>Interesting R4 story about failures in the provision of aid to Niger (mp3
>copy available on the
>website). In a nutshell:
>There has been criticism that by then children in Niger were already in the
>final months of a year of gradual starvation. Niger's Prime Minister Hama
>Amadou told File On 4 the responsibility for the
>late responses rested entirely with the donors. "I would like to say in a
>clear but firm manner that
>Niger was not helped as it should be by the international community.
>
>"Niger is a country that expressed its needs but was not sufficiently
>helped."
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4418816.stm
While on the theme of the beeb and Niger:
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4136438.stm (9 August 2005) "There is
no famine in Niger. The people who are saying there is a famine either have
a political interest or an economic interest in saying there is a famine."
-- Niger's President Mamadou Tandja.
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4179938.stm (25 August 2005)
"Journalists who have visited Niger are reporting finding a strange
phenomenon: villages in which women and children are going hungry, while
there is still food in their households. Kim Sengupta of the UK's
Independent newspaper found that men had left their families, locking the
grain store, while they were away."
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4185550.stm (27 August 2005) "When
Niger's president accused aid agencies of exaggerating his country's food
crisis for their own gain, Western media reacted with shock...But according
to some leading aid experts, Mamadou Tandja had a point. His remarks may
have been self-serving, they concede, but they also raised serious issues
about the way aid emergencies are handled."
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4274728.stm (23 September 2005) "Few
can afford the little food there is, and although the next harvest looks
promising, people are still starving to death."
As always, media reports cannot be accepted as gospel. But, as always, the
situation is far more complex with far deeper root causes of the
vulnerability than we are often willing to admit. And finally, as always,
these observations and the Niger complexities are nothing new. The Bihar
famine (or non-famine, as some believe) 1966-67 and Biafra 1968 displayed
some similar elements. Others on this list will certainly know of even
earlier case studies.
As with many disasters, there is presumably enough blame to go around
everyone. What will we do to improve in the future?
Ilan
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