Even in the best years, it is difficult to eke a living out of the harsh sands of the western Sahara. But this year, a series of events has unfolded that has made it even harder for the people of the Sahel to survive. Sahelians live in one of the toughest environments on earth, in deserts spanning from Mauritania on Africa’s west coast, eastward across Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Nigeria, Niger, and Chad.
This season, a drought, pockets of emerging tribal and ethnic violence, and an influx of migrants from Libya—95,000 have recently arrived in Niger alone—have converged to create a crisis that has left more than 7 million people in need of emergency assistance. In addition, food prices are high, and unrest in north Africa has cut off the flow of remittances, which have traditionally helped families cope with tough times.
With the support of the American people, USAID is providing emergency aid—including food, water, health and nutritional services, and other supplies—that is now helping more than 2.5 million people affected by the growing crisis.
USAID is providing an additional $33 million in humanitarian funding in the coming weeks to meet food needs across the region, support programs that protect vulnerable populations’ assets and livelihoods, and provide critical support to those facing malnutrition. When award of the 33 million is completed, USAID’s total assistance provided to the Sahel food insecurity crisis in FY 11 and FY 12 will be more than $270 million. This is in addition to USAID’s longer-term programs to alleviate poverty, improve health and economic opportunity, and mitigate and resolve conflict.
As we learned through the ongoing response in the Horn of Africa and other food security emergencies in the past, a rapid response is important. But it is also important to push our responses to be smarter, more effective, and linked to programming that promotes resiliency and addresses root causes so that we move people out of chronic crisis and towards prosperity.
On Wednesday, in Rome, USAID Assistant Administrator Nancy Lindborg met with the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department, the United Nations agencies, and representatives of affected governments, and they stood together to call for an urgent scale-up of humanitarian, rehabilitation and development assistance to respond to rising levels of hunger in the Sahel region. Working together, we will help save lives now, build resilience in these countries, and help prevent the cycle of crisis in the future.
Video from the Sahel, provided by the World Food Programme, can be viewed on YouTube.
