From the Salmon

It’s hard to know where to begin, but let’s start with the numbers. In Niger (pop. 12 million), as many as 2.5 to 3.5 million people face famine and death from malnutrition or starvation. That includes 800,000 children under the age of five — 150,000 of which are currently showing signs of severe malnutrition.

How did this happen?

Well, for one thing, Niger is the second poorest country on earth; in good years, its barren soil barely produces enough for people to survive. But last year was not a good year. Bad droughts were compounded by — believe it or not — a plague of locusts, which devoured a large portion of the harvest.

Some emergencies, like the tsunami earlier this year, cannot be anticipated. But others, like a famine in Niger, can be forseen months in advance. The UN and various aid organizations warned of impending famine back in November. Nine months later, thanks largely to a report from a BBC television crew, the world is beginning to respond.

We knew that this was coming. And we did nothing.

I’ll confess that I didn’t know anything about the situation in Niger until the last few weeks. I knew about similar issues in neighboring Burkina Faso by reading Keith’s writing at Under the Acacias. And I should point out that Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania all face similar famine from similar causes, although perhaps not on the same scale. But even though I’ve tried to start reading more regularly about Africa, the impending famine in Niger somehow slipped under my radar.

That these stories can’t get any traction in the media until it’s almost too late is only part of the tragedy, but it’s still significant. The sad truth is that aid largely does not exist until the media focuses on the story, preferably with moving photos of emaciated malnourished children.

Because the warnings went unheeded, thousands have died and the cost of responding has multiplied. Oxfam reports that six months ago, “it would have cost $1 per person affected per day to prevent the food crisis in Niger, Mali and Mauritania. It will now take about $80 to save each starving person.”

The UN has estimated the necessary response will now cost about $30 million. As UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland optimistically put it, “This is not much money: this is 20 minutes of the world’s military spending. I think the world can afford it.”

Many things will have to change if the world is to respond better and earlier to crises like this. But one proposal that I’ve seen supported by the New York Times, the Guardian, and Oxfam (among many other voices, I would imagine) is for a permanent UN fund of at least $500 million for early response to humanitarian emergencies. It’s not a silver bullet, but it would be a good place to start.

As for the bigger picture, listen to Marc Snelling, a member of the British Red Cross Society’s Emergency Response Unit, as he responds to the question “Why didn’t help get there sooner?”

There is no single easy answer.

One could say that government and UN strategies didn’t work as well as they might have done; international donors were slow to respond despite aid agency warnings; it is also the case that it was hard to assess that a chronically deficient food situation was turning acute.

Of one thing I’m certain. It’s easy to say that we should ‘Make Poverty History’. It sounds good.

But there are huge changes that need to be made on every level — political, economic and humanitarian — before that can happen.

For the time being, though, this is an emergency that we and many others are responding to, right here and right now. The wider questions will have to wait.

We’ve talked about the wider questions in the past, and we’ll continue the discussion in the weeks to come. But for now, if you’d like to find out more about Niger or if you’d like to donate to organizations that are at work in Niger, here are a few links:

Niger, Famine, and West Africa Links

• Niger Watch is a blog focused on coverage of the Niger famine.
• The BBC generally has excellent Africa coverage:
  - Check out the Africa main page for the latest news.
  - A timeline for the Niger famine
  - Marc Snelling’s diary
  - Q&A on food crises and aid
• The Guardian also has excellent coverage.
• ReliefWeb’s Niger page
• AllAfrica’s Niger Page
• USAID’s Famine Early Warning System
• And one last plug for Under the Acacias, where Keith writes regularly about Africa, particularly Burkina Faso. Though not Niger related, I’d also recommend his recent posts on Why Should We Listen to Voices from Africa and (for you bloggers) Truth and Blogging.

Donate to Help Niger

• In Britain, thirteen charities (including those listed below) have joined together to form the Disaster Emergency Committee. The DEC has begun a campaign to raise money for Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Mali
• World Vision
• Oxfam
• Save the Children

Please feel free to suggest links to other organizations or to resources on Niger or on Africa in general by leaving a ripple.

Update — August 12:

Through some bizarre quirk of search engine optimization, this post is currently third on the Yahoo search for the terms “Famine” and “Niger”. It’s possible that this is either a sign that Yahoo is messed up or that the media coverage of this is depressingly shoddy. It may also be because, technically, you could make the case that the situation in Niger is not a full-blown famine.

Regardless, welcome to the site. Let me know if you found this post helpful.

If you’re interested in my additional thoughts on famine and Niger, I’d encourage you to pay a visit to my most recent discussion of free-market reform and its contribution to the Niger food emergency.