Children at the community school built in 2005 by CARE Niger through its partner AREN. Some 7.8 million people in Niger are at risk of food insecurity following a disastrous rainy season and poor harvest at the end of 2009. © CARE / Stephane Petitprez
As the grip of drought and malnutrition pushes Niger further into a drawn-out food crisis, and the world’s attention is diverted by Haiti, leading aid agency CARE notes disturbing parallels between the current situation and the disastrous 2005 crisis.
With the visit of John Holmes, the United Nations’ Emergency Relief Coordinator to drought-stricken regions of Niger this week, CARE is urging the world not to make the same mistakes twice at the cost of lives.
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.
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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 resulted in poor harvests and 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.
Also, 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.”
