20100415
allafrica

The effects of drought in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa have prompted the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to issue a call for additional financial support in order to help 859,000 children under the age of five suffering from malnutrition. UNICEF currently only has half of the $50 million in funds necessary to carry out potentially life saving operations that will help feed children during this time of need.

Children are suffering from malnutrition all over the Sahel, a belt of savanna and grasslands south of the Sahara desert that is prone to droughts that thwart crop growth in the planting season, leaving less to reap come harvest time. Families in Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad, and Niger have become food insecure, unable to prevent children from becoming acutely malnourished.

"We are entering the 'lean season.' This is a predictable time, but this year it started earlier...and numbers [of people] needing help are rising." Martin Dawes of UNICEF West and Central Africa told MediaGlobal. The "lean season" of May to October, normally difficult for Sahel farmers because food stores are low and new crops are not available yet, has come four months early for residents this year.

Dawes stated that more preparations have been made this year than in 2005, the year of the last dramatic drought and food crisis in the Sahel area, which has improved the outlook somewhat. In 2005 the scope of the emergency was not understood early. "The governments involved are recognising the scale of the needs, there has been prepositioning of the therapeutic foodstuffs for the under-fives and as long as there is access and funding a deeper crisis should be averted," Dawes concluded. By Rebekah Mintzer

MediaGlobal is an independent international media organization, based in the United Nations, creating awareness in the global media on social justice and development issues in the world's least developed countries.