World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

The United Nations rural development arm is helping to improve agricultural programmes in West Africa’s Sahel region, especially in Niger, which is currently in the throes of a growing food crisis. (..) Earlier this month, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it was scaling up its operations in the country. “We’re doubling the size of our operations and ramping up already significant interventions, to take even swifter action to protect these children,” said Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the Rome-based agency.

Relief workers in Niger say malnutrition rates for children under age five have reached emergency levels. A deepening food crisis in the eastern Sahel threatens nearly half of Niger's 14 million people. (..) The United Nations World Food Program has announced it will double the amount of people receiving food aid in Niger to 4.5 million and increase supplementary feeding for children under age two and their families. The WFP has called for an additional $100-million to ramp up its program.

To the north of Niger, the creeping Sahara; to the south, oil rich and agriculturally lush Nigeria – this nation straddles the Sahel – dry, hot and cruel. (..) Again, the people of Niger are playing the waiting game – waiting for rain and for an autumn harvest; waiting for the UN and the World Food Programme to get their sums right and attract the donations to pay for the food aid; or waiting for the world to add Niger to the desperate list of Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea.

Severe drought has struck in Niger and the resulting food shortages have sent child malnutrition rates soaring. For any country, a child acute malnutrition rate over 15 percent is considered an emergency. In Niger, the rate is currently 16.7 for children under five. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is responding with additional aid. Josette Sheeran, the WFP director, announced, "We’re doubling the size of our operations and ramping up already significant interventions, to take even swifter action to protect these children."

A deepening food crisis in the eastern Sahel threatens half of Niger's 14 million people. The International Federation of the Red Cross says it needs an additional $3.3 million to provide much-needed assistance. (..) The Red Cross has been on the ground since March in the Tahoua, Diffa and Zinder provinces of southern Niger. Working with the U.N. World Food Program, the Red Cross says it has distributed food to more than 12,000 people and plans to reach another 100,000 by mid-July.

The food crisis in Niger is deteriorating faster than expected and could cost the lives of a generation, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the organisation, said the brains and bodies of children under five will be damaged for life if they don't have adequate nutrition. The drought-stricken Sahel region in West Africa - encompassing Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Mali - is facing dwindling food supplies and high prices at market.

The World Food Program has declared its work in Niger an "emergency operation" after a survey found a sharp rise in malnutrition rates among young children. WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella says 16.7 percent of children under 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition in the African country. Children under 3 are particular affected.

Giving out cash rather than food is a quicker way to help the growing number of hungry in Niger as it will avoid delays related to distributing food, aid groups say. (..)Food, much of it imported from neighbouring countries, is available to buy in village markets. But the problem is many in the agriculture-driven economy can't afford it as the drought has hit their sources of income - farming and livestock. (..) In response to the worsening situation, the World Food Programme said this week it aims to help an additional 2 million people, on top of the 2.3 million they are already assisting, and will also focus on boosting nutrition for children under two. This will require an extra $100 million in funding, the U.N. agency said.

The U.N. World Food Program warns severely malnourished children in Niger are at risk of dying. The program is set to double the number of people receiving food aid in drought-hit Niger, in the light of a new government survey showing malnutrition rates among young children have reached emergency levels. The World Food Program says alarm bells go off when the emergency threshold of more than 15 percent of acutely malnourished children is reached.

Direct links between bad governance, a parlous environment and a prostrate economy are all too obvious in the Republic of Niger where, only in February, President Mamadou Tandja lost his presidency. According to scary statistics from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), 7.1 million Nigeriens face possible starvation between now and November, when the new harvest season begins. This figure is a hefty seven out of every 10 of the projected 10 million people that face starvation in West Africa.