DAKAR (AlertNet) - A massive aid operation in West Africa's semi-arid Sahel region has prevented a severe food crisis from sliding into a catastrophe but the hunger problem is far from over, aid agencies say.
Ten million people across the Sahel have been experiencing food shortages after drought destroyed crops and slashed food production in 2009.
Aid groups say there is hope for a better harvest this year due to improved rainfall, but warn the severity of the crisis will leave scars that require an equally robust disaster recovery effort.
AlertNet interviewed three experts on various aspects of the crisis -- Cyprien Fabre, head of the European Commission's humanitarian aid and civil protection department (ECHO) in West Africa, Philippe Conraud, regional humanitarian manager for Oxfam GB in West Africa and Claude Jibidar, the deputy regional director of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) in West Africa
Is the food crisis in the eastern Sahel over?
Cyprien Fabre: It (the food crisis) is certainly not over but the worst has been averted thanks to the big response in food and nutrition assistance that is underway and there are also forecasts for a good harvest in October and November because the rainfall has been good in most of the Sahel...
Claude Jibidar: The worst seems to have been averted in Niger, thanks to efforts by the government and its partners... Food prices are now declining in the region and livestock prices are improving. The October harvest will also have a beneficial effect on household food security. However, the needs for recovery remain high, especially for the most vulnerable who have lost their livelihoods during the 2010 food crisis...
Philippe Conraud: We are still at the very beginning of the end and there are still needs to be met. We are still doing food distributions in Chad, Mali and Niger either by direct food aid or through cash transfers... We can't say the crisis is over, maybe that would be the case in a few months' time. We have however averted the worst of it ... the situation could have been worse if we (humanitarian community) did not act so promptly and in such a big way although it hasn't been perfect or sufficient.
Up until early August humanitarian groups were still appealing for help from donors. What's your assessment of the response from aid groups and donors and how does that compare to the last crisis in 2005?
Cyprien Fabre: The response was better than 2005 and there is no doubt about that. I can't talk for other donors but at ECHO we were quick to realise that the situation would be very bad and we were among the first to warn even the NGOs that something serious was going to happen... We allocated 84 million euros this year - 84 for this crisis (on the emergency side) - and 128 million euros from the European Commission side alone (for recovery)
Philippe Conraud: I think the response this year has been better than that of 2005. It was bigger in terms of volume, and number of countries concerned and some donors responded rapidly and provided huge funds. However, we have not been able to solve all problems, respond to all needs in all parts of the (Sahel) region because some of the big donor nations did not provide funding as we had hoped and so the humanitarian community as a whole didn't get the funding we were expecting. There are things to improve ahead of the next crisis, because there will be another crisis in the years to come.
Claude Jibidar: In July, WFP was able to purchase commodities in the region and bring them to Niger or Chad for lean season distributions. Our lead times were fairly short. That means that appeals two months ago were meant to address the very real prospect of pipeline breaks in our relief operations. Thankfully, donors responded to those appeals and new advanced funding mechanisms which WFP has put in place have enabled purchases before donor money was availed. In other circumstances, it would have been impossible to purchase and deliver the required quantities of food on time.
What other factors contributed to averting a bigger crisis and how effective were the early warning systems?
Cyprien Fabre: The key difference is that we knew from the beginning through the early warning systems, indicating in October, that the harvest was not going to be good. The use of cash vouchers and cash hand-outs instead of food distribution that would have disrupted the markets was also a major reason for success this year because it was very much a crisis of access to food as much as one of lack of food.
Philippe Conraud: The humanitarian community was better informed and organised with more human resources on the ground than in 2005, all of which enabled us to be reactive. But it is essential to improve early warning systems and I would even go further to say we need "early alarming". Early warning allows us to have indicators of an imminent crisis beforehand but ... if we had been more 'alarming' in November, December 2009 or the early parts of this year it would have enabled us to be more pushy about obtaining the necessary funds earlier than we did.
Claude Jibidar: Luckily, in 2010, regional food markets were working, bringing surpluses from other parts of West Africa to Niger. In this context WFP was able to carry out its largest regional procurement operation ever, bringing surpluses from coastal countries to the Sahel, leading to efficiencies in terms of time and cost. WFP purchased some 86,000 tonnes of food in West Africa. Seventy percent of the food distributed in the eastern Sahel comes from West Africa.
While aid groups were vocal about humanitarian needs in Niger, they seemed less vocal about Chad where about 2 million people faced hunger. Why is that?
Cyprien Fabre: The NGO and media lobby was strong in Niger but it wasn't the same for Chad although the gravity of the situation is the same. We have very few partners working in the area of food and nutrition in the parts where the food crisis was serious in Chad but in Niger there partners who have been there since 2005 and this made a difference in the response.
Philippe Conraud: The problem with Chad is that most of the humanitarian groups are based in the east and south where there are refugees and internally displaced persons, and secondly there wasn't an adequate early warning system to get the groups to switch focus and move in good time into the west and centre of the country. It is still insufficient at the moment.
Claude Jibidar: (The) implementing capacity in the Chadian Sahel is weak and must be strengthened. Food insecurity and malnutrition in the Chadian Sahel are chronically high, and the area was hard hit by the 2010 crisis. The Chad government, UN agencies and NGOs and must allocate additional resources to programmes in that very deprived area.
What are the challenges now for the Sahel? Is another crisis likely?
Cyprien Fabre: At ECHO, we remain very concerned and are ready to finance some recovery programmes in Burkina Faso and Niger for people who are coming out of this crisis while in Chad and northern Nigeria we still need to pay more attention to the nutrition situation of children and the general population because these are similar to Niger but we have less attention from the outside world. These people need assistance from humanitarian actors, but it is critical to have support from governments and development donors because with climate change and the advance of the desert in this part of Africa we are going to be having such crisis every two years and it needs some long-term response.
Philippe Conraud: It would be a tragedy if donors were to disengage from the Sahel on the grounds that there is a good harvest on the horizon. Many poor families have suffered extremely from this 2010 food crisis and though they have survived and the death rates have not been catastrophic, the populations in the Sahel are in a far worse condition today than they were before the crisis. The main concern for us now is to help them return to at least their situations before the crisis, because there will be another crisis in the years to come.
Claude Jibidar: While we can say that the bulk of the crisis is behind us, nutrition needs remain very high, especially for children and women and a continuous effort by all stakeholdersÂ?is still required to ensure the status of the most at-risk does not deteriorate further but also that the ones who have lost their livelihoods can recover and be in a position to survive the annual lean season in 2011Â?Both acute and chronic malnutrition rates have been and remain stubbornly high in the Sahel; and the projection of a good harvest will not immediately solve the problem of undernourished children, which is linked to many different root causes, including food insecurity, lack of access to water and sanitation, and illness.
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