World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Up to 10 million people across the Sahel region are at risk of food insecurity in 2013 and 1 million children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations. The U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, David Gressly, talks to AlertNet about preventing malnutrition, building resilience and other priorities for the region this year. He says getting the money for these activities is likely to be a challenge – without a drought being the rallying point for raising funds.

Despite good rains across much of the Sahel this year, 1.4 million children are expected to be malnourished - up from one million in 2012, according to the 2013 Sahel regional strategy. (..) But humanitarians worry of donor fatigue and many are concerned possible military intervention in Mali will distract donors from the chronic food insecurity and malnutrition crises in the region. (..) Alain Cordeil, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Mauritania, voiced his fears. “If we only have political interest from donors for refugees, we will not solve the problems for this region…This could be very chaotic,” he told IRIN.

As this year's emergency winds down, the question on aid workers' minds is, "How can the Sahel break from its recurring cycle of food crises?" U.N. Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, David Gressly, said now is the time to end chronic food insecurity. Aid agencies say they are working to build the "resilience" of the most vulnerable communities, but more needs to be done. (..) Aid agencies also say that prevention is cheaper than treatment.

The growing regularity of droughts across the Sahel region has left millions in need of emergency food assistance, the UN humanitarian food agency announced today, while also warning that malnutrition was still rampant in Senegal, Chad, Niger and Mauritania. A spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP), Elisabeth Byrs, told reporters in Geneva that the UN agency already assisted six million people in the Sahel during the month of July – but cautioned that humanitarian needs still remained “huge” ahead of the October harvest.

Farmers are finding that restoring soils with trees boosts crops in a region where drought has caused successive food crises. (..) Donors are anxious to curb the food crises that are striking at ever narrowing intervals – in the Sahel in 2005, 2010 and 2012. "Building the resilience of communities by strengthening their agricultural practices is essential," says the UN World Food Programme deputy regional director for west Africa, Claude Jibidar. Aware of FMNR's ability to build resilience, the WFP is giving food for work to 5,000 FMNR farmers in Kaffrine (Senegal).

The UN World Food Programme launched the distribution of cash vouchers for the purchase of food in Senegal's Ziguinchor region, for people hit by poor harvests and high food prices. (..) "Our objective is to assist 145,000 people with cash vouchers in the most vulnerable rural and urban communities where food is available in the local markets but people cannot afford it," said WFP Senegal Country Director Ingeborg Maria Breuer.

About 810,000 people in the country (Senegal) are facing hunger, and the national cereal production is down by 36 percent compared to 2010, according to a study by the Senegalese government and the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP). The situation is part of the wider crisis in the Sahel region - a semi-arid belt of land south of the Sahara desert - where the United Nations estimates that more than 15 million people are facing food insecurity because of a combination of drought, failed crops, insect infestations, high food prices and conflict. (..) Senegal, when compared to other governments in the Sahel region, was late to declare it was facing a food crisis.

Aid agencies say funding is urgently needed to stave off a food crisis in the band of dry, drought-ridden territory that stretches from Senegal to Chad called the Sahel. (..) Humanitarian workers say severe food shortages threaten more than six million people in Niger. All together, United Nations agencies, including the World Food Program, are calling for just over $1 billion to head off the food crisis in the Sahel this year.

"WFP is proud to have been involved in this project that has allowed the people of Fayil to become rice producers once again. Rice is the staple food of Senegal and its production will help in the fight against hunger ," said Thomas Yanga, who coordinates WFP's activities across 19 countries in West and Central Africa.

"The Great Green Wall is a crazy project". The head of the Senegal Great Green Wall agency, Colonel Matar Cissé, and, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade have said this. (..)Already in its fourth year in Senegal, Malek Triki, World Food Programme spokesman for West Africa, states that already 6.65 million trees have been planted, reforesting more than 10,000.