European Commission earmarks €40m to tackle food crisis in Sahel and Sudan
By Julius N. Uma
August 3, 2010 (JUBA) — The European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union, has allocated an additional fund of €40 million to tackle what it described as “the worsening food crisis’ affecting Sudan and the Sahel region” a statement released by the organization says.
A statement released yesterday revealed that €30 million would be additional funding for the Sahel, which brings the total amount of funding allocated by the Commission to fighting malnutrition in the Sahel to €98 million.
The additional funds, notes the European Commission, will be used to boost humanitarian aid operations carried out by the EC’s humanitarian aid partners, as well as to help provide food assistance to over 500,000 extra beneficiaries during the next critical months until the harvest season in October.
Currently, the EC estimates that over 10 million people in the Sahel region are at risk of food insecurity. Over seven million of those are reportedly in Niger while three million are considered to be suffering from severe food insecure and in need of urgent food assistance.
“During my visit to Niger in early June I saw for myself the scale of the food crisis affecting the Sahel region and the ensuing large numbers of severely malnourished children brought for treatment to Commission-funded nutrition centers.” commissioner Georgieva said and added “Thanks to the timely and significant food assistance funded by the European Commission and the good work of our partners over the past months many lives have been saved.”
“However”, she says, “climatic, economic and nutritional conditions have [not only] worsened for millions of people living in the drought belt of Sahel but also in Sudan where people already suffer from a conflict situation.”
“We need to do more and we must act quickly if we want to avoid adults and children dying from starvation. The next few months until the next harvest will be a critical time. With the additional funding that we have requested we will be able to help hundreds of thousands of people to survive through this hungry period,” she added.
In September 2008, humanitarian aid experts from the EC reportedly foresaw the risk of a looming food crisis in the Sahel, prompting the EC to react swiftly to the first reports of erratic rains, which resulted in poor harvests, and allocate €10 million in December 2009.
Niger and Chad have been identified as the countries most affected by the food crisis in the Sahel region, with many pockets of severe malnutrition also identified in northern Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and northern Cameroon.
(ST)