Niger food crisis deepens

World Vision UK aid reaches severely malnourished children in Africa

The Chief Executive of World Vision UK says aid agencies must ramp up their efforts to tackle growing food shortages in Niger, after meeting scores of families affected by the crisis.

Justin Byworth has just returned from the West African country, where he met mothers who had resorted to eating animal feed, babies being treated for acute malnutrition, and a group of children who had trekked more than 100 miles in the searing heat to search for food.

It comes as leading aid agencies release a report assessing the deadly delay in responding to food crises such as East Africa and Niger, where five million people are already facing starvation after this year’s poor harvest.

World Vision UK was one of only two aid agencies that reacted in good time to the East Africa Food Crisis last year, according to Wednesday’s report from Oxfam and Save the Children.

Justin Byworth said: “The food crisis is still unfolding in Niger – this week I’ve seen children quite literally starving. They’re facing an uphill struggle to survive. And children in Niger are experiencing this now, with at least nine months to wait before there's any hope of a harvest.

“There is still hope - we still have time to prevent West Africa becoming an East Africa.  But we need to take action now.”

Mr Byworth also visited Somalia and Kenya during East Africa’s 2011 Food Crisis.

This past week in Niger he has once again experienced first-hand the reality of the food scarcity families are facing – threatening to leave millions more in need of sustenance.

World Vision has been working in Niger for nearly four decades and has been operating at emergency levels for almost the past two years, helping communities cope with the cyclical drought by stocking grain stores, providing water points and supporting the growth of vegetable gardens.

Mr Byworth continued: “Nearly 10,000 generous World Vision supporters are already helping families in Niger through child sponsorship, but we now need to really ramp up our efforts. World Vision, the Government of Niger, the UN and other aid agencies are all working together to make sure that this is a success story of the crisis that didn't become a catastrophe.”

19 January 2012