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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Malian Refugees in a Desperate State After UN Halts Services

By Marcy Hersh, Refugees International

  

Mbera is the biggest refugee camp that you've never heard of. With a population of more than 70,000 refugees, Mbera is the sixth largest camp in the world. It is located in a remote area of Mauritania near the border with Mali, and since early 2012, a mix of Tuareg and Arab refugees from northern Mali have fled across the border into this highly arid region.

 

Mauritania’s Malian refugee population is the largest in the region, and due to the extremely challenging environmental conditions in and around Mbera, these refugees rely completely on outside aid for food, water, shelter and medical care. Their needs are immense and merit a similarly immense response.

Children drinking at a water point in Mbera (credit: UNHCR / B. Malum)

Unfortunately, so far, the humanitarian effort in Mbera has been far from adequate. Recent reports from the camp have identified a number of extremely worrying trends. For example, while the majority of refugees did not have major health problems before arriving in Mbera, their condition has since deteriorated rapidly – the result of poor living conditions, inadequate food, and severe water shortages. Most distressingly, more than 13 percent of children under five are suffering from global acute malnutrition, a level globally recognized as “serious” and demanding urgent intervention.

 

Shelter materials have not been readily available and refugees have had to wait for more than four weeks to receive them. In the meantime, refugees are living in makeshift shelters constructed from sticks and debris that provide little privacy, safety, or protection from the searing sun.

 

In the desert region where Mbera is located, neither refugees nor their Mauritanian neighbors have sufficient access to clean drinking water. An international NGO working in the camp reports that refugees receive just 11 liters of water per person per day, instead of the 20 liters recommended by international standards.

 

Distributing food has been particularly challenging, since the refugees’ traditional diet of milk and meat cannot be replicated by the World Food Program, who has been distributing its usual rations of grains and pulses. Refugees admit to selling some of these rations in local markets to buy milk and meat for their family.

 

This insufficient response has fomented extreme tension between refugees and some humanitarians working in the camp. Things came to a head this month, when a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) exercise concluded that there were many fewer refugees living in Mbera relative to the number of ration cards distributed. On September 5th, UNHCR confiscated 6,500 ration cards, claiming that refugees had registered more than once or had left the camp without notifying camp authorities. This led to a violent reaction from certain groups of refugees, who stormed humanitarian warehouses and stole 15 tons of food and other supplies.

 

As a result of this violence, UNHCR significantly reduced its activities in Mbera, to the frustration of the refugees. The most problematic element of the drawdown is that UNHCR suspended its activities in the middle of the September food ration distribution. As a result, 15,000 refugees failed to receive their rations and are surviving only because other refugees have been generous enough to share their own food.  These rations are not designed to be shared amongst so many people, which means that malnutrition rates in Mbera are sure to rise, further endangering this already vulnerable population.

 

The needs in Mbera are severe and immediate, and humanitarians must work urgently to restore all emergency aid, including food distributions. But a short-term fix will not be enough. The camp will continue to be a home to tens of thousands of refugees for a significant amount of time. Northern Mali’s ethnic and political divisions remain unresolved, and few basic services in the region have been restored, so there is little prospect of Mbera’s refugees returning home in the near future. The bigger challenge for aid agencies will be to put in place long-term plans that will bring living conditions in the camp up to acceptable humanitarian standards.

 Marcy Hersh is Senior Advocate for Women and Girls’ Rights at Refugees International, a non-profit organization that works to end displacement and stateless crises worldwide and accepts no government or UN funding.

 

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UNHCR helps prepare for refugees to vote in Mali elections, voices concerns over voter registration

By the UN Refugee Agency

With the first round of Mali's presidential elections scheduled for Sunday, UNHCR is continuing preparations with the Malian authorities and neighbouring states for out-of-country voting for refugees. Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger host some 173,000 Malian refugees who fled their country when conflict erupted in January 2012.

 

UNHCR's role in the elections is to facilitate their participation and ensure the voluntary nature of the electoral process in a safe environment. "Our role is humanitarian and non-political only," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards stressed, adding that the refugee agency in June conducted formal and informal surveys in major refugee areas through discussion groups.

 

"The surveys found that refugees were generally in favour of being included in the elections, that they have good awareness of the situation in Mali, and that some believe the elections will help peace and stability – a fundamental condition for many refugees in deciding whether to return to their country," he said.

 

Malian refugees in Mauritania. UNHCR is trying to ensure that eligible refugees can vote in the Mali election at the weekend © UNHCR/B.Malum

 

UNHCR teams in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mauritania have been meeting with refugee communities to clearly explain the agency's role in facilitating participation and respecting neutrality. The agency has helped transport some election-related materials. However, transportation of sensitive materials, such as voters' cards or ballots papers, will be the responsibility of the Malian electoral authorities and the countries of asylum.

 

Malian authorities visited refugee camps and other sites in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger in June to establish willingness to vote. In total 19,020 refugees have voluntarily registered to take part, out of 73,277 refugees of voting age (18 and above). Names were then verified against the biometric civil registry, which was last updated in 2011 and used to establish the electoral lists.

 

UNHCR is concerned that only a low number of names of refugees interested in voting were found in the registry. In Burkina Faso, and according to Malian registration teams, 876 out of the 3,504 registered refugees were found in the civil registry; 8,409 out of 11,355 registered refugees in Mauritania, and 932 out 4,161 registered refugees in Niger. In other words, only around half the refugees who have volunteered to take part in the election have so far been found in the registry.

 

As concerning, are reports that only a few NINA (national identification number) voting cards have so far been provided by Malian authorities to refugees in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger. In Burkina Faso, for instance, only 32 NINA cards have at this point reached the Malian representation. The delay in the issuance and distribution of NINA cards is not specific to refugees but is also impacting many Malian citizens within Mali as well as abroad.

 

"It is important that the Malian authorities quickly make public the voters' lists and speed distribution of the electoral cards in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania. This is especially important as refugee camps and sites are located in remote areas, where access may become difficult with the rainy season now settling in. The Malian authorities have informed us that they are considering alternatives to allow refugees to vote in case of further delays.

 

More than 173,500 Malians have found refuge in neighbouring countries since the beginning of the conflict in January 2012, including 49,975 in Burkina Faso, 48,710 in Niger, 74,907 in Mauritania and 1,500 in Algeria. About 353,000 persons are also internally displaced, according to the Commission de Mouvement de Population in Mali.

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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.

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 In Mbera camp, Zeinabou dreams of returning home to rebuild

 

By the World Food Program

Zeinabou, a mother of eight, fled with her family from conflict in her native Mali in January. There were rumours that a plane would come and bomb her town. She did not wait to see whether they were true; the family rented a car and fled to south eastern Mauritania. But life in the Mbera refugee camp is hard, she is pregnant and would like to return home, so her child can be born there.

 

In Léré, where she came from, Zeinabou ran a small business and a hairdressing salon. But when they fled, she and her children had just a few possessions. “We arrived at the border town of Fassala where we stayed for six days without any form of assistance until we were transferred to the camp of M’bera thanks to a convoy organized by UNHCR.

 

“I was lucky in that I already knew people in the camp at Mbera, who could help me out when I arrived. Their support was invaluable in the first weeks in precarious conditions before I received my tent," she said. WFP is providing food assistance for around 72,000 Malians at the M’bera camp. As well as the monthly rations, special nutritious foods are being provided for those who need it most, pregnant and nursing mothers and young children.

 

“Conditions in the camp are difficult. We don’t have access to many food products like meat and milk, the water points are far away and it is often expensive to carry the water to the tent. Often we have to pay a donkey cart because each water tank is 20 litres and too heavy to carry on your head, but the cart charges you 10 ouguiyas per tank.

 

A joint assessment in the camp in May by the UN agency for refugees (UNHCR) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) found that many residents were fearful of returning home. It identified the urgent need to go beyond immediate life-saving assistance in an effort to help refugees become more self- reliant.

 

In a small way, Zeinabou is trying to do just that. To complement the food ration provided by WFP with other with missing food products, she makes donuts and sauce condiments and sells them next to her tent.

 

M’bera is located in Hodh el Chargi, one of Mauritania’s poorest regions, where 14 percent of local residents are food insecure. In addition to providing support to the refugees, WFP is providing assistance to host communities in villages surrounding M’bera. There are few employment or trade opportunities, so displaced people struggle to be self-sufficient.

 

I am ready to go back as I am weary of the situation in the camp. In Léré I have a house and a field and I don’t know what has happened to them. My field will die if I don’t go back. I want to go back to give birth there, settle and rebuild my life.”

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Sahel: Millions need long-term support

By the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)



The UN’s senior humanitarian representative in the Sahel region of West Africa has called on the international community to maintain its commitment to millions of people who face another year threatened by malnutrition, displacement, conflict and high food prices.



 

Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel and Assistant Secretary-General Robert Piper said that the region remained in crisis, even though the response to last year’s food crisis was “fast and substantial”.

“A lot of things went right in 2012 despite the scale of the challenges,” he said. “The temptation going into 2013 was to breathe a sigh of relief and take the foot off the humanitarian accelerator.

 “(But) we can’t take a year off just yet. The Sahel is still in crisis as a region.”

Over 10 million need food

A range of factors have left an estimated 10.3 million people in need of food assistance across the region. Many communities are still reeling from last year’s food crisis, which came less than two years after the previous one. Cereal prices remain high, exacerbated by floods in northern Nigeria (an area that produces 50 per cent of the Sahel’s cereals) as well as insecurity in Nigeria and Mali.

This insecurity and flooding have meant that pastoralists in Chad and Niger are cut off from Nigerian livestock markets, making it difficult for them to sell their cattle at the prices they need to make a living. Finally, continued Piper, many people need assistance because of the very deep nature of their vulnerability.

“We need to recognize that one reasonable agricultural season will not reverse the levels of acute vulnerability in the region,” he said. “Vulnerable households affected by cycles of ever-frequent crises don’t need much of a push to go under the emergency line.”

Funding thwarts efforts to tackle root causes of vulnerability

For 2013, UN agencies and their humanitarian partners have appealed for US$1.7 billion to help them support communities in the nine countries that make up the Sahel. To date, $473 million – about 28 per cent of what is needed – has been received.

“2013 is not the year to reduce our commitments to the Sahel,” said Piper. He noted that the type of funding received was limiting the ability of agencies to respond effectively to the crisis.

Forty-three per cent of the funding that has been received has been directed towards short-term food aid. While this has ensured that 1.2 million people across the region received food assistance in the first two months of 2013, it also meant that aid agencies were constrained in their ability to address the root causes of vulnerability.

“The resources that are being received are slanted to particular sectors,” Piper said. “They do not allow us to tackle the root causes of vulnerability in the Sahel.”

For example, agricultural projects that are designed to help communities build resilience against disasters and break the cycle of aid dependence have received only five per cent of the financial support they need. Only 108,000 of the estimated 5.9 million farmers in need received seeds ahead of the May 2013 planting season, meaning that many millions may face a third year of crisis in 2014.

“Last year’s response to the food crisis was extraordinarily good,” said Piper. “(But) we need to learn from this success. Our record for 2013 looks less promising but it’s not too late.”

The need for greater investment in addressing the root causes of vulnerability will be a major focus of the Fourth Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction that is being held in Geneva this week. This event will see governments, the UN and the wider humanitarian and development communities continue to explore the global framework for reducing disaster risk. It comes on the heels of a new report from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) that warned that direct losses from disasters have been underestimated by at least 50 per cent, and have cost the global economy in the range of $2.5 trillion since the start of this century alone.

 

 

The need for greater investment in addressing the root causes of vulnerability will be a major focus of the Fourth Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction that is being held in Geneva this week. This event will see governments, the UN and the wider humanitarian and development communities continue to explore the global framework for reducing disaster risk. It comes on the heels of a new report from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) that warned that direct losses from disasters have been underestimated by at least 50 per cent, and have cost the global economy in the range of $2.5 trillion since the start of this century alone.

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Defusing the Sahel time bomb – ECHO Director General visits the Sahel

 

At the beginning of the 2013 lean season in the Sahel, when people´s resources and food reserves start running low, ECHO´s Director General, Claus Sørensen, visited the region. Here is what he found on the ground.

 

 

 

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UNHCR urgently needs funding to continue assisting displaced Malians

By UNHCR

The UN refugee agency on Friday renewed an appeal for millions of dollars to help meet the needs of tens of thousands of Malian refugees and almost 300,000 internally displaced people.

 

"UNHCR needs US$144 million to cover the basic protection and assistance needs. So far we have received only 32 per cent of this amount," spokesman Adrian Edwards told journalists in Geneva. "The financial requirements and activities presented in the Special Appeal are not additional to the ones approved by our Executive Committee in 2012 but reflect a reprioritization of UNHCR's budget based on the latest developments in the region," he added.

The funding UNHCR is seeking is to allow for expansion and construction of transit centres, provision of supplementary and therapeutic food, shelters and other relief items, and delivery of basic services such as health care, water and sanitation and education.

There are currently more than 175,000 Malian refugees in surrounding countries. This includes 75,850 refugees in Mauritania, over 49,000 in Burkina Faso and some 50,000 in Niger. "The special appeal we are issuing today covers the needs of this population plus up to 45,500 additional refugees anticipated during 2013 – based on existing rates of arrival," Edwards said.

In addition to the refugee population there are more than 282,000 internally displaced people (IDP). Funding for them is also urgently needed. UNHCR leads efforts to coordinate activities of the protection and shelter clusters.

Displacement from Mali into neighbouring countries is continuing. More than 35,000 people have become refugees since the French military intervention in January (and, according to UN figures, there are an additional 60,000 IDPs).





Malian refugee children take shelter from a dust storm in Burkina Faso's
Goudebou refugee camp. The needs for displaced Malians
remain great.
© UNHCR/B.Sokol



"According to our staff on the ground, many recent arrivals are in worse condition than the refugees who arrived last year, requiring immediate relief and attention. The humanitarian situation is also being aggravated by prevailing food insecurity as a result of ongoing drought and a series of crop failures affecting the entire Sahel region," Edwards said.

In Mauritania – which hosts the largest number of Malian refugees – at the end of last year there were more than 54,000 Malians. The military intervention in northern Mali prompted a new influx of refugees, with an average of 500 new arrivals per day during January and February – amounting to more than 21,000 people. People are continuing to arrive, but in smaller numbers.

The new influx requires an expanded response in life-saving sectors, including in food and non-food items, water, sanitation, nutrition, health, education, shelter and environmental areas.

Several measures have been taken to treat and prevent malnutrition at the Mbera refugee camp, including distribution of nutritional supplements to infants, organization of awareness sessions for mothers, increased access to health facilities, launch of a measles vaccination campaign and installation of better water and sanitation infrastructure. This has led to a reduction in acute malnutrition rates of refugee children (under five years) from 20 per cent to 13 per cent. Additional funding is required to improve prevention and response mechanisms.

In Niger, the latest wave of refugees (some 2,700) in the remote north in late March and early April is mainly composed of women and children, escaping the military operations in Kidal and Menaka on foot or donkey. Reception conditions are precarious, mainly owing to a lack of water and health facilities.

UNHCR and the World Food Programme have already provided them with food and emergency non-food items while also redeploying staff and resources to this isolated area. "A recent inter-agency survey to assess the feeding programmes shows positive results, but continued efforts are required to counter prevailing malnutrition in the four refugee camps of Niger," UNHCR's Edwards noted.

In Burkina Faso, the majority of the new arrivals have been settled in Goudebou camp, where a recent nutrition survey organized by UNHCR, WFP and the national health authorities showed an alarmingly high global acute malnutrition rate of 24.5 per cent. UNHCR and its partners have completed screening of all children under five years of age and have started treatment of malnutrition cases.

Preparation is under way for blanket feeding programmes, including fortified cereals and micro-nutrient powder for children under five years and supplements or fortified blended food to all pregnant and lactating women.

One of the main protection priorities in Burkina Faso and Niger is to relocate refugees away from the formal and informal sites that are too close to the border or to military installations.

 

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Learning the Lessons in the Sahel

By Elise Ford, Humanitarian Policy Advisor / Oxfam

In 2012, the Sahel region of West Africa faced in 3 crises in 7 years.  It was unprecedented in its scale – it affected 18 million people across 9 countries – from Senegal in the West across 4,000km to Chad in the East. And yet, the crisis rarely received the media headlines and attention it deserved.  Marred in a cycle of hunger and chronic poverty, the story of a crisis in this region is no longer seen as news. Suffering was not thought to be sufficiently extreme. And yet, going to communities such as those in the Guera region in Chad, there could be no doubt that poor and vulnerable people had been pushed to the brink of survival. Mothers told me of how they had cut back the number of times they ate to just once or twice a day.  They were forced to bring together scraps to find enough to eat – resorting to boiling nettles or digging anthills for grain. 

 

I came to West Africa from Nairobi having dealt with the response to the famine that savaged part of Somalia the previous year.  In East Africa, there had been outcry and disappointment at the collective failure to respond to the early warnings received.  Oxfam had pointed to a widespread culture of risk aversion that had resulted in a ‘dangerous delay’, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of lives and livelihoods. We knew that it could have been different.

 

As warnings emerged that the harvests had been poor and that the Sahel could face a similar crisis, food security experts in the region appeared determined that they would not repeat the mistakes of East Africa. This time they wanted things to be different.  In a Oxfam report released today ‘Learning the Lessons: assessing the response to 2012 food crisis in the Sahel to build resilience’, we analyse to what extent we really were able to do better this time and come to some worrying conclusions.

 

First, the good news. As soon as the first warnings were issued, governments began to issue appeals and agencies and donors came together to begin planning an appropriate response.  Some donors provided the first contributions for the crisis already at the end of 2011, allowing assistance to provided to those communities most in need before they even began to feel the effects of the critical food shortages and rocketing prices to come.

 

But the overall verdict is mixed at best. Although there were some initial positive steps, it is clear that the response was still not as good as it could or should have been, nor as many have been claiming. Despite new willingness from governments in the region, there were still critical gaps in their capacity to lead – something we must all take responsibility for.  A lack of consensus around the severity of the crisis led to a critical delay in the response. Donors still preferred to wait for certainty, rather than act on the basis of risk. 50% of the funding requested was still lacking by June. 5.6 million farmers didn’t receive the seeds and tools they needed in time for the main harvest, to help them produce the food to recover. The same old mistakes and flaws from past response reappeared. We’re still failing to learn the lessons.

 

There is increasing acknowledgement – from Oxfam and others - that the only way these challenges will be overcome is by adopting a new model of doing business rather tweaking an old one. Resilience - the ability of households to survive and thrive despite shocks and stresses – has become an important concept, offering hope that the cycle of hunger can be broken once and for all.  In the immediate resilience means investing in the poorest and most vulnerable communities so that they can recover from this latest crisis and build up the capacity to better cope in the face of future shocks. 

 

Whilst the 2012 crisis may have come too soon, it is also clear that we can afford no further delay. Conditions in the region are becoming increasingly precarious and unpredictable. The population in the Sahel increases 3% each year – making it constantly harder to produce enough food to meet needs. Climate change threatens to further exacerbate the problem – reducing yields and cultivable land.  According to the FAO, with appropriate action, climate change could mean an additional million people in Mali could fall into poverty by 2050. For some communities that Oxfam works with in Niger, that they describe only one in every three years as a ‘normal’ year.  Rocked by one crisis after another, there are limited prospects for the most vulnerable to escape from poverty.

 

The challenge is making change happen. The failings of the 2012 response and the poor showing so far in 2013 demonstrate the huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality that still needs to be overcome. Ongoing needs in the region are huge. 10 million people are still food insecure. 5 million are acutely malnourished. The road to recovery will be long. And yet, UN humanitarian appeals for 2013 – designed to meet immediate humanitarian and recovery needs and build the foundations of resilience in the region – remain desperately underfunded. Less than one quarter of the funds needed have been provided so far this year.  Donors have provided few concrete commitments on money to build resilience and improve food security in the region. National governments still need to convert unprecedented political will into actual policies.

 

The region will inevitably face more crises in the future. When those crises do hit, we must hope communities will be better prepared to withstand and thrive despite of them.  It is the actions that we do or do not take over the next months and years that will be critical in deciding that.

For more go to www.oxfam.org
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Mauritanie : 18 jours pour sauver Saada, 16 mois

Par la Croix Rouge Française / ECHO

 

Dans la région mauritanienne du Gorgol, près de la frontière sénégalaise, 13% des enfants de moins de cinq ans souffrent de malnutrition aigüe. Depuis 2007, ECHO finance la Croix Rouge Française et la Croix Rouge Mauritanienne afin d’appuyer le système de santé pour une meilleure prise en charge des cas de malnutrition. 10 500 enfants et ceux qui les accompagnent reçoivent une assistance à travers ce programme. Ici, nous suivons Saada Diallo et sa mère Fatimata qui ont bénéficié de ce programme.

 

 

 

Mauritania: 18 days to save Saada, 16 months

In the Mauritanian region of Gorgol, close to the Senegalese border, 13% of children under five suffer from acute malnutrition. Since 2007, ECHO finances the French Red Cross and Mauritanian Red Crescent to support the health system in taking better care of malnutrition cases. 10,500 children and those accompanying them receive assistance via this programme. We follow Saada Diallo and his mother Fatimata through the course of the programme.

 

Pour plus visitez http://www.croix-rouge.fr/ et http://ec.europa.eu/echo/index_en.htm

 

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A mother waits in exile to return to her village in Mali

By Hugo Reichenberger / UNHCR / in Mentao Camp, Burkina Faso

Aicha is suffering: she is far from her home in the central Malian district of Mopti and she has caught a pulmonary infection, which is compounded by the harmattan, the dusty trade wind that sweeps from the Sahara to the Atlantic coast from November to March.

The 45-year-old and her four children arrived in Mentao Refugee Camp in north-west Burkina Faso less than two weeks after the start on January 11 of the French military intervention in Mali to push back anti-government militants. At first, the fast-evolving situation in Mali raised hopes that many displaced people would be able to go back to their homes soon. But the reality is that thousands have since fled to neighbouring countries – mainly Burkina Faso and Mauritania – to escape the fighting or from fear of reprisals. They need help.

In Burkina Faso, many of those who have fled across the border are ethnic Tuareg and Arab women and children, like Aicha and her young. Their menfolk are staying behind to take care of their cattle, indicating that people are increasingly fleeing out of desperation. New arrivals are met at the border by mobile teams from UNHCR or its partners, and transported to Mentao or Goudebou refugee camps, where they receive assistance, such as hot meals upon arrival and traditional shelter kits, and are individually registered. More than 6,000 have arrived since the French intervention in January.

Aicha's journey to Mentao was not so straightforward. She had resisted earlier chances to flee from her central Mali village, Boni, despite the deteriorating social and economic situation. She felt she had too much to lose.

 

© UNHCR/H.Reichenberger
Aicha (in green) shelters from the sun with relatives in their shelter in Mentao Camp, Burkina Faso.

 

"We are simple people, all we have is our animals and our friends, nothing else, nothing more," Aicha said of her life. But over the past year, things became even harder as war engulfed the country and rebels took over the north and much of the centre of the country. "Our worst fears have now become reality. We left our animals and our friends. We feel we have only fear, no more life," she said, explaining her situation.

The developments in Mali last year took thousands of farming folk like Aicha and her husband by surprise, although inequality between the sub-Saharan people of the south and the Tuareg and Arabs of the north had led to separatist conflict in 1990 and 2007. Most of Aicha's Arab relatives fled to Burkina Faso or Mauritania soon after the fighting first erupted between government soldiers and Tuareg rebels in January last year.

The victorious Tuareg rebels were followed by militants, who imposed strict Islamic law in areas under their control in the north and centre, including Boni. Aicha was not used to such an austere lifestyle, such as having to wear a veil. "Life was difficult in 2012, but it was bearable," she noted. "I would wake up and prepare food for my children before they went out to look after our livestock. I would spend time with my friends when my husband went to Boni to sell some animals. It was correct."

In January, the fighting swung back to the region as the French-backed Malian army advanced north against the militants. Aicha could hear the sounds of war rumbling closer and decided she must flee to save her children. Other villagers were thinking the same and the men clubbed together to hire a truck to take their wives and children to nearby northern Burkina Faso and then on to Mentao, a camp of 11,000 located about 80 kilometres from the border. Some of the villagers of Boni already had relatives there.

But instead of taking them to Mentao, the drivers duped the group of 20 women and children, leaving them at a village 60kms short of their destination after a long and uncomfortable journey without food and water. Luckily, the locals took pity on the refugees and took them by donkey to Mentao.

In response to the spike in new arrivals, UNHCR staff based in the nearby town of Djibo opened a transit centre where refugees stay for two days in newly erected tents (for up to 500 people) before being moved to the camps. More latrines and bathing facilities were built in the transit centre to cope with the extra population.

Aicha and her group, after being stopped by police near Mentao, were taken by UNHCR protection staff to this transit centre, where they were interviewed and registered. "This is a particularly important time for those in categories regarded as most vulnerable, such as female-headed households, said UNHCR Protection Officer Euphrasie Oubda. "They can tell us about things like health problems and trauma and then we can give them the proper care," either directly or through humanitarian aid partners.

Aicha was then moved to Mentao Camp and her own space, where she receives regular visits from UNHCR community services staff. After a week there she felt safe but missed home. There is a small silver living: her four children will go to school for the first time.

"My oldest son, who is 10, has never been to school: he has been a shepherd most of his life," she told visitors. "Although life in Mentao has been better than I thought, life as a refugee is still not a correct life such as the one I had back home," she added, poignantly.

 

For more go to www.unhcr.org

 

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A painful separation

 

By Edwige Depagne-Sorgho/ Plan International

Nine year old Saoudata has had to make a sacrifice that no little girl should.

She’s had to evacuate Sévaré without her mother or her two-year old brother. The only reason that they were left behind was because her mum, Habibatou, was short on bus fare by 6,000 CFA (US$12).

"She has to put her children first, that is what mothers do", her aunt Zachery said.

Saoudata and three other brothers and sisters will be living with their Aunty Zachery and Uncle Ahmed.


Credit: Plan Iternational

It’s the second time they were uprooted because of the conflict in Mali. Last year, the Timbuktu family – including Ahmed, Zachery and their three children - fled to Sévaré when fighting broke out in the historic north Malian city. They felt Sévaré would be safe. Now they’ve had to run again, this time to Ségou the regional capital in central Mali where there is a large army and government presence.

This city is still bustling with activity seemingly oblivious to the fighting north and west of the town. There was a tense moment when the armed insurgents crossed the border from Mauritania and seized Diabaly about 160km north of Ségou. The tension was noticeable in the town but the following day everything was back to normal. The markets and stores are open and trading is alive and well.

In the midst of life, Saoudata is visibly unhappy.

Interview with David Gressly, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel

 

By UNOCHA

Learn more about David Gressly

Latest updates on people displaced by the fighting in central and northern Mali, ways to provide humanitarian aid to cut- off communities in Mali, significant changes in the Sahel region since 2012, updates on the Sahel Resilience Strategy and main challenges as the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel.

Dernière mise au point sur les personnes déplacées par le conflit récent au nord du Mali, moyens alternatifs pour que l´aide humanitaire arrive aux communautés isolées au Mali, changements significatifs dans la région du Sahel depuis 2012, nouvelles sur la stratégie de la résilience au Sahel et défis principaux du Coordonnateur Humanitaire Régional pour le Sahel.

Interview in English

 Interview en français

 Alarming Malnutrition and Mortality Among Malian Refugees in Mauritania. 

Interview to Karl Nawezi, Head of MSF's activities in Mauritania

By Doctors without Borders (MSF)

 One year after the start of the political crisis in Mali, insecurity resulting from the military coup, the Tuareg rebellion, and the presence of armed Islamist groups in the north has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Some 55,000 refugees are still living in difficult conditions in the Mbera camp in Mauritania. A nutrition and retrospective mortality survey by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontères (MSF) has revealed critical mortality and malnutrition rates. In this interview, Karl Nawezi, head of MSF's activities in Mauritania, explains why the situation in the camp—which is located in the middle of the desert a few kilometres from the Malian border—has reached such an alarming point.

Mauritania 2012 © Lynsey Addario/VII

Malian refugees wait in Fassala to be registered by Mauritanian officials and a local NGO after fleeing Mali for the border

What is the situation in the Mbera camp?

MSF’s nutrition survey revealed that the nutritional situation in the camp has not improved since January 2012 when the first refugees arrived. Nearly one in five children, or 17 percent, is malnourished, and 4.6 percent are suffering from the most severe form of malnutrition and are in danger of dying. This medical data reveals the difficult conditions in which the refugees in the Mbera camp are living.

As nutrition crisis starts to release its grip on Mauritania, a mother seeks care for her unresponsive baby

 

 

By Jessica Mony, Acting Head, International Programme Advisory Team. UNICEF UK

 

TINIZAH, Kaedi Region, Mauritania. Humming softly, Fatimatou cradles her healthy, smiling 9-month-old boy Sidiahmed in her lap. It’s been a long time since she could relax and play with him.

Just over a month ago, Sidiahmed was malnourished – and often unresponsive. “He was not moving anymore. He wasn’t playing anymore. He wasn’t breastfeeding. He just didn’t want to eat anymore,” says Fatimatou.

Without a support network

Fatimatou is a single mother. Her husband divorced her just before Sidiahmed was born. In a rural area with a baby on the way – and without a network for support – Fatimatou decided to move to live with her uncle and his family.

The divorce came at a difficult time for families across Mauritania. “Lots of animals died. People didn’t have anything to eat. It was so hard for us,” she says. Without the means to support herself, Fatimatou relied on the kindness of her extended family, even though they, too, were struggling. At the height of this hardship, Fatimatou gave birth to Sidiahmed, her first child.

Mauritania: struggling to win the battle against malnutrition

By Gonzalo Fanjul, cooperating with UNICEF Spain

Gonzalo Fanjul, a researcher who cooperates with UNICEF Spain, traveled to Mauritania to learn more about The Ministry of Health’s successful nutrition program. This program, partially funded by the Spanish Agency for international Development Cooperation (AECID), represents a great success story to fight child malnutrition.

Full text in Spanish

For updates from UNICEF Spanish Committee visit www.unicef.es and follow @unicef_es & @PalomaUnicef