Summer Reruns

1 August 2005



Niger Famine Aid is Too Late for Many

In the last lifetime or so, the story of Africans starving and the world only paying attention when dying babies are on TV is growing tiresome. Biafra was one of the first, and Ethiopia gave the world Live-Aid and a couple of sing-able Christmas tunes. Now, it’s Niger where 800,000 children are severely malnourished in a nation of 12 million human beings – and had help come back in November 2004 when the first requests came, there would be almost no suffering at all.

The trouble all started in August 2004, when the rains didn’t come. That is no one’s fault. Drought happens. From August to October, locusts came and ate what little grew in the drought stricken areas. And again, that is no one’s fault. Locusts happen. At harvest time in October, one of the smallest crops in history was brought in – and again that is no one’s fault. In November, the UN received its first aid appeals, and virtually nothing was done. And that is the fault of everyone.

Through January food supplies dwindled. There was government-subsidized millet (Niger’s staple food), but subsistence farmers had no crop to sell, so they had no money to buy food. Instead, they ate the seed for this year’s crop. Meanwhile, as the BBC observed, “Local journalists who report[ed] on the growing problem are accused of being unpatriotic and face sanctions.”

In May, the UN made a $16 million appeal for food to take care of Niger. As the BBC also reported “June 2005 – Not a single pledge is received.” Forget checks or actual food – not a single government even made a promise to help, later, as convenient, maybe someday. In June and July, the situation decayed every farther, and western reporters with cameras arrived to document the hunger. On the last week-end of July, food supplies came in by air from Europe. It won’t be enough to save all the 2.5 million who are severely hungry.

The world needs an Emergency Food Program, with cash reserves, and with access to the surpluses grown in Europe and North America. Roads need to be built and aircraft readied. If the citizens of Earth are going to wait for their governments to act, this will happen again – the planning has to start now, and the money and legal authorities much be approved now. When the next trouble arises in food distribution, the people who actually know how to get food to the hungry can get on with it. Had such a system been in place a year ago, Niger would just be another place on the map about which American high school students knew nothing. And that, at this stage, would be acceptable.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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