World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

This year again, Niger is short of food. Nearly half of the country’s 15.2 million inhabitants are facing hunger due to failed harvests in 2009, according to the government. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that more than 212,500 tons of food are needed between August and December to fill the food gap. But bringing food to families living in remote areas of the sandy landlocked country with few roads is an arduous task.

Two weeks today - it's Monday here in London - I returned from Niger. Al Jazeera had begun carrying a series of reports from the country which warned that the severe hunger in the country was at risk of tipping into a full blown famine. (..) The United Nation's World Food Programme now officially backs what the people told us. They say half the country's population, 7.3 million people - are in desperate need of food. (..) The WFP has appealed for $213 million in emergency aid, but is 40 per cent short of its target.

Niger is now facing the worst hunger crisis in its history, with almost half the country's population in desperate need of food and up to one in six children suffering from acute malnutrition, aid officials say. Malek Triki, West Africa spokesman for the United Nations' World Food Programme, said villagers in Niger are describing the situation as worse than in 2005, when aid organizations treated tens of thousands of children for malnutrition, and worse even than 1973, when thousands died.

Nearly 4 million people in Niger affected by drought will receive protective rations while they wait for the October harvest, the World Food Program said.(..)"People in Niger have suffered intensely from this protracted drought," said WFP Regional Director Thomas Yanga in a statement. "It is critical to provide for the needs of these malnourished children."

Some five thousand people in Niger lost their homes and crops after the River Niger burst its banks at the weekend. The West African country is already suffering from severe food shortages caused by recent drought.(..)"Rain in the Sahel is much welcome but it needs to be properly distributed over time and over space which is the major issue now," the WFP's Naouar Labidi told Reuters news agency.

About 900,000 children in the West African state of Niger are on the brink of malnutrition, according to the UN. The UN's World Food Programme is calling for urgent help to get food aid to areas in the country that have suffered years of failed crops due to drought.

A catastrophe is about to unfold for millions of the world's poorest people. It happened five years ago, and this time the international aid agencies were in place when the early warning lights started flashing. (..) The World Food Programme (WFP), which had planned to provide for 2.3 million people in Niger alone between March and October, has had to dramatically revise that figure to 7.9 million. It takes between two and three months for food procured internationally to arrive, but with the rainy season under way in a vast landlocked country like Niger, it may well take longer.

The billboard propped up at the side of the dusty road offers what the land it stands on cannot provide : a sack of grain, the top prize in an advertising campaign sponsored by a mobile phone company. (..) "These are very high levels of child malnutrition, the situation is bad," said Gianluca Ferrera, deputy director for the UN world food programme (WFP) in Niger. "The loss in harvest last year was worse than expected, and the lean season started earlier than anticipated for a larger share of the population. "In some areas, there is a 50% malnutrition rate for children under 2. Many of these children will not survive."

The U.N. World Food Program has extended food aid to eight million people in Niger, but aid workers say the program still needs funding and assistance may come too late for some families hit by severe food shortages. International aid workers say a deepening food crisis is threatening 10 million people across the eastern Sahel, including seven million people in Niger.

The International Federation of the Red Cross just posted this video about one woman's day to day struggle to survive the food crisis in Niger. The World Food Program declared it an emergency operation in which millions of people risk starvation. So far, though, the international response has been weak.