Village Sayam, 50 km North West of Diffa, Niger. Some 7.8 million people in Niger – more than half the population – are at risk of food insecurity following a disastrous rainy season and poor harvest at the end of 2009. The worst of the crisis is expected to hit in June/July, but already the poorest families are reducing the number of meals eaten in a day and resorting to eating ‘survival food’ like bitter berries, and pastoralists are watching their livestock waste away for lack of pasture land.© Stéphane Petitprez/CARE.

April 26, 2010 (Niamey, Niger) – As Niger slips further into a protracted food crisis, CARE notes disturbing parallels between the current situation and the disastrous 2005 crisis. As John Holmes, the United Nations’ Emergency Relief Coordinator, visits drought-stricken regions of Niger this week to raise awareness of the crisis, CARE is urging the world not to make the same mistakes twice.

Many evaluations have documented the shortcomings of the 2005 response: authorities and the aid community were slow to raise the alarm about the food crisis, many aid agencies were slow to respond, and donor funds were grossly insufficient. It took images of starving children before the world took notice.

There have been improvements since 2005. Much progress has been made in helping poor families prepare for and cope through food shortages, and several donors have provided continuous funding to help farmers and pastoralists recover from the 2005 emergency. The alarm about this year’s crisis was raised by the authorities much earlier this time around, and many aid agencies, including CARE, have already started implementing activities to help prevent the worst.

But there are similarities to 2005 that donors and the aid community must heed in order to avert a disaster in 2010. In both situations, poor rains resulting in a poor harvest all but eliminated the country’s food reserves. A sharp hike in food prices, nearly 30 percent above usual, again means some food is available, but at prices far out of reach of poor families.

And just as in early 2005, the world’s attention is fixed on a bigger disaster.

“In 2005, all the attention and donor funds were focused on the tsunami in Asia. Today, it’s Haiti,” said Amadou Sayo, CARE’s Regional Emergency Coordinator, who led CARE’s emergency response in Niger in 2005. “Many governments have generously dedicated enormous resources to help those affected by the Haiti earthquake, but that leaves little left for disasters like the food crisis in Niger, which are happening out of the public eye.”

And as in 2005, there is now a very short window for governments and donors to make funding available to avert a crisis. Some 7.8 million people in Niger – more than half the population – are at risk of food insecurity following a disastrous rainy season and poor harvest at the end of 2009. The worst of the crisis is expected to start in June/July, but major humanitarian appeals such as the World Food Programme's are only half-funded.

Already the poorest families are reducing the number of meals eaten in a day and resorting to eating ‘survival food’ like bitter berries. Pastoralists are watching their livestock waste away for lack of pasture land, or are forced to sell them at below-market prices in order to buy food – eliminating their future income and putting them at further risk.

“One elderly man in a village in Diffa clearly made a comparison to the 1974-75 crisis, which was a huge famine in the Sahel,” said Stéphane Petitprez, CARE’s Emergency Coordinator in Niger. “Food insecurity levels are definitely at a much bigger scale than 2005. Without a timely, appropriate emergency response from the international community, this could potentially result in a humanitarian disaster.”

CARE has launched a US $7-million appeal for the emergency response and longer-term recovery. Working closely with the government, U.N. agencies and aid groups, CARE plans to reach approximately 660,000 people in the particularly hard-hit areas of Diffa, Maradi and Tahoua. Immediate activities include cash-based interventions (cash transfers and cash-for-work) to help poor families meet their food requirements throughout the lean season and to purchase seeds for the planting season in June; emergency food distributions, particularly targeting schoolchildren and the most vulnerable; and helping pastoralists protect their livestock by improving water access points, rehabilitating and protecting pasture land, and ensuring access to animal feed.

About CARE: Founded in 1945, CARE is one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid agencies, headquartered in Switzerland. In over 70 countries, CARE works with the poorest communities to improve basic health and education, enhance rural livelihoods and food security, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity, and provide lifesaving assistance after disasters. CARE has worked in Niger since 1974, with programmes in livelihood security, civil society organisation development, governance, gender, food security, health, disaster risk reduction, HIV/AIDS and micro-finance.

Media contact:

Melanie Brooks (in Geneva): +41 79 590 30 47, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it