When aid workers pack up after dealing with the hunger emergency in Niger and other nations along the Sahara, leaders will be left struggling to find lasting solutions to the chronic lack of food in much of Africa. The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Dennise Mathieu, said, "Over the long term, donors and government will also have to look at other factors," not just responding to emergencies like the current food crisis. "In Niger there is a long-term problem of chronic food insecurity," Mathieu said Thursday.
Up to 80 percent of Niger's territory is arid or semiarid. The majority of its 11 million people live in villages, surviving on subsistence agriculture in a narrow band of arable land along the country's southern border. Farmers struggle with erratic rainfall, pest attacks and soil degradation. The United Nations says the combined effects of drought and locusts have left some 3.6 million people in Niger facing severe food shortages this year. Children are most at risk, with some 800,000 under age 5 needing to be fed urgently, the United Nations says. At least 1.6 million people in nearby Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania also are affected, the world body says. Even in "normal" times, two-thirds of Niger's population lives on less than $1 a day and 40 percent of children show signs of malnutrition. |