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.

For more go to http://ec.europa.eu/echo/index_en.htm
Follow ECHO on Twitter

New Humanitarian Appeals Process for the Sahel

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

From 28-29 November, the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel (RHC) is convening governments, Humanitarian and Resident Coordinators, Cluster Coordinators, Regional Directors, NGOs, Donors, and Chairs of Regional Sector Working Groups in a workshop to plan the humanitarian response for the Sahel for next three years. Participants to the workshop will finalize the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) in the Sahel and outline the Strategic Response Plan (SRP) for 2014-2016. Objectives of the workshop are three-fold: (1) to reach a shared understanding of humanitarian needs in the region; (2) to identify shared strategic objectives and indicators for a 3-year regional response strategy for the Sahel; and (3) to agree on procedures and timelines for strategic response strategies.

 

The HNO and SRP processes replace the traditional humanitarian appeals process, known as the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP). The regional humanitarian Sahel Strategy for 2014-2016 will be launched at a high-level event in early February 2014.

For more go to http://www.unocha.org/rowca/
Follow OCHA ROWCA on Twitter

 

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.

For more go to www.fao.org
Follow FAO on Twitter

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

Follow Unicef on Twitter

 

 

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.

For more go to www.unhcr.org
Follow UNHCR on Twitter

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/
Follow acted on Twitter

Tuareg refugees in Niger herd their livestock to safety

Nomadic Tuareg refugees from Mali head eastwards on their camels during a livestock drive in Niger to escape the fighting that erupted in northern Mali early last.

 

With the support of ECHO, UNHCR helped refugees to move their animals to allow them to maintain their livelihoods and to continue living as pastoralists and nomads. The Niger government's decision to move the Tuaregs to Intikane was based on security grounds: Agando is located just 10 kilometres from the border in an area that remains unstable.

 

For more go to www.unhcr.org and http://ec.europa.eu/echo/ 

Follow UNHCR on Twitter and ECHO on Twitter

Crisis leads to unexpected opportunities for displaced children in Mali

By Alex Duval Smith

The conflict in northern Mali may have changed the lives of Fatoumata and Djeneba Touré forever – for the better.

The two girls, ages 5 and 3, are among 527,000 people who have been displaced by the crisis in northern Mali, according to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). They have lost businesses, harvests and even their homes. Many are living in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, primarily Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger. But the majority are from families like the Tourés – enduring cramped conditions while living with relatives or in rented accommodation in central and southern Mali. Most of the people displaced are women and children.

Life was straightforward in their hometown of Niafunké, near Timbuktu. “We lived in a house with a sheep, a goat and a horse – a white horse,” says Fatoumata.

For Malian children displaced by crisis, early learning centres provide

a chance to learn – and to heal.

In April 2012, the family was forced to flee when fighting broke out between the army and separatist rebels. Their house faced a military camp. “Men with guns jumped over the wall [into our yard], and they made a noise, ‘boom, boom’,” says Fatoumata.

Integrated Learning

Set up under a straw roof in the playground of Siribala community pre-school,
this early learning center is one of 18 in Mali and acommodates 60 pupils.

A year later, despite their parents’ financial hardships brought on by displacement, Fatoumata and Djeneba are enjoying life as they rarely did before. Every morning, they put on pink tunics and set off for an early learning centre here in the Ségou region of south-central Mali.

The centre was funded by UNICEF and built by partner NGO Plan Mali. Set up under a straw roof in the playground of Siribala community pre-school, it is one of 18 such centres in Mali and acommodates 60 pupils.

Integration with the host community is a primary objective, so two-thirds of the pupils are displaced children, while the rest are local, including six with physical or mental disabilities. Attendance is free, and everyone receives a mid-morning bowl of porridge – a real benefit in a country where kindergarten is a costly luxury generally reserved for children of urban professional families.
The school's director, Kadiatou Sylla, says it’s clear that hosting the early learning centre has been the right move. “These children are really traumatized,” she says. “Often, if you make a noise near the displaced children, they don't like it. They run away.”

One teacher notes that she has seen displaced children run and hide when they see a plane in the sky.

Addressing needs

Educational games provided by UNICEF are a big attraction for the pupils. There is singing and clapping, and the current focus is on learning the names of animals. To ensure that the children’s full range of needs is addressed, the centre's three teachers – all local mothers – have been trained to identify signs of trauma and to address these issues through playing games.

Children receive a free meal at the early learning centre, an added incentive
for parents to send them there. Teachers are also trained in spotting
signs of malnutrition

Accountant Aliou Sidibé, the grandfather of Fatoumata and Djeneba, hosts the girls at his home in Siribala, and he welcomes the early learning centre.

“It is quite something for these girls from Niafunké,” he says. “Not only are they experiencing education at an early age, which they would not have been able to do in the north, but they are meeting local children, and their trauma is being addressed.”

He notices how his grand daughters have suffered. “I have seen them have nightmares and jump out of bed at night. Their mother also has been affected and is not best-placed to support them, because she has become overprotective,” he says.

Extraordinary opportunity

UNICEF Education Officer Souleymane Traoré has helped set up 10 early learning centres, and he sees them as an enormous success. “We had worked on an estimate of 50 children per centre, but in some of them up to 75 children are attending,” he says. “Not only do they receive a meal, which acts as an incentive for parents to send them there, but we have provided the teachers with training in spotting the signs of malnutrition, so we are closing a gap there.”

He believes that for girls like Djeneba and Fatoumata, attending an early learning centre can be a life-changer.

“In the northern Malian context, where early marriage remains a reality for girls, this chance for them to be awakened to education is an extraordinary opportunity,” Mr. Traoré says. “It could well impact positively on their parents’ decisions for them in the coming years.”

For more go to www.unicef.org

Follow Unicef on Twitter

UN Regional Coordinator Robert Piper on his most striking memory of visiting the Sahel

The UN Regional Coordinator for the Sahel, Robert Piper, shares the image that struck him the most during his recent trip to the Sahel region.

Follow Robert Piper on Twitter or ECHO on Twitter

The Dying Breeds

By Michael Boyce, Refugees International

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso --  If you drive along the roads of northern Burkina Faso, as my colleagues and I have these past two weeks, you won’t always see the usual signs of human activity. While the population here is growing rapidly, the Sahel remains a sparsely populated region, and desiccated savannah dominates the landscape – stretching for miles into the distance.

 

But look a bit closer, and you will see that the Sahel is really one big, busy highway - traversed not by humans, but by their massive herds of livestock.

 

Cattle, sheep, and goats patrol this area year-round in search of grass, leaving in their wake close-shorn fields and huge volumes of manure. For untold generations, people here have consumed their milk and meat or sold it in nearby markets. Now however, as climate change has begun to hit the Sahel, herds are thinning out and their owners are suffering.

 

 

Mamadou, who lives in the town of Boulyiba, is one of many residents who lost livestock in the last two years. “Right now it’s so dry that we have a hard time feeding our animals,” he said, walking through a barren, brick-red field. “But if we sell an animal, that’s a year’s worth of work gone. So if you have a bad season and sell a number of animals, it’s almost impossible to recover.”

 

In centuries past, steady rains from May to September replenished the Sahelian grasslands, turning them from a dusty grey to a lush green. But in the last two decades, the rains have shifted. Now they come early or late, providing either too much water or too little. Good pasture is getting harder to find, and families have to sell their livestock to buy enough food in-between the harvests.

 

To most people in the West, saving for an emergency means funding a bank account or buying a savings bond. In the Sahel, however, people buy livestock to accumulate and store their wealth. So as people here lose their herds, they become poorer and less able to bounce back after a crisis.

 

A few hours north of Birguin, the 2,000 residents of Gourtoure are still reeling from an unprecedented flood in 2012 which washed away their entire village.  More than 3,000 goats and sheep were swept up in six-foot-high floodwaters, their carcasses left dangling from the trees. “Things are miserable here,” one of the village elders told us. “AGED [a local aid agency] gave us two animals after the floods, but they can’t give us what we lost.”

 

Residents of Gourtoure are still reeling from an unprecedented flood in 2012
Credit: Refugees International (Burkina Faso - 2013)

 

If global climate change continues as experts predict, then the Sahel will be badly affected. Weather events that are extreme today will become the norm. Drought will alternate with flood as rains grow more erratic, and rising temperatures will scorch land that was once productive. That will mean more hardships for the people of this region. And as the livestock on which they depend dwindle, they may have no choice but to leave the Sahel for good.

 

Michael Boyce is the Press & Information Officer for Refugees International, a non-profit organization that works to end displacement and stateless crises worldwide and accepts no government or UN funding.

 

For more visit http://www.refintl.org/

Follow Refugees International on Twitter

Why NOW is the moment to give additional funds to the Sahel

Families in Africa's Sahel region are still trying to bounce back from the 2012 drought and food crisis. However the region remains in crisis, with with more than 11 million people in needing help and the humanitarian response severely underfunded.

Director General of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), Claus Sørensen, and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, Robert Piper, explain why NOW is the moment to give additional humanitarian funds to the Sahel region.

 

 

Follow Robert Piper on Twitter or ECHO on Twitter



 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.”

For more go to www.wfp.org
Follow WFP on Twitter

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.

For more go to http://www.unocha.org/rowca/
Follow OCHA for West and Central Africa on Twitter

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.

 

 

 

For more go to http://ec.europa.eu/echo/
Follow ECHO on Twitter

Local factory provides home-grown response to malnutrition in the Niger

By Bob Coen, UNICEF

 

A new report by UNICEF reveals the high prevalence of stunting in children under 5, but also outlines the tremendous opportunities that exist to make it a problem of the past. A factory in Niamey is transforming the way the Niger responds to the threat of malnutrition. It is also transforming the local economy.



In just five years, the company has been able to provide
100 per cent of the country’s ready-to-use therapeutic food.
In 2012, that food treated 370,000 children.

A few hundred metres from the banks of the mighty Niger River, where the routines of fishers and farmers continue as they have for centuries, a modest factory is transforming how this West African nation responds to the threat of malnutrition.

 

Societé Transformation d’Alimentaire (STA) is a wholly owned and operated Nigerien enterprise in the nation’s capital, Niamey. Within the walls of its plant, personnel work shifts on a gleaming, high-tech assembly line. They turn out carton after carton of a peanut-based ready-to-use therapeutic food, the go-to product for treating severe acute malnutrition in children.

 

Response to multiple food crises

 

Since 2005, the Niger has experienced several serious food crises, which have threatened hundreds of thousands of children with severe acute malnutrition. In 2006, UNICEF decided to enter into a unique partnership with the still-fledging STA to help it develop its capacity to manufacture ready-to-use foods locally. In just five years, the company has been able to provide 100 per cent of the country’s ready-to-use food; in 2012, STA delivered 2,800 tonnes of the food, which treated 370,000 children.

 

“[Ready-to-use-foods] have brought about a real revolution in the treatment of children suffering from malnutrition because these are products that meet international standards and the needs of children,” says UNICEF Niger Deputy Representative Isselmou Boukhary. “They are also extremely easy to use in the health centres, and especially at home, which is important in a country like Niger.”

 

“We are very happy about this collaboration,” says STA Deputy General Manager Ismael Barmou, watching trucks being loaded with cartons of the food to be taken to the UNICEF central warehouse. “One of the things we’re most proud of is to be able to be competitive in the international market. So, it’s a win and win partnership, especially for the end use, which are the kids in Niger that are in need of nutritional solutions.”

 

“Soon he will be running”

 

Women grind peanuts in Tchadoua. These locally farmed peanuts
are the main ingredient of ready-to-use therapeutic food,
which is produced by UNICEF partner Societé
Transformation d’Alimentaire

Some 700 km from the factory, Nana Hassia has reported to her local health centre with her 20-month-old son Hassan, who is recovering from severe acute malnutrition. A health worker carefully weighs and measures the boy. Ms. Hassia is given a week’s supply of the ready-to-use food, which she will use to treat Hassan at home.

 

With five other children to care for, Ms. Hassia says, “It’s a big advantage for me to be able to treat my child from home and not have to keep him at the health centre.”

 

Once home, all she needs to do is to tear open the sachet of paste for Hassan, which he quickly and eagerly devours. The food is given five times a day.

 

The results are nothing short of remarkable. In a matter of days, most children are already gaining weight and strength. “I’m so happy,” says Ms. Hassia, as she feeds Hassan. “I can see my child getting stronger, and soon he will be running.”

 

Supplies when and where they are needed

 

In order for ready-to-use food to be available to mothers like Ms. Hassia when they arrive for their weekly appointments at health centres, it is essential that there be a reliable supply chain of the product – a reason that having a local supplier is so important. “It makes our supply chain much more efficient and easier to manage,” explains UNICEF Niger Supply and Procurement Manager Stephane Arnaud.

 

Before the partnership with STA, UNICEF imported large shipments of the food via the neighbouring port of Lomé, Togo, which would require months of planning. Getting the product from the STA factory to the more than 900 health centres around the Niger is much simpler, says Mr. Arnaud. “Having it locally, I can reduce my costs of warehousing – and it’s also much easier to manage for the shelf life of the product.”

 

Benefit to the local economy

 

The UNICEF–STA partnership has also had a positive impact on the local economy.  The company employs more than 100 people in its manufacturing plant, as well as scores of women at an adjoining facility who inspect and clean the peanuts by hand.  At agricultural markets in the various farming centres around the country, wholesalers can purchase sacks of peanuts directly from farmers. Hundreds of other people are employed as peanut shredders.

 

“I’m really happy and also proud to know that there’s a company here in Niger that is using peanuts to make this special food for children,” says peanut farmer Hassan Nomao.

 

“I’m happy because I know that these peanuts are going to help save a lot of children.”

 

Pour plus visitez www.unicef.org

suivez Unicef sur Twitter

 

Tuareg refugees in Niger herd their livestock to safety

By Bernard Ntwari /UNHCR / Intikane, Niger

The long column of animals – flanked by men sitting high in the saddle – headed eastwards at a steady pace, raising clouds of dust on the trek towards new pastures.

It may sound like a scene from a Western, but this drama was being played out thousands of miles away and across an ocean in the West African nation of Niger. The cast includes 800 animals, ethnic Tuareg nomads from Mali and the UN refugee agency.
  

Tuareg nomads from Mali head eastwards on their camels
during the livestock drive in Niger. © UNHCR/B.Ntwari

In late April, the caravan of camels, cattle, donkeys, goats, sheep and three horses left the refugee settlement at Agando, about 10 kilometres from the border with Mali, and began the three-day trek to Intikane, a vast area where the Tuaregs will be able to live in an open area and lead their traditional nomadic lifestyle in safety.

All of the 8,000 refugees at Agando and nearby Chinourawen village fled to western Niger with their animals to escape the fighting that erupted in northern Mali early last year or because of continued insecurity or fear of reprisals since January this year, when a French-led counter-attack pushed back rebel forces.

The Niger government's decision to move the Tuaregs to Intikane was based on security grounds: Agando is located just 10 kilometres from the border in an area that remains unstable. It was also a way of letting them lead a more normal life.

"Helping refugees to move their animals will allow them to maintain their livelihoods and to continue living as pastoralists and nomads rather than ending up in a refugee camp dwellers and dependent on aid," noted Karl Steinacker, UNHCR 's representative in Niger.

The Tuaregs were involved in the relocation process from the start. "We held several meetings and we worked out an itinerary," said Mouhamoud Abdoulaye Al Kan Afi. "We were able to go and see Intikane. It is suitable for us and for our animals," added the respected refugee elder, who rode his horse like a young man and was one of the chief herdsmen.

UNHCR brought in local partner, Akarass, to help organize the caravan, which was a major logistical operation. "We worked on every detail: there were water points along the way and food for the herdsmen," said the NGO's Oumarou Danni Saadou, adding that gendarmes on camel-back provided security.

The health of the animals was looked after by a vet, and on arrival at Intikane all the animals were given vaccinations to prevent the spread of disease among livestock owned by the local community.

The three-kilometre-long train of animals arrived in Intikane to a warm reception from the local community. "The refugees and their animals are welcome. What happened to them could happen to anyone," said the village headman, Alghadawi Ilhouda. "We have to support them by sharing our water and pasture," he added in an arid area of scrub and sand.

Some of the Malian herders were delighted to discover that there was a well at Intikane, operated by powerful pumps and generators that had been rehabilitated by UNHCR. "This is simply like rain," said one refugee, Omar Mouhamadou. The 700-metre-deep well also benefits the local community in this part of Niger's Tahoua region, where the Sahel region meets the Sahara.

The Niger government, with help from UNHCR, plans to bring other communities of refugees to safer pastures deeper inside the country over the coming weeks. But unlike the animals and their drovers, most of the refugees will make the journey on convoys prepared by UNHCR's partner, the International Organization for Migration.

UNHCR is protecting and assisting some 50,000 Malian refugees in Niger. They are among more than 175,000 Malian refugees in surrounding countries, including Burkina Faso and Mauritania.

For more go to www.unhcr.org

Follow UNHCR on Twitter

 

Reaching Resilience

How to put resilience into practice?

 

By Groupe URD

« Reaching Resilience » is a Serious Game that will help practitioners shape their resilience-related project by asking a series of questions based on criteria and indicators from the handbook.

• Learn about the concepts and challenges of resilience and the questions it raises;

• Take on the role of a field worker in a fictional context and see how these different issues affect each different phase of the project cycle.

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

To try it out go to http://www.reachingresilience.org/Play

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
Follow oxfam on Twitter