Food crisis in Niger

The main focus for WFP within the West Africa region at the moment is on Niger where a severe food crisis is looming. Niger is very poor (174th out of 179 countries on the UNDP's human development index) and also suffers from political instability - with yet another coup just a few weeks ago meaning the country is again in the hands of the military. In addition there has been a poor harvest in the whole Sahel region which has hit Niger particularly hard with the result that 20,000 children in the country are already being treated for malnutrition, and another 200,000 are at risk of severe malnutrition. So while the main focus for WFP continues to be Haiti, it’s important to remember that there are other countries out there that desperately need help.

Here in Senegal I am still working on moving forward with the Food Voucher project. A programme is launching soon in Pikine just outside Dakar to provide 20,000 households with food vouchers to help them overcome the problems of high food prices. The programme will use SMS messaging from the retailer back to WFP as a means of reducing the potential for fraud and to help ensure efficient targeting of WFP’s resources on those most in need. I’m planning to use the experience from this programme, along with similar programmes being run in other parts of the world such as Burkina Faso, Zambia and Syria, to feed into the design of a solution which can be used globally by WFP. At the moment each new voucher programme is developing a new solution – a good way to learn what works and what doesn’t , but not a very efficient use of limited resources in the long run.

On a slightly different note – a happy St Patrick's day to one and all. Its a truth universally acknowledged that every town in the world has an Irish Bar - however Dakar seems to be the exception that proves the rule - or at least I've yet to find it, but maybe I'll do a bit more 'research' tonight.