West Africa Hunger Crisis: UN Calls For More Help To Assist 10 Million In Need

NIAMEY, Niger -- Top United Nations officials say 10 million people need help amid a food crisis in West Africa's Sahel region.

U.N. Development and Humanitarian chiefs Helen Clark and Valerie Amos called Saturday for greater humanitarian response to the crisis that effects eight countries, including Niger.

During a visit, they commended Niger's government for its agricultural projects that are building more resilience to nutrition crises.

The U.N. has previously said that more than 1 million children in the affected countries are expected to face life-threatening malnutrition this year. The region has not yet recovered from the last drought two years ago, and many families lost their herds which means that they will not have assets to purchase food.

The issue is mainly caused by drought and high food prices, according to the World Food Programme. It's affecting Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Gambia, Cameroon and northern Nigeria

Drought is common in the Sahel region. In Niger, people prepare for the dry months, when they may eat only once a day -- sometimes even once every 36 hours, CNN reports.

International aid agencies have called for about $725 million to respond to the crisis, having received about $135 million, according to the news outlet.

What You Can Do:

Support the World Food Programme, which is providing food vouchers for people to use at local markets, boosting the economy. A $1 donation is enough to give food to four kids. WFP's site also provides ideas for incorporating hunger lessons into education or playing online games to raise money.

Support UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP), which are working together to support the management of child malnutrition. UNICEF is also increasing access to clean water and sanitation to prevent the spread of diseases.

Support Mercy Corps which offers opportunities for volunteering, engaging your community in fundraising, making donations online and more.

Support CARE, which fights poverty worldwide and allows you to donate money or supplies and create an online care package.

Comments

[Faisal Tauheed Rao]

12:38 AM on 02/25/2012

This is nice post and sprituly encourges others becuase under standing value excellnt last when web site i read post i real inspired and suddenly bookmar many friends share me information.

www.webhostingsonline.com/
http://www.webhostingsonline.com/mobile_prices.html
http://www.webhostingsonline.com/samsung_p1000_galaxy_prices.html
http://www.webhostingsonline.com/Nokia_mobiles_price.html

[Kenz300]

11:35 AM on 02/22/2012

Every country needs to develop a plan to balance its resources with its population.

Food, water, oil, energy, jobs and population need to be in balance for the society to survive.

The ever growing world population is not sustainable and only leads to more suffering. The world added a billion more people in the last 12 years. Where will all the food, water, oil, energy and jobs come from to support this massive population growth?

[Samwise1948]

06:22 PM on 02/19/2012

Why is it that we really don't hear about adults starving in Africa? It is always the children. Why is that? Is it more of a story to talk about starving children, or is there something else at work here. I read a story years ago about starving children in Africa and yet, the father mentioned in the story was fat. Why? Because HE ate most of the food the family got, the wife and children got what he left.How much of that is part of this story? Thie same story has been repeated almost EVERY year since the 1980's. Remember "We are the world", that raised so much money for food to feed Africa? And, yet, children are still starving, after all that money was given for food.

[ProgressivePicon86]

05:59 PM on 02/19/2012

The global food crisis may not be affecting America and the West as much as it is in Africa and other developing nations, but we all need to give what we can to curb malnutrition and rampant starvation across the globe. Humanity needs to be healthy and happy....both American children and those children in Africa need help. If you have the time guys/ladies, go to http://www.globalgiving.org/, choose a cause, and donate what you can...you can make a difference in someone's life.

[lacabrera]

01:30 PM on 02/19/2012

What ever happened to Birth Control ,they practice that in the good old USA ,why not Africa ,that is a poor country ?

[Joybuzzard]

01:15 PM on 02/19/2012

So, how about this, instead of sending money and/or food to the people in West African countries, let them use their best farm land to grow food for their own people instead of forcing them through artificially created "debt" to let western agribusiness corporations use their best farm land to grow coffee, sugar, feed-grains and flowers for export to western markets. Many people don't know that in every country where people are literally starving to death there is food being grown for export, people were forced off their land as part of these "trade" agreements designed to benefit foriegn investors. See, many years ago, western countries decided that africa's economy needed help because all of it's resources and food were being used by people in those countries, which is called "socialism" and "isolationism", so they needed to be liberated and brought into a global market where their food and resources are traded away for enough money to keep their people from feeding themselves.

[War2040]

08:41 AM on 02/19/2012

---------- Famines and poverty are part of the plan -------
The future that is waiting for us has been planned by conspiracies of powerful ruling elite's for centuries. ….That goal of advancement is to establish a global government supported by a fully integrated global economy controlled by a ruling body composed of the richest individuals, families, banks, and corporations in the world …. In this "New World Order" …… the more contentious, primitive and intellectually backward segments of mankind must be eliminated in large numbers from the face of the earth because (1) they have grown so numerous that the brute labor they provide is in excess supply even in their own geographic regions.., (2) they represent a net drain on the physical resources of the earth, (3) their religious and political philosophies are not compatible with a globally integrated economy, and (4) they are low value consumers in the new global economy.
War2040….at….. www.War2040.net

[RomeoMD25]

08:20 AM on 02/19/2012

This year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that its index of food prices was the highest in its more than 20 years of existence. Prices rose 15 percent from October to January alone, potentially “throwing an additional 44 million people in low- and middle-income countries into poverty,” the World Bank said. During the second half of 2010, the price of corn rose steeply — 73 percent in the United States — an increase that the United Nations World Food Program attributed in part to the greater use of American corn for bioethanol.

[alans0222]

07:46 AM on 02/19/2012

These countries, as well as countries like the Sudan and Somalia have warehouses filled with hundreds of tons of food and other supplies, but local militias control the areas and sell the supplies on the black market to the highest bidder. The UN should sent in it's UN peacekeeping troops to oversee the distribution of the supplies.

[Ronin 5]

01:26 AM on 02/19/2012

Let's feed as many of them as we can right now. The cause and cure can be discussed afterward, This is no way for humans to live. The talk of withholding food and sending condoms is pretty callous. Get to the UNICEF website and donate now.

[nachocat]

02:00 AM on 02/19/2012

Why support an unsustainable society? We are just enabling more suffering.

[i the ys]

03:52 AM on 02/19/2012

That sounds like a republican thing to say.

[Elecktra001]

01:08 AM on 02/19/2012

Educate the women.

[RomeoMD25]

08:22 AM on 02/19/2012

Rush to Use Crops as Fuel Raises Food Prices and Hunger Fears

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/science/earth/07cassava.html

[lacabrera]

01:32 PM on 02/19/2012

Teach them Birth Control !

[matelda]

12:15 AM on 02/19/2012

I can't believe how many of you posters think this is about overpopulation, as if the people of Niger were the ones consuming more than their share of the earth's resources. If the rich were the only ones allowed to have families, no one would be better off.

Americans are the ones living unsustainably. Americans (5% of the world's population) consumes a quarter of the world's energy. But the starving people in the third world are the ones who desperately need to stop reproducing?

How dare you.

I have actually lived in West Africa. We are not better than the people of West Africa. And family is the only life insurance many people have there.

Anyone who wants to twist the news of their famines and droughts into an opportunity to pontificate about birth control is missing the mark.

[nachocat]

02:00 AM on 02/19/2012

If they can't take care of themselves, they are overpopulated.

[lacabrera]

01:33 PM on 02/19/2012

Are you suggesting abortions ?

[TylerSutherland]

11:17 PM on 02/18/2012

Hey, Americans and republicans/democrats all over the world; this is what's called 'irony'. We were trying to civilize and advance the Africans with colonization that would've brought them up to speed which, unfortunately was mismanaged by unsavoury personnel (many, shockingly, recruited from LOCAL populations I might add; most of the officials in the African slave trade were native-born Africans). But, instead, you thought to yourself, in your jealous whims, that if you cannot destroy the British monarch, you can destroy the British Empire. So, now, millions are starving to death because the British and the other colonial powers are all holed up under the auspicious of the American European Union and the Unequal Nations; I hope you're happy. Hurrah for misinformed decisions taken in haste due to cowards!

[seekingjusthefacts]

09:19 PM on 02/18/2012

The bulk of Africa’s current infrastructure was built to exploit their resources to carry their rich raw materials out of their country into Europe and the USA. Britain, France and the U.S. make sure puppet dictators are installed to assure that big oil and other predatory corporations maintain their stranglehold on Africa’s wealth. Those who are kicking the victims in the face are advocating their genocide which is what these globalists want you to support. Africa was once the home of some of the greatest civilizations, diverse cultures and native traditions the world has ever known. The devastation that colonialism has done there is now being done here in America and Europe. Continue to advocate their genocide, as those same apparatuses you support for their destruction are insidiously being put into place to do the same to you here. Africa don’t need “aid” they need Europe, the USA and their multinational corporations to get the hell out of their nations. God placed the African on the planet before any others. They are our greatest ancestors and elders of this planet. When they go, trust me . . . we go.

[idisVA]

09:11 PM on 02/18/2012

The problems of the Sahel is not population. Most of the countries affected have the lowest population densities in Africa. Their problem is climate-related. The Sahara has been encroaching from North to South, affecting general agriculture, livestock resulting in famine and related health issues. Governance is another problem that these countries face. In short, the problem is more complex than over-population as some seem to suggest.

[Kenz300]

07:29 PM on 02/25/2012

Population, resources, energy, water, and jobs all need to be in balance.

An area is overpopulated if it can not support the population.