Hazy days

The last few days have seen a change in the weather here, instead of clear blue skies and rising temperatures we've had a hazy sky, which has in turn cooled things down. The haze is apparently due to the Harmattan wind, which brings with it fine dust/sand particles from the Sahara. It’s not windy at the moment, but I guess the wind a couple of weeks ago did its job and now we're left with the dust blocking out the sun, and nothing to blow it away. Anyway it seems to be slowly clearing up, so hopefully back to sunshine in a day or two.

It's hard to believe that in only a few weeks time my assignment here in West Africa will be finished and I'll be back to the more familiar, if more unpredictable, weather of the UK. I read recently a long range weather forecast that suggested a 'Barbecue summer' for the UK, possibly the warmest on record, but I seem to remember the same being said last year, and it was a terrible summer - so who knows what'll happen.

As we get into the final few weeks of my assignment I will start the process of winding down the work here – I’m hopeful that the projects that now have some momentum behind them will continue, particularly the Voucher Track project, but at the moment its not clear who will be taking over after I leave. It’s also not clear what I’ll be doing once I return to the UK, so that’s something else I need to start working on!

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.

Saharan wind and surfing in Dakar

During the winter months the Harmattan, a dry, dusty wind from the Sahara, blows over West Africa. This weekend it was blowing particularly strongly bringing with it very fine sand particles, making for great sunsets, but also depositing lots of dust everywhere and making riding my scooter somewhat 'interesting'. The picture shows a beach along the corniche, used by the local Dakar youth as an outdoor gym, at sunset.

As it was Raksha's last weekend here we were very busy souvenir shopping, catching up with people and saying final good-byes, but also managed to fit in a visit to 'Just 4 U' on Saturday to see Orchestra Baobab. Great again, but as with all the clubs in Dakar it starts and finishes very late, we left the club at 3am and the band were still going strong (unlike us).

Then on Sunday we had lunch with some friends at a restaurant by the beach at Ngor to the north of Dakar. This is an area known for surfing and on Sunday the waves were were particularly high (perhaps because of the wind) so we were treated to a spectacular show by local surfers as we tucked in to delicious local fish. I'm told Dakar is an excellent place to learn surfing, but it all looks a bit energetic, and not a little dangerous to me - I'll stick to tennis I think.

Raksha is now back in the UK, where I hear it is cold and damp, so I'm hoping to make the most of my final couple of months here. The weather at this time of year is perfect (well, except when the Harmattan is blowing perhaps) - warm with bright sunshine, without being too hot and not at all humid, unlike the summer. There has been no rain (hardly a cloud) since October.

Dolphins in the Casamance

Another busy couple of weeks - so once again apologies for lack of blog postings! Naina has now gone back to the UK - I think she had a good time in Dakar - she certainly seemed to like the weather, which has been un-seasonally warm.
Raksha is still here, and we've just returned from a trip to Casamance in the far south of Senegal. We left by ferry last Tuesday evening and arrived at Ziguinchor (often just called 'Zig'), the capital of the Casamance region, early on Wednsday morning. The ferry itself, modern and very comfortable, was built to replace the MV Le Joola which sank on the way to Casamance in 2002 with the loss of nearly 2,000 lives, making it one of the worst non-military maritime disasters in history - worse than the Titanic. The ferry goes down the coast, past The Gambia and then up the Casamance river to Zig. On the way up the river in the morning we were followed by a school of dolphins who seemed to enjoy 'playing' in the wake of the ferry.

Our first couple of nights were spent on a small island, Karabane, at the mouth of the Casamance river. We stayed in a hotel that had once been the colonial governor's residence (see pic, right), but Karabane has become much quieter since those days - no cars , no mains electricity, no hot water, just peace and quiet and friendly people (see pic, left). But a bigger jetty is being built so that the ferry can stop there on its way to and from Zig - which will mean many more tourists in the future - so if you want to enjoy it at its best go now!

We then spent a couple of nights at the main tourist resort in Casamance - Cap Skirring. This is on the Atlantic coast and is busier than Karabane, but still very low key, with miles of virtually deserted beaches - deserted that is except for the sellers of souvenirs, jewelery, carvings and hats!

We splashed out and stayed at a very nice hotel, la Maison Bleue, with stunning ocean views and fantastic food. Then back on the overnight ferry, arriving in Dakar at 7am this morning, quickly back home (where there was a power cut yet again) and then into the office and back to work.

Visitors from home

It's Friday afternoon, the end of a very busy and hectic week. On Sunday evening I went to the airport to meet my wife and daughter, Raksha and Naina. Dakar airport is complete mayhem - specially designed to make things as unpleasant as possible for both arriving passengers and those meeting them, but eventually Raksha and Naina appeared through the arrivals door - a very welcome site. I've been working as normal this week, so they have been looking after themselves, seeing the sites of Dakar, shopping in the markets and spending time on the beach enjoying some welcome sunshine after the cold and rain of England. Evenings were spent visiting friends, including an interesting Fondue evening at a Swiss owned restaurant, with a Japanese group; a slightly bizarre experience. Tonight we are going to a Jass party and then on to Dakar's most famous club, Just 4 U, for some live music. Hope I can keep going!

On the airwaves, but short on gas

The emergency in Haiti continues to dominate the WFP world – it’s a massive operation and people are being pulled in from all over the globe, including some from our office here in Dakar, to help bring it together and get food out to those affected.
On the 'home front' I've been continuing to work on the various IT projects within the West Africa region, with my main focus still being on the Food Voucher project, which I've mentioned in previous blogs. This is becoming an increasingly important means of providing aid, but its still in its early days for WFP. In a recent conference call with some of the WFP IT senior management team in Rome I outlined the proposed solution and I'm hopeful that we can get it adopted as the basis for a global solution for these kind of programmes.
I also spoke about the Food Voucher project in an interview I did back in mid-December with an English journalist based here in Dakar. The interview was for Voice of America and has just been broadcast - you can catch it on www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/west/. Never having done anything like this before I was unsure what to expect, but it was all quite painless, although the editing process has managed to make it sound like we are already running a pilot with the mobile phone solution for Burkina Faso, which is not actually the case.
Outside of work - well I'm still very busy, although this week I've tried to keep fairly low key. On Sunday my wife, Raksha, and daughter, Naina, are coming over to Senegal. Naina is only here for a short while, so most of the time will probably be in Dakar and around, but then in mid-February Raksha and I are planning a trip down to Casamance in the very south of Senegal which I'm really looking forward to.
On a final note - Senegal has run out of petrol! Apparently a tanker is due in on Friday, but in the meantime if your car or motorbike runs on petrol (as opposed to diesel which is still in supply) then its fingers crossed you don't run out in the next couple of days as there's none to be had anywhere. Luckily I managed to fill up my scooter just before the pumps dried up, but had to drive half way across town to get it and there was a near riot on the forecourt with drivers desperate to fill up before it all disappeared. Oh well, that's Africa I guess.

WFP response to emergency in Haiti

The earthquake in Haiti is rightly dominating the news - the terrible scenes of destruction are a reminder of just how vulnerable we all are to the power of nature. Of course the whole humanitarian community is working very hard to respond as quickly and as effectively as possible in very difficult circumstances, and already WFP has started distributing food to those affected. WFP is very much geared towards responding to this sort of emergency and within the first few days had deployed additional staff to support the existing team there, including establishing emergency telecommunications for the entire humanitarian community - this is something that WFP is responsible for as 'cluster-lead' for the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), and it is the main area in which Vodafone supports WFP.

In the days after the earthquake there were fears for a number of staff who couldn't be contacted, but most have now been accounted for, although tragically it has been confirmed that one local staff member was killed. The local WFP office is still standing, but is unusable due to risk of collapse and so staff have been re-located to the UN mission 'Log Base' near the airport, where living conditions are said to be very difficult. Similarly the warehouse facilities that were in place are now unstable and so alternatives are being quickly sought to allow emergency food supplies to continue to be distributed.

The scale of the emergency operation is such that it will be among the largest in the history of WFP, and as a largely Francophone region a number of staff from here in West Africa, including from the IT team, have been asked to re-deploy to Haiti to assist with the operation. The emergency has also meant that some of the projects we were working on here are likely to be delayed as resource get diverted to where they are most needed, in Haiti.

I'm sure that the thoughts and prayers of us all are with the people of Haiti at this time. If you feel you would like to make a doantion to help WFP with its work in Haiti please follow this link:

https://www.wfp.org/donate/haiti.