao to take care of the house. “At first I felt a lot of anger, I felt violated. Now, I’m just sad,” she says listlessly casting her eyes down. Fatoumata’s brother seems happy with HI’s suggestion for her to join a group where she can discuss and share her feelings with people who’ve had similar experiences: “We don’t want her to go back like this. We want her to get better first.”

 

In Mopti, ECHO funds Handicap International to ensure the most vulnerable among the displaced people get the assistance they need. The organisation also provides help to people with mental health or physiotherapy needs and engages in explosive ordnance disposal.

 

For more go to http://ec.europa.eu/echo/
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Tackling hunger in the Sahel: the challenge of resilience

 

By Technical Cooperation and Development

Food crisis, drought, chronic hunger, rising food prices: the Sahel region continues yet again to suffer from recurrent food and nutrition crises. After 2005 and 2010, the populations of the Sahel region have had to face yet another crisis in 2012, following a disastrous agricultural season in 2011. The succession of droughts leads to inevitable negative consequences for the capacities of millions of people to meet their essential food needs in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa: drought leads to a reduction in agricultural production and rising food prices on consumption markets which affects the most vulnerable households that are highly impacted by the rise in commodity prices.

 

The food crisis of 2012 in the Sahel, in Niger, Chad, Sudan as well as Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, considerably deteriorated the food security situation of some 18 million people and led to a rise in mortality for undernourished children. At the height of the crisis in mid-2012, certain areas of Mauritania, North Mali and the Sahel region in Chad were faced with “extreme” food insecurity, the level before “famine”, while many other areas were considered to be in “critical” situations.

 

A major crisis has nevertheless been avoided thanks to humanitarian actors’ mobilisation through emergency interventions. However, despite a good rainy season and a relatively good agricultural and pastoral 2012/2013 season, the negative effects of the food crisis in the Sahel in 2012 are still being felt and lead to difficult access to food and necessary nutriments for the vulnerable populations, especially during the lean period, the time between the stock depletion and the following crop.

 

A chronic and structural food crisis

 

The Sahel is facing chronic food insecurity and high malnutrition levels, even during good agricultural seasons. In Chad, even though the production levels rose by 91% since the previous year, 2.1 million people are suffering from food insecurity, including 1.5 million in the Sahel region. In the most affected regions such as the Batha region, over 50% of the population cannot cover their daily basic food needs. In Mali, 2 million people are suffering from food insecurity and the maternal and child mortality rate is one of the highest in the world (13th country out of 136).

 

The series of crises is a first factor of chronic vulnerability for households in the Sahel region. The frequent food and nutritional crises do not allow vulnerable populations to have enough time to recover and thus contribute to a progressive erosion of their livelihoods. On top of these recurrent food crises, other external shocks also contribute to the reduction of the populations’ resistance capacities. The combination of climate, sanitation, social or economic factors such as the lack of basic infrastructure or services can explain the continued food insecurity that reigns in the Sahel region.

 

Political instability in the region (political crises, conflict, violence, population displacement, refugees, etc.) also contribute to render the security and humanitarian situation more complicated and to reduce the possibility to set up long-term solutions.

 

Douentza Mali (OCHA Mali)

 

 

These structural and cyclical factors led to the worsening of the general food and nutrition situation for the populations in the region in 2012, whose livelihoods are eroded, and who have to then turn to self-destructive survival methods such as debt, selling their productive assets such as livestock, reducing their daily food intake, consuming poorer seeds or foods, etc. These irreversible methods also impede on the populations’ capacity to recover and prepare for a future crisis.

 

Emergency responses help to tackle the effect of a cyclical crisis, and at best to avoid a major catastrophe by bringing short term responses (so-called quick impact projects) to the vital needs of the populations: food distributions or coupons, money transfers, protection of their productive assets, general cash distributions, food fairs, nutrition, as well as water, hygiene and sanitation interventions. However, it is neither sustainable nor desirable to bring an immediate response, with the risk of creating a dependency towards this type of aid.

 

Insufficient emergency responses: a mitigated assessment

 

Nowadays, the necessity to address the deep, structural causes of malnutrition and food insecurity in a multi-sector and sustainable framework, and not only in terms of emergency responses, lies in the ethos but also in real commitment. Structural development programmes have to be set up to enable the most vulnerable populations to resist to shocks and crises. Fostering resilience is also a way to facilitate long-term development.

 

Programmes that link humanitarian emergency relief and development have become scarce and difficult to implement, especially because of the restrictions imposed by certain donors with regards to the financing that limits the timeframe and ambition of the programmes, and thus the possibility of a sustainable response to a crisis.

 

Nevertheless, if situations such as the food crisis in the Sahel in 2012 allow decision-makers and donors to respond to such crises, they are also an opportunity to raise the awareness of these international actors to chronic food vulnerability situations. They also encourage using sustainable response mechanisms, by putting forward efficiency, relevance and the impact of the long-term development programmes to support populations in terms of productive capacities and resilience.

Addressing the causes of chronic vulnerability in order to reinforce resilience capacities

Responding to food and nutritional crises in a sustainable way underlines the need to tackle the structural causes of malnutrition and food insecurity in the area, as well as to assist populations in terms of their capacities to to deal with chronic stress (climate hazards, hunger gaps) and to shocks (food crises, armed conflicts, refugee influx), that are inevitable for some cases and are intrinsically linked to the recurrent drought in the region.

 

The objective is to foresee and prepare for these crises beforehand, to reduce their impact for the most vulnerable communities and to foster recovery after external shocks, by limiting the effects of food crises in the short and middle term in terms of health, income, means, development opportunities and household safety.

 

The response must be multi-sector and sustainable by focusing on a response to crumbling livelihoods, community development (rehabilitating infrastructure to relieve them from isolation, setting up and ensuring access to markets, creating groups of food farmers and providing storage buildings or managing natural resources, etc) and to foster infrastructure, and individual and collective capacities in terms of water, sanitation, health, education, etc. (strengthening the health system’s human and institutional capacities, improving access to water by building wells and increasing the network as well as building adapted infrastructure, etc).

 

This integrated approach includes improving food security (agriculture support, provision of seeds, tools and agricultural inputs, improving farming techniques, irrigation, diversification of livelihoods, livestock support and recapitalisation, distribution of fodder during the pastoral lean period, animal health, improved breeding techniques, etc..), supporting households’ economic recovery after a shock (for reconstruction / recapitalisation of livelihoods while avoiding the use of destructive survival strategies), the contribution to the fight against malnutrition (prevention, screening and management of acute malnutrition, sensitisation to good nutrition and hygiene practices and distribution of hygiene kits, support to health centres to improve the quality of the management of malnutrition and access to healthcare, etc..).

 

Resilience is the ability of people to emerge stronger from a crisis situation, or at least without being weakened by a crisis. Being resilient also means to be able to analyze one’s own vulnerability and adapt to a disturbed context (post-crisis). To do so, people must be familiar with the environment and the elements that could impact the future on a daily basis (by knowledge of past crises and recurrent crises). This requires the establishment of monitoring systems for disaster risk reduction and early warning systems to foresee crises that might occur with ad hoc mechanisms, but especially in the long term.

 

Financing to tackle resilience

 

The Sahel is now in a recovery phase whose outcome will determine the ability of people to cope with shocks created by a difficult environment and climate events that regularly hit the area. Allowing the implementation of programmes to promote resilience among the most vulnerable populations also requires an adaptation from the donors in the management of funds. This is an essential requirement to break the cycle of recurring food crises in the Sahel. We have to make this choice today to contain a predictable humanitarian disaster.

For more go to http://www.acted.org/
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