** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **
HERE WE GO AGAIN WITH TANdJA'S OSTRICH POLITICS!
"Nigerien President Mamdou Tandja, however, discountenances fears of a
famine in his country. There were food shortages in some areas after
poor rains and locust invasions but this was not unusual for his
country, he explains. Tandja said the idea of a famine was being
exploited for political and economic gain by opposition parties and
United Nations aid agencies."
PETER W.VAKUNTA
DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON
602 VAN HISE HALL
1220 LINDEN DRIVE
MADISON WI 53706-1525
U.S.A
Office 608 262 4067
Home 608 422 6089
Cell 608 381 0407
"The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of the wise man is
in his heart."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
----- Original Message -----
From: PETER W VAKUNTA <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, September 22, 2005 4:04 pm
Subject: NIGER'S BUMPY RIDE!
> ** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **
>
> Niger's food crisis
>
> 24/08/05, Martin Luther King
>
>
> The humanitarian crisis affecting parts of the Niger, the arid
> Saheliancountry, this season is as much an issue of the
> affordability of food
> as its local availability, say aid workers. But the problem is not a
> lack of food nationally. Total grain production last year-though
> dipping below a five-year average-was 22 percent more than the
> 2000/2001 season, a year in which "there was no major food security
> crisis," according to a report by the US-funded Famine Early Warning
> Systems Network (FEWS NET).
>
> What has changed this year is that in some parts of a southern belt
> sweeping from the border with Burkina Faso to Chad, food prices are
> critically high, while the value of livestock has crashed. A 100
> kg bag
> of millet, the staple grain, sold for around CFA 8,000 to 12,000 (US
> $16 to $24) last year but now costs more than CFA 22,000 ($44).
>
> An estimated 3.6 million out of a population of 12 million are
> affectedby food insecurity, with 2.5 million identified as
> extremely vulnerable
> and requiring food assistance. Aid workers are careful not to use the
> term famine to describe what is underway in Niger, the world's second
> poorest country.
>
> "I'm definitely not using the expression 'starvation' and I'm
> definitely not saying 'famine' as these imply things we don't have
> evidence for. This is a food insecurity and nutritional insecurity
> crisis," said Victor Aguayo, regional nutrition adviser for the UN
> Children's Fund.
>
> Niger agro-pastoral systems have remained unchanged for hundreds of
> years, despite accelerating desertification and climate change.
> Lack of
> health services, school opportunities for children, and the
> traditionalstatus of women, further punish the poor.
>
> A 1998 UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) profile for Niger,
> reviewing ten years of data, concluded: "The rates of malnutrition
> among children are high throughout the country. Over 32 percent are
> stunted-half of them severely stunted-over 15 percent are wasted, and
> over 36 percent are underweight."
>
> FAO noted in its 1998 report that the area most affected by
> malnutrition was Maradi. This year, Maradi is at the centre of the
> nutrition crisis again, along with zones in five other southern
> regions, says WFP.
>
> A survey by the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in
> Aprilfound acute malnutrition rates in some departments in Maradi
> hittingover 19 percent. But what is unclear is how much of that
> suffering can
> be attributed to the underlying vulnerability, and what is a direct
> result of the current crisis.
>
> In a normal season in the Sahel, food prices begin to fall from
> September through to December, before rising again. Last year,
> according to Sow, food prices did not fall, and from January rocketed
> to a "level we have not seen before."
>
> Part of the reason was high regional food prices and an element of
> speculation, noted Sow. In anticipation that last year's locust
> infestation would lead to shortages, traders held onto food stocks
> rather than releasing them onto the market.
>
> The locust swarms, while affecting some crops, decimated pasture. Then
> there was an early end to last year's rains, and pastoralists found
> what remained of their fodder shrivelling in the scorching heat, and
> their animals weakening and dying.
>
> Livestock is traditionally exchanged for food, but the terms of trade
> have turned against pastoralists. "In the bad areas it now takes
> two to
> three animals to buy the same quantity of food that previously cost
> just one," said Sow.
>
> In this current hunger season in the run up to the next harvest in
> October, farmers are struggling-and in their tens of thousands
> failing-
> to find the money to pay for food on the markets.
>
> Before significant amounts of aid started flowing there was an
> agonising debate over whether free food distribution would undermine
> the workings of the free market and create dependency.
>
> In April the government, heavily dependent on donor funding, raised
> taxes on a range of consumer goods, including milk and flour, as a
> condition for budgetary aid from the International Monetary Fund. Some
> of those increases were rescinded after protest marches.
>
> Nigerien President Mamdou Tandja, however, discountenances fears
> of a
> famine in his country. There were food shortages in some areas after
> poor rains and locust invasions but this was not unusual for his
> country, he explains. Tandja said the idea of a famine was being
> exploited for political and economic gain by opposition parties and
> United Nations aid agencies.
>
> But the World Food Programme denies that the scale of the problems had
> been exaggerated.
>
> September 2005
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> PETER W.VAKUNTA
> DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN
> UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON
> 602 VAN HISE HALL
> 1220 LINDEN DRIVE
> MADISON WI 53706-1525
> U.S.A
> Office 608 262 4067
> Home 608 422 6089
> Cell 608 381 0407
>
> "The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of the wise
> man is
> in his heart."
> BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:
>
> http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html
>
> AAM Website: http://www.africanassociation.org
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html
AAM Website: http://www.africanassociation.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
