<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" version="2.0"><channel><title>IRIN - Burkina Faso</title><link>http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspx</link><description>Updated everyday</description><language>en-gb</language><lastBuildDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 17:30:41 GMT</lastBuildDate><item><title>FOOD: Power to the people!</title><pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201104051041120547t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 15 May 2012 (IRIN) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all. </description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 15 May 2012 (IRIN) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report [http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/hdr/africa-human-development-report-2012/ ] today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all.  

The argument is straightforward: Most people in Africa depend on agriculture, and better nutrition is good for human development. More food production means more food and income in people’s pockets, which has spin-offs which are beneficial for health and education. 

The report is not another exhortation to farmers to grow more food. Pedro Conceicao, chief economist with the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa, explained that exclusively looking at linkages between small-scale farmers and agriculture or gender empowerment and agriculture were “piecemeal approaches” and not helpful. “We have to move beyond silver bullet obsessions [such as agricultural subsidies] or attention-grabbing headlines.” 

He reasoned that high economic growth rates in Africa had not necessarily resulted in a reduction in poverty and food insecurity - which points to accessibility to food and purchasing power as key factors. The report emphasizes “empowerment” and participation as important levers for change. 

It argues that countries need to implement a more strategic vision of food security. An approach to emulate would be what Ethiopia had done to beef up its agriculture sector by setting up a separate Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) [ http://www.ata.gov.et/about/our-mandate/ ] right next to the prime minister’s office. It is modelled on similar initiatives in Asia which helped accelerate economic growth in South Korea and Malaysia, for instance. ATA addresses bottlenecks in areas such as soil management, research and extension services. 

The report calls for new approaches covering multiple sectors - from rural infrastructure to health services, to new forms of social protection and empowering local communities. It calls for action in four critical areas: 

1. Increasing agricultural production: It acknowledges that boosting production would be integral to any approach to becoming food secure, and calls for investment in research, infrastructure and inputs and a Green Revolution in Africa; 

2. More effective nutrition: Develop coordinated interventions which boost nutrition while expanding access to health services, education, sanitation, and clean water; 

3. Building resilience: Investment in crop insurance, employment guarantee schemes, and cash transfers to shield people from risks and make them less vulnerable to shocks; 

4. Empowerment and social justice: Gender empowerment, access to land, technology and information are important to make people food secure. 

IRIN interviewed two leading experts on the issues. 

Steven Wiggins, research fellow with the UK’s Overseas Development Institute, who has been studying agriculture and rural development in Africa since 1972: 

Africa is not one unitary entity: “There are 56 countries in Africa... When Africa is considered as a single unit, there is a great danger that it is compared to other similar units, above all Asia, leading to analyses that suggest that if only Africa were more like Asia, then things would improve. Well, I’m not sure that Botswana has very much to learn from, say, Afghanistan, thank you very much. Hyperbole aside, the point is this: in Africa we have several, if not many, cases of admirable progress in food and nutrition security, but we overlook this.” 

Real progress takes time: “A longstanding issue in African policy debates is the search not only for growth, but for growth that is `transformative’. Even when an African economy grows, the pessimists say `yes, but where is the transformation?’ usually noting that in Asia growth is transformative. Well, yes, where that has apparently happened in Asia... it is the result of 30 or 40 years of sustained progress. Yet damning judgments are made about African countries after less than 10 years of sustained and high economic growth." 

Too complicated and demanding: It would have been better had it [the overview [of the report] stuck to a few fundamental propositions that are well supported by the evidence, namely: smallholder development plus primary health plus clean water will almost always reduce child malnutrition. Yes, let’s add girls in secondary school to the list: that will strengthen these links. But it’s that simple. 

Peter Gubbels, the West Africa co-coordinator for Groundswell International, a global partnership of local farming communities, has 30 years of experience in rural development, including 20 years living and working in West Africa. He is based in Ghana. He says: 

Move beyond the Green Revolution: “The report… seems to embrace the Green Revolution approach to agricultural improvement, citing... the results... in Asia, and seeking to now apply those lessons to Africa. The report suggests implicitly, that one reason Africa still has hunger is because Africa has not benefited from `science-based, input-intensive’ support. This is highly misleading. There have been many efforts to promote Green Revolution in Africa. Almost all have failed.” 

Missing bits: “There is no mention of Conservation Agriculture, or of the Brown Revolution [to promote soil fertility and conserve water].” 

Under-funding in agricultural research: “This is true but is also misleading. There has been a great amount of funding in the CGIAR [Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research] system in Africa, including IITA [International Institute of Tropical Agriculture] in Nigeria, from the 1970s onwards. One reason donors reduced funding in the 1990s was because it was not generating good production results. 

“But this report seems to assume that investing in new seeds, fertilizers, tractors, irrigation and training is what is needed... And how many very poor small-scale farmers can afford tractors?” 

Understanding resilience: “Equally disturbing is the suggestion that long-term resilience measures can enable risk averse, poor small-scale farmers to adopt riskier, but more productive, agricultural technologies. This is twisting my understanding of resilience. The aim is to reduce (or at least manage risk), using low external inputs and local ecological systems, not to increase risk by creating dependence on external expensive inputs (insurance, etc) for poor, vulnerable farm families working in marginal conditions. The way forward would be to develop crops and technologies that both increase food production and reduce risk by conservation agricultural techniques.” 

"Subsuming” nutrition into food security: “There is not just food insecurity in Africa. There is both food insecurity and nutrition insecurity. Currently in the Sahel, there is both a food crisis and a nutrition crisis. They may be linked, but the causes are quite different, and the solutions that are [rooted] in food security are almost always inadequate. 

“Just as we need to change the strong association of agriculture with food security, we also need to move nutrition out of the confines of food security. There is still a very strong tendency to believe that food aid, and increasing food production, solves most of malnutrition. It does not. It only helps prevent major spikes in the already existing emergency level of chronic and acute malnutrition.” 

Controversial issues side-stepped: “The report also almost completely sidesteps... genetically modified seeds... the role of agribusiness in land-grabbing, control of seeds, pushing pesticides and herbicides.” 

jk/oa/cb 
]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=95459</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201104051041120547t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 15 May 2012 (IRIN) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all. </td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SAHEL: Aid efforts under strain as refugees numbers mount</title><pubDate>Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201205030755480944t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR/OUAGADOUGOU 04 May 2012 (IRIN) -  Sahelian governments and local and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in northern Mali, and the mounting number of hungry people across the region as the lean season gets underway. </description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR/OUAGADOUGOU 04 May 2012 (IRIN) - Sahelian governments and local and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in northern Mali, and the mounting number of hungry people across the region as the lean season gets underway.
 
Altogether some 284,000 Malians have fled the north according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 107,000 of them thought to be displaced within Mali; 177,000 in neighbouring countries. New arrivals have pushed refugee numbers to 56,664 in Burkina Faso and to 61,000 in Mauritania, and to 39,388 in Niger, according to UNHCR. [ http://data.unhcr.org/MaliSituation/Current_Emergency_Response_Appeal.pdf ] These governments are already struggling to get aid to millions of their inhabitants, who are facing hunger due to drought. Fleeing Malians have told the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) they want to avoid getting caught up in possible conflict if government soldiers or foreign troops intervene in the north.

The UN estimates that 16 million people across the Sahel are facing hunger this year, and hunger levels are rising as the lean season gets fully underway. Families across the Sahel are also experiencing a significant loss of income as hundreds of thousands of Mauritanians, Burkinabes and Malians fled conflict in Libya, bringing a halt to the remittances they regularly sent.

New appeals

This complex mix of slow and fast-onset crises means the UN will be revising or launching new funding appeals from the current US$1 billion to $1.5 billion in coming weeks, said Noel Tsekouras, deputy head of office at the West Africa bureau of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Dakar.

Donors have given or pledged US$750 million in aid, most of it for food or nutrition needs, which many in the chronically underfunded region welcome as a strong response, but mounting demands will make this just half of the total necessary.

The World Food Programme (WFP) alone needs $360 million to bridge its immediate funding gap, having received just over half of the US$790 million it requires for the Sahel so far, said Claude Jibidar, deputy director of WFP in West Africa. The agency desperately needs cash so that it can start buying food in regional markets, he said.

In early May most food sectors remained severely underfunded. The Niger cluster appeal is only 7 percent funded for protection activities, 19 percent for water and sanitation, and has received no funding at all for education. [ http://fts.unocha.org/reports/daily/ocha_R32sum_A952___2_May_2012_(02_03).pdf ]

UNHCR will also be upping its Sahel refugee appeal beyond the $35.6 million requested, of which just 41 percent has been received. UNHCR spokesperson Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba said refugee camps in Burkina Faso and Mauritania will need to be expanded to keep up with the growing numbers.

IRIN looked briefly at the refugee and IDP situation in each affected country.

Mali displaced – unknown numbers

It is difficult to know the exact number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mali - the UN estimates 107,000, with 75,000 staying in the north, though some observers in the area say as many as half of the population in some regions has left. [ http://ochaonline.un.org/westafrica ] Several aid agencies, including Catholic Relief Services (CRS), are diverting part of their aid response intended for the north to help displaced people who have fled south to Mopti in central Mali, or Bamako, the capital.

WFP plans to support 200,000 IDPs and host families with food aid, but there are fears for the estimated 75,000 in the north. Some NGOs have good access across northern regions, but UNHCR says the situation is still considered too insecure. “We have a real problem accessing IDPs in northern Mali,” said Lejeune-Kaba. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95390/MALI-Negotiating-humanitarian-access-in-the-north ] David Gressly, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, says agencies have reached 40,000 of the northern displaced, but 35,000 are without any aid.

In Mopti, just south of the area declared as Azawad by National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), CRS is leading the IDP response and says they are seeing approximately 2,500 people pass through each week, most of them moving on to villages and urban centres such as Ségou and Bamako further south. CRS gives hot meals to those in transit and has recently started distributing food and other goods, much of it diverted from the agency’s planned food aid response for the north.

The Mali Red Cross, UNHCR, and other groups are also trying to provide aid to IDPs sheltering in Bamako.

Mauritania - scale-up needed


Malians in Mauritania tell UNHCR that the two main reasons they have left are fear of more violence, or difficulty getting by with minimal aid and breaks in basic services. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95390/MALI-Negotiating-humanitarian-access-in-the-north ]

Most of the 61,000 Malians sheltering in Mbéra camp, near the town of Fassala in southeastern Mauritania, come from Timbuktu, over which Ansar Dine, a jihadist Muslim group, claims control. Others come from the towns of Niaki, Guargandou, Tenekou and Goundam in the Timbuktu region, according to UNHCR, which says it needs $18 million to help the refugees for six months, as long as numbers do not rise significantly.

With hundreds of new arrivals every day, mostly women and children, agencies working in the camps - UNICEF, WFP and NGO Médecins sans Frontières - are having to scale up their activities far beyond the anticipated needs. MSF says camp conditions need to be urgently improved - by mid-April there was just one toilet for every 610 people. The nearest hospital to Mbéra is in Nema, a six-hour drive, so MSF is trying to provide basic services, including maternal health care and nutrition for children. An MSF communiqué notes that many Tuaregs are arriving with respiratory tract infections and diarrhoea.

Niger- the most critical

There have been no recent arrivals of refugees in Niger, leaving the population at 39,000, most of whom are staying in Ouallam camp, 100km from the Niger-Mali border.

However, Niger as a whole is in a very critical situation, with the same number of people facing hunger as in all the neighbouring countries combined. When it comes to getting enough cereals and other basic foods into the country to stem hunger, “Niger is the biggest problem at the moment,” WFP’s Jibidar stressed.

Mariatou Adamou, a nurse at the nutrition treatment centre in Goudel, northern Niger, where many Malians originally arrived, said they were receiving higher numbers of malnourished children than in 2011, and adults were also suffering severely. “The grain banks are empty… so even the parents are malnourished and have nothing at home.” After an initial screening of newly arrived Malian children aged under five, 100 percent were considered malnourished.

UNHCR and WFP are supporting refugee families in Ouallam camp, while NGOs are also trying to include refugee needs in their ongoing responses. NGO Plan International is distributing food, conducting malnutrition screening and setting up drinking water distribution points and latrines for refugees staying outside of camps. They are also making available psychosocial support for people who witnessed violence or experienced devastating losses.

“Bandits came with guns and stole many of our things… in my village they were taking animals [representing the main family assets] away right in front of us… when I left I couldn’t bring anything because I had to bring my children. I didn’t bring any food,” Azahara Naziou, a Malian in Goudel, told Plan International.

Another refugee, Adaoula Harouzen, said more than 20 animals were taken from him. “They have not stolen them… they would tell me, ‘You have to choose your animals or your life.’ You stand there looking at them, helpless. You prefer saving your life, so they take the animals and go.”

Burkina Faso – water critical

More Malians are arriving in Burkina Faso every day, leaving the government’s National Commission for Refugees (CONAREF) overwhelmed, said its coordinator Denis Ouédraogo. The agency has only 13 staff members. “We were expecting refugees, but not to that extent in this context of food deficit in Burkina,” he told IRIN. ‘’The problem is how to respect our commitments towards our populations, who are faced with a food shortage, and to assist refugees at the same time.”

The government is mapping out a response plan for the 60,000 refugees, but Ouedraogo fears it will be “quickly outdated”.

Only half of the government’s $170 million appeal to fund food security and refugee response has been met, said Roger Ebanda, head of the UNHCR in Burkina Faso, and the UN Refugee Agency’s funding is also low, making the response “difficult”. Ebanda and Jean Hereu, head of MSF in Burkina Faso, say water is the urgent need in the camps.

Refugees in camps in Burkina and Mauritania are receiving a maximum of 10 litres of water per day, but agreed minimum standards for disaster response puts rations at double that. [ http://www.sphereproject.org/ ]

Mohamed Ag Mohamed Maloud, 60, a trader from Timbuktu who is now acting as a refugee representative at Somgande camp on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the Burkina capital, told IRIN he had been forced from his country during the fighting in the 1990s, but this experience is worse. ‘’The problem is that we do not have enough food... these are difficult days, but we try to cope.”

Each refugee is given a ration of 7kg of food for two weeks. “It is just not enough,” he said. The refugees have a money-lending system for those who arrived with none, prioritizing families who are 100 percent dependent on WFP for food. Other agencies are also helping - the Burkina Faso Red Cross is distributing 400 million CFA worth of food vouchers, as well as tents and water.

Health facilities are weak but improving. MSF has set up mobile clinics in Dibisi and Goutoure in the north, where 10,000 refugees are sheltering - before, they had to walk 17km to the nearest health clinic. The World Health Organization’s Burkina Faso representative, Djamila Cabral, said children have been vaccinated against meningitis, measles and polio.

aj/bo/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=95410</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201205030755480944t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR/OUAGADOUGOU 04 May 2012 (IRIN) -  Sahelian governments and local and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in northern Mali, and the mounting number of hungry people across the region as the lean season gets underway. </td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>CLIMATE CHANGE: Farmers and forecasts</title><pubDate>Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201203301412410080t.jpg" />]]>BINGERVILLE/DAKAR 02 April 2012 (IRIN) - Unpredictable rainfall in parts of Côte d’Ivoire cost some farmers over half of their harvest in 2011 producers told IRIN, but, armed with more knowledge about how to get weather reports and interpret them, they might still have been able to boost their output, say agricultural specialists.</description><body><![CDATA[BINGERVILLE/DAKAR 02 April 2012 (IRIN) - Unpredictable rainfall in parts of Côte d’Ivoire cost some farmers over half of their harvest in 2011 producers told IRIN, but, armed with more knowledge about how to get weather reports and interpret them, they might still have been able to boost their output, say agricultural specialists.
 
Marc Kouamé, a farmer in the north who grows okra, peanuts and cassava, told IRIN that farmers “no longer know where to turn” because of the changing seasons. "I lost half of my peanut production because I didn’t plant it at the right time,” he said. Many farmers feel more and more helpless in the face of such uncertainty.
 
Between 1971 and 2000, rainfall in Côte d’Ivoire dropped by 15 percent, according to Augustin Kouakou Nzue, head of agro-climatic studies in the National Weather Service (Direction Météorologie Nationale), although it has increased slightly since 2000.
 
In southern Côte d’Ivoire, farmers took clearly defined seasons for granted until the 1980s: rains from April to mid-July; a short dry season from mid-July to September; a short rainy season until November; and finally a long dry season from December to March. Now, the rains come later and finish earlier, with longer dry seasons and patchy distribution, says Nzue.
 
Most growers rely on rain-fed production, so the long-term impact of this shift could devastate Ivoirian farmers, who make up 60 percent of the workforce. Cocoa, the country’s main export crop, could also be affected - a September 2011 study by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, based in Cali, Colombia, predicts that rising temperatures may make it too hot to grow cocoa by 2050. [ http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/Newsroom/Lists/News/DispForm.aspx?ID=80 ]
 
Sidiki Cissé, head of the National Agency to Support Rural Development (ANADER) in the commercial capital, Abidjan, is clearly worried. "The desperation of farmers is clear to see," he told IRIN.
 
Poor and erratic rainfall in 2011 and the subsequent poor harvests across the southern Saharan band have thrown 13 million people into a food security crisis in the Sahelian zones of Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Mali and Senegal. [ http://reliefweb.int/disaster/ot-2011-000205-net ]
 
Donors and investors are channelling climate adaptation funds into improved weather forecasting and more sophisticated climate science, but few groups are focusing on how climate information can better be used by farmers and communities in disaster-prone areas.
 
“People don’t see this kind of stuff as a critical research priority,” said Amane Tall, who is affiliated to the US-based Johns Hopkins University and the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre in The Netherlands. “They invest in improving the science of climate change – which is great – but how do we make links between the science and the decision-making at all levels?”
 
The various communities working on climate change – scientists, environmentalists, humanitarian NGOs, disaster risk reduction experts – have tended to work separately, in their silos, but now dialogue is needed, said Emma Visman, Futures Group Manager at the Humanitarian Futures Programme (HFP), which tries to prepare the humanitarian community for future disaster scenarios. “Dialogue seems to be the key word,” she said, “but we don’t yet have the resources or space to do it.” [ http://www.humanitarianfutures.org ]
 
A few groups are attempting to bridge the information gap, including various national meteorological agencies, the World Meteorological Organization, the HFP, and some humanitarian and development NGOs such as Christian Aid.
 
Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Mali, Guinea and Togo, among others, are part of the West Africa Metragri programme, co-funded by the World Meteorological Organization and the State Agency for Meteorology (AEMET) in Spain. The plan is to train 200 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire to become more aware of rainfall patterns in their areas, and how to use rain gauges to monitor precipitation. [ http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/agm/roving_seminars/west_africa_fr.html ]
 
Nzue told farmers at a training session in Bingerville, Côte d'Ivoire the best time to sow certain crops is one or two days after the first 20mm of rain has fallen. In 2011 this would have been on 21 March in Bouaké in central Côte d’Ivoire, and on 11 April in San Pedro in the southwest.
 
Farmers are asked to send the rainfall data they collect to the National Weather Service [Direccion Météorologie Nationale), so that agronomy research centres can draw up new crop calendars to help them adapt planting schedules to their particular micro-climate, said Amin Gbo, chief executive officer of ANADER.
 
Sidiki Cissé, head of ANADER, says corn, rice, sorghum and millet are most affected by changing rainfall patterns. In Burkina Faso local corn varieties suffer most because unlike imported varieties, they have not been designed to grow more quickly with less water, said Judith Bienvenue Fanfo, head of the Burkina Faso National Meteorological Office, which also collaborated on a project that has trained 450 farmers since 2007 to use climate and weather information.
 
HFP has worked on pilot studies in the Mbeere district of eastern Kenya and flood-prone Kaffrine in central Senegal to bring together communities, humanitarian partners (Christian Aid Kenya and the Senegalese Red Cross) and National Met offices to determine how to improve the exchange and use of weather information.
 
In Senegal, weather forecasts are broadcast on national radio, in newspapers, on television and via the internet, but these avenues are not readily accessible by local communities, said Visman.
 
The Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) makes available daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal forecasts, but most people are unable to access the channels it uses to distribute this information and find the format difficult to understand, so they resort to using inaccurate information in uncertified channels instead.
 
Catering to the information preferences of individual groups can be resource-intensive. In one Senegalese village, asked to set up a climate road show women traders wanted a face-to-face information exchange; men wanted to use the mosque, while youths thought it best to share information under “talking trees” where they gather in the late afternoons.
 
After just a few months, the information exchange in Senegal started paying off, said Tall. Families said they kept their children home from school when forecasts predicted strong winds and rain. “There is also a psychological element – people are relieved to have the information and it can be very empowering,” she said. In Kenya the project has run less than 12 months and it is too soon to measure the results.
 
The Met Offices in both countries have signed memorandums of understanding with the humanitarian partner involved to ensure better collaboration.
 
Funding
 
Richard Ewbank, Climate Change Coordinator at Christian Aid, says such projects are likely to remain limited, due to a lack of funding for mitigation and resilience-building. Despite a complex web of climate change adaptation funds – including those of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), money from foundations and multilaterals, and promises by developed countries to mobilize US$100 billion to boost adaptation efforts by 2020 – it took HFP two years to find funding for its 12-month pilot project, before it eventually tapped into the UK Department for International Development’s Climate and Development Knowledge Network. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/88070/AID-POLICY-Climate-change-and-adaptation-funding-equally-unpredictable ]
 
Christian Aid has its own church-based funding source. “It’s hard to persuade donors to pre-fund season forecast information – they prefer to fund humanitarian situations when they hit,” Ewbank told IRIN.
 
However, as donors start to see the pay-off from more detailed weather information in the right hands, it may generate more interest. “If climate services get more accurate,” he said, “then clearly our scope to use these tools will also improve.”
 
om/aj/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=95214</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201203301412410080t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BINGERVILLE/DAKAR 02 April 2012 (IRIN) - Unpredictable rainfall in parts of Côte d’Ivoire cost some farmers over half of their harvest in 2011 producers told IRIN, but, armed with more knowledge about how to get weather reports and interpret them, they might still have been able to boost their output, say agricultural specialists.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SAHEL: Malian refugees risk being “forgotten”</title><pubDate>Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202290732000936t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 28 March 2012 (IRIN) - Mali is facing its “worst humanitarian crisis for 20 years” due to a combination of food insecurity affecting around three million people, and conflict-induced displacement in the north.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 28 March 2012 (IRIN) - Mali is facing its “worst humanitarian crisis for 20 years” due to a combination of food insecurity affecting around three million people, and conflict-induced displacement in the north. 

The whereabouts and status of some 93,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Mali is uncertain; in addition, 113,000 refugees have fled the north to neighbouring countries. 

Between 175,000 and 220,000 children will be acutely malnourished this year and access to northern Mali and refugee destinations across the border is problematic. The current problems are compounded by a perennial lack of real interest in the Sahel. 

“Up to now aid agencies have not had great access to these areas… It’s hard to sell this crisis, it’s quite forgotten,” says Helen Caux, West Africa communications head at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). 

The arrival of so many refugees comes at a difficult time for many of Mali’s neighbouring countries, where nine million people are facing a serious food crisis after a poor harvest in 2011, with severe malnutrition rates in children of more than 15 percent being reported in some areas. 

Malians began to flee the north in January when fighting flared up between the Malian army and the Tuareg rebel group, the MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad).  [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95170/Analysis-Warriors-and-websites-a-new-kind-of-rebellion-in-Mali ]

Alongside host governments, the UNHCR is leading the refugee response in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania. It says some 113,000 Malians have fled across the border - 40,000 to Mauritania, 23,000 to Burkina Faso (government statistics), and 19,000 to Niger, as well as other destinations. 

Initial estimates were higher, partly because many migrants were Nigerien returnees fleeing Mali, and because many Malians have since returned to their villages near the border. Thousands may also have also fled fighting in Tessalit and Aguelhoc to Algeria, but the government, which is not very open to outside help, is leading the response, and UNHCR has no official figures. 

Up to 120,000 people in Mali are sheltering with relatives or friends in temporary settlements and host villages in and around areas of conflict such as Ménaka, Kidal - which is currently experiencing hostilities - and Gao, where MNLA rebels are reportedly surrounding the town and shoring up their positions. 

Security in the north 

The International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) has serious concerns about accessing the IDPs in more isolated areas of northern Mali, and for the security of its staff. Germain Mwehu, ICRC spokesperson, cited the example of Ménaka, in eastern Mali, which is now held by the MNLA. “Many of those who stayed are living on the periphery of the town. Food and shelter are our priorities and this is in an area very vulnerable to drought,” he told IRIN.

“People in Ménaka are very stressed about not knowing what to do. Should they try to leave for Niger? Should they stay put? Will the conflict resume? Will the government look to stage an offensive?”

Médecins du Monde was forced to scale down its activities in the north due to insecurity, but has since expanded them again. In spite of the insecurity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) recently opened healthcare programmes around Kidal and Timbuktu. Johanne Sekkenes, head of MSF in the capital, Bamako, said the displaced who are less used to a nomadic existence are the most vulnerable.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is working closely with the ICRC in negotiating and signing agreements with more NGO partners to try to reach the displaced in the north with food aid, said WFP head Nancy Walters. The plan is to try to get aid to 1.2 million Malians, including the displaced - security, funding and access permitting - but thus far WFP has received just 38 percent of its requirements, said Walters. 

Animals in camps

According to WFP in Niger, food is being distributed to all the Malian refugees at different sites, but not yet to the local population. 

“People are arriving [from Mali] exhausted, hungry and in need of the very basics,” said Chris Palusky, food crisis response manager for Mali and Niger with NGO, World Vision. “But Niger is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees, and the extra strain is pushing families to the brink of survival.” 

Most of those who arrived at the three sites near the Niger-Mali border have come from Ménaka, about 50km inside Mali, and many left behind all their possessions, and even their animals. 

Regarding those who brought their livestock - a principal source of livelihood to agro-pastoralist Tuaregs - UNHCR is having to rethink its idea of a refugee camp, said Caux, as animals cannot be cooped up in camps.

Urgent solutions are needed as water is scarce: “Up to now, locals have been sharing their wells, but in the long run this will cause problems,” she told IRIN. Much of the available water is not clean and potable water must be brought in by aid agencies. 

The plan is to try to separate Malians into those with animals - who will be settled in refugee “sites” which are more flexible - and those without. Many northern Malians are semi-nomadic and do not feel comfortable in settled camps. “It is hard for them to adapt to this environment,” said Caux, noting that many would prefer to stay in border villages, despite the greater potential for insecurity.

Thus far, UNHCR has transported 2,000 of the 4,700 refugees who were sheltering in Sinegodar village near the Mali border, to a camp in Abala, 84km away from the border. Other Malians are staying in Mangaize, where a more permanent site may be built if the government approves it, and in the area around Ayorou.

Burkina Faso 

Most of the Malian refugees in Burkina Faso arrived in the Sahelian provinces of Oudalan and Soum in the drought-hit north, where the National Commission for Refugees (CONAREF) and UNHCR are now leading the response after a significantly slow start-up, said observers. 

At a recent press conference, Ousmane Aga Dalla, the head of the government body coordinating assistance to the Malian refugees (CAREM), said there were no major concerns and communities were largely welcoming the refugees, even when there was a temporary interruption the food and emergency funding pipeline.

Despite the myriad problems that agencies face, Caux said she saw some reason for feeling relieved. Although seriously weakened by the journey and having to sleep out in the open air, and facing enormous difficulties in trying to preserve their livelihoods, security and collective future, most of the refugees who arrived were in a relatively decent state of health, said UNHCR and MSF, with no major epidemics having broken out, and few deaths of children en route.

aj/bb/ch/he/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=95183</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202290732000936t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 28 March 2012 (IRIN) - Mali is facing its “worst humanitarian crisis for 20 years” due to a combination of food insecurity affecting around three million people, and conflict-induced displacement in the north.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>WEST AFRICA: Giant anti-polio drive threatened by insecurity</title><pubDate>Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201311207110246t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 23 March 2012 (IRIN) - Health volunteers, aid agency and health authority staff are trying to immunize 111.1 million children under five across 20 countries in West and Central Africa against polio. The four-day campaign started today, but instability in some of the target countries could hamper the effort.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 23 March 2012 (IRIN) - Health volunteers, aid agency and health authority staff are trying to immunize 111.1 million children under five across 20 countries in West and Central Africa against polio. The four-day campaign started today, but instability in some of the target countries could hamper the effort.
 
Parts of Nigeria are highly unstable due to ongoing attacks by Boko Haram; [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94691/NIGERIA-Timeline-of-Boko-Haram-attacks-and-related-violence ] a rebellion is currently under way in northern Mali, [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95127/MALI-Rebellion-claims-a-president ] while security in the capital Bamako is also precarious with a military junta having ousted the president. 
 
Over half of the children targeted - some 57.7 million, are in Nigeria, which is West Africa’s only polio-endemic country.
 
Meanwhile parts of Niger (for instance Tillabéri in the northwest) are difficult to access, as are parts of eastern Chad, with some aid agencies working only with armed escorts.
 
“Access to children [in some of these places] can be a serious problem,” said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) regional health specialist Halima Dao. 
 
“Vaccinators’ safety can be compromised, or insecurity means the whole population of a village may flee at a moment’s notice, or there may be far more people than we expected in an area, due to displacement,” she told IRIN. 
 
The conflict in northern Mali has, for instance, led to about 195,000 people being displaced either within the country or when they fled to Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Senegal, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), but these numbers are constantly changing as people return or move from camps to host villages, meaning reaching them could be complicated.
 
Dao admits some children in the Tombouctou  and Kidal regions of northern Mali may not be reached, though they are discussing with NGOs working there, including Médecins Sans Frontières and the Malian Red Cross, to see how to reach as many as they can. “We have to work with authorities and NGOs who are used to accessing these insecure areas,” she said. 
 
For a polio immunization campaign to be effective, 100 percent of the children must be reached, says the World Health Organization (WHO), while the long-term fight against polio will only work if routine immunizations are consistently kept up, for at least 90 percent of children under five, for several years running.
 
Last year, election-related in violence in Côte d’Ivoire hampered efforts to quash a polio outbreak affecting 36 children, according to aid agencies. 
 
Thus far, only Ghana, Cape Verde, Burkina Faso, Gambia and Togo have achieved the required 90 percent coverage, according to UNICEF.
 
Children in the hardest-to-reach areas are often the most vulnerable, said Dao, as they do not have access to regular health services. Agencies will try to give Vitamin A and de-worming medicine to these children where possible. 
 
Weak health systems
 
Human error and weak health systems also play an important role in sub-optimal immunization reach: In Chad, [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94769/CHAD-Why-polio-is-so-hard-to-eliminate ] for instance, where the health system is broken, just 60 percent of children have been covered, according to UNICEF. 
 
The campaign involves hundreds of thousands of health workers, though it will not lead to eradication in one fell swoop, said Dao. “We hope the exercise will bring us closer to reaching our goal of interrupting wild polio virus transmission in our region in 2012,” said Luis Sambo, West Africa director of WHO in a 22 March communiqué. [ http://www.unicef.org/media/media_62054.html ]
 
Despite a resurgence of the virus in West Africa, the global fight against polio has made progress: since 1988, when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative [ http://www.polioeradication.org/ ] was launched, polio has reduced by over 99 percent. At the time some, 350,000 children were paralysed by polio each year but in 2011 the reported caseload was 650, according to UNICEF.
 
An intense effort to stamp out polio in India led to no new cases being reported in 2011. India alongside Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria is one of the world’s four polio-endemic countries. “If India can do it, then so can these African countries,” said Dao. “We’ve reached 99 percent of the world - we need to reach that final 1 percent; the whole programme is at risk,” she said.
 
aj/cb

Polio in West Africa
- 62 cases of polio were reported in Nigeria in 2011; thus far 10 have been reported in 2012
- 132 cases of polio were reported in Chad in 2011; while 2 have been reported so far in 2012
- No cases have as yet been reported in other West African countries
Source WHO: [ http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek/Wildpolioviruslist.aspx ]

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=95145</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201311207110246t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 23 March 2012 (IRIN) - Health volunteers, aid agency and health authority staff are trying to immunize 111.1 million children under five across 20 countries in West and Central Africa against polio. The four-day campaign started today, but instability in some of the target countries could hamper the effort.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Analysis: Burkina Faso&apos;s uneasy peace</title><pubDate>Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201203121249530022t.jpg" />]]>OUAGADOUGOU 12 March 2012 (IRIN) - One year on from the start of several months of popular revolts in Burkina Faso, the situation has settled down, but the calm is fragile, say observers.</description><body><![CDATA[OUAGADOUGOU 12 March 2012 (IRIN) - One year on from the start of several months of popular revolts [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/92610/Analysis-What-next-for-Burkina-Faso-s-Compaor%C3%A9 ] in Burkina Faso, the situation has settled down, but the calm is fragile, say observers. 
 
The government has adopted several measures to appease its critics, including upping civil servant salaries, intensifying the fight against corruption, and subsidizing food prices, but high prices continue to pose huge problems for the poor. One in four youths are unemployed, and it is widely believed that the government is out of touch with the priorities of its citizens.
 
Protests began last year on 21 February 2011 following the killing by police of student Justin Zongo in the city of Kondougou in the central-west. The incident led to several months of civilian demonstrations against police brutality, impunity, government corruption and high prices in Ouagadougou and other cities.
 
At the same time (between March and May) a series of mutinies in the army threatened to endanger the regime of President Blaise Compaoré, who has been in power since 1987. Many soldiers were demanding that arrears on their daily allowance be paid. However, protests died down when the president's guard crushed a mutiny in the country's second-largest city of Bobo Dioulasso in June 2011. At the same time, many civilians stopped their protests and broke away from the soldiers. 
 
Since then the soldiers' allowances have been paid; and a new head of the army has been appointed as well as several senior commanders as part of a restructure in which 600 soldiers have thus far been demobilized. But it is unclear whether these changes have succeeded in appeasing the army's rank and file. Meanwhile, some 300 soldiers have been imprisoned because of their alleged role in the protests and violence.
 
"Things have returned to normal, but they are not like before - that isn't possible," said Hamidou Idogo, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Thursday, a satirical newspaper known for its independent stance. "As long as Blaise Compaoré is in power and has not stated he will not stand in 2015, the crisis will not be over," he told IRIN.
 
Compaoré has been president since 1987. His political party is in the midst of trying to revise Article 37 of the constitution which stipulates a two-term limit, enabling him to run again in 2015. 
 
Protests continue on a small scale. Most recently, for instance, on 7 February 2012 a demonstration was organized in the city of Tougan in the northwest to protest against the poor state of the roads, and turned violent when the house of the Member of Parliament for Tougan, Saran Sère, was burned.
 
On 10 February 2012, students from the Polytechnic University of Bobo-Dioulasso protested against the institution's poor infrastructure, rising living costs and declining teaching standards.
 
"There's always a cauldron of discontent bubbling away, accompanied by lots of small-scale social conflict," said a Western diplomat who preferred anonymity. "Lots of people are still unhappy," he added.
 
"Climate of mistrust"
 
While noting that violence is not a solution, few have condemned it with vigour, said Germain Bitiou Nama, managing editor of the Independent newspaper in a 10 February editorial: "The climate of mistrust is heavy, particularly between young people and those who pass for leaders and who have shown no ability to make things change."
 
The root cause of the events of last year: the enormous gulf between the rulers and citizens, has not been addressed, say analysts, and even now a small spark would be enough to trigger a large event, analysts, journalists and trade unionists told IRIN.
 
However, the government has made some concessions since last April. It increased the salaries of 86,000 employees by 5 percent in January 2012; created housing allowances for some employees; and implemented the oft-delayed promotions of civil servants - measures which collectively cost the government US$19 million, according to Alain Edouard Traoré, minister of communications and government spokesperson.
 
But the government has not yet had much success in curbing steadily rising food prices - a problem that is hitting poor households across West Africa. High prices and a poor harvest in much of Burkina Faso have thrown 1.7 million people (10 percent of the population) into food insecurity. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Country/BF/Burkina-Faso ]
 
In May 2011 the government announced it would lower the price of imported and local rice, sugar and cooking oil by imposing subsidies. But even with these subsidies, the price of cooking oil and rice rose yet again. A sack of rice increased from 16,000 to 18,000 CFA between July 2011 and the beginning of 2012; a litre of cooking oil has risen from 800 to 1,000 CFA in the same period. "We are suffocating: life is too expensive. We must change things," said Nathalie Noukoubri, who owns a local bar in Ouagadougou and is a member of the women's association of the informal sector. 
 
However, the western diplomat told IRIN the government has little room for manoeuvre when it comes to controlling these prices, given its dependence on the world market. "To impose prices on merchants would basically be to set up a police state", he told IRIN. 

The government was supposed to set up a price observatory to try to monitor and to some degree control prices but although a decree has been passed it has not yet started operating, according to Augustine Blaise Hien, general secretary of the National Confederation of Workers of Burkina Faso.
 
For Hien, a crucial problem is the lack of prospects for young people, including graduates, whose unemployment rate is about 25 percent.
 
"It's nice to go to university, but how many students find employment related to their educational level?" said Augustin Diabri, a second year student of archaeology at the University of Ouagadougou.
 
While Burkina Faso's economy grew on average by 5.4 percent between 2000 and 2011, and per capita gross domestic product rose from $233 to $670, according to the International Monetary Fund, the country remains one of the world's poorest, and is ranked 181 out of 187 in the 2011 UN Human Development index. 
 
However, Diabri says the crisis has also had a positive effect in that people's awareness of their rights has mounted, and the president has been forced to understand this.
 
Impunity, corruption
 
In terms of good governance, there have been some improvements. A few individuals have been put on trial for economic crimes over recent months: In January Ousmane Guiro, ex-head of customs, was arrested and charged for embezzlement and corruption, accused of stealing $4 million. His trial is ongoing.
 
But the general feeling is that a skewed power balance between the rulers and the ruled remains amid a climate of impunity and corruption. One oft-cited example of this, residents told IRIN, was a traffic dispute between a mechanic and Justice Minister Jérome Traoré on 19 February 2012. The mechanic yelled at the minister, not knowing who he was; as a result the minister ordered that he be arrested and beaten up. The minister was then called upon to resign 48 hours later. 
 
Burkina Faso ranks 100 out of 182 countries listed in the 2011 Transparency International perceptions of corruption index. [ http://www.transparency.org/ ]
 
It is as yet unclear whether Compaoré will run again in 2015 presidential elections, but constitutional law aside, many say the opposition is currently too weak to pose a challenge. Samir Gadio, West Africa economist at Standard Chartered Bank in the UK, told IRIN: "The Burkinabe opposition is weak and fragmented. As such, the opposition's ability to capitalize on student or teachers' protests, or even some discontent in urban centres, remains limited." Further, he added: "The credibility of the opposition is also an issue, as many people feel they may not be better off under a new regime." 
 
Perhaps the greatest threat to the current regime is parts of the military, whose 2011 mutiny was "unprecedented" said Gadio. While calm has more or less been restored, it is still unclear whether the root causes of their discontent have been met, and future mutinies cannot be ruled out. 
 
om/aj/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=95060</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201203121249530022t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">OUAGADOUGOU 12 March 2012 (IRIN) - One year on from the start of several months of popular revolts in Burkina Faso, the situation has settled down, but the calm is fragile, say observers.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HEALTH: Malaria stunts foetal growth</title><pubDate>Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201203051505560800t.jpg" />]]>BANGKOK 06 March 2012 (IRIN) - Malaria infection during the earliest months of pregnancy stunts foetal growth even when the mothers do not have any malarial symptoms, according to a large-scale study conducted along the Thai-Burmese border.</description><body><![CDATA[BANGKOK 06 March 2012 (IRIN) - Malaria infection during the earliest months of pregnancy stunts foetal growth even when the mothers do not have any malarial symptoms, according to a large-scale study conducted along the Thai-Burmese border. [ http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0031411 ] 

"Malaria needs to be taken into account from the beginning of the pregnancy and not only in the last months before the birth," François Nosten, director of the Mae Sot-based Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU) [ http://www.shoklo-unit.com ], which tracked 3,779 women's pregnancies from 2001-2010, told IRIN. 

SMRU is attached to the Mahidol University-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Programme in Bangkok, which is supported by the UK-based health programmes donor, Wellcome Trust. 

Pregnant women are among the most vulnerable to malaria infections as pregnancy reduces a woman's immunity, making her more susceptible to malaria infection and increasing the risk of illness, severe anaemia and death, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). 

And while the impact of malaria on later stages of pregnancy and birth weight are well documented (increased risk of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, premature delivery and low birth weight), the SMRU study is among the first to show a direct impact of malaria on early foetal growth, even in areas where malaria infections have plummeted. 

Hidden parasite reservoir 

People who have been repeatedly struck by malaria can develop partial immunity and may not have symptoms, despite harbouring the parasite. 

And in communities where malaria infections have dropped (mainly due to prevention and treatment), the parasite level can also be so low as to not show up in tests, noted David Bell, head of malaria diagnostics at the Geneva-based research organization, Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics (FIND). [ http://www.finddiagnostics.org/ ] 

Evidence that this hidden parasite reservoir can harm foetuses boosts the need for prevention even in areas that have already slashed infections, noted Andrea Bosman with the WHO Global Malaria Programme. 

During pregnancy, the parasite hides in the placenta, rendering finger-prick blood tests inaccurate, Bell added. And while DNA analyses are more accurate, the technology is more expensive and less widely available. 

Throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa, the WHO recommends giving anti-malarial drugs to pregnant women at intervals in case such a "hidden" malaria infection is present, but preventative treatment does not currently begin until after the first three months of pregnancy. 

New evidence 

On average, at the mid-pregnancy ultrasound scan in the SMRU study, the diameter of the foetus's head - an indication of foetal growth - was 2 percent smaller when the woman was infected by malaria than if not. 

The foetuses of close to 57 percent of the mothers infected with malaria had a smaller head than those who were not. Researchers said disrupted foetal growth can heighten the risk of pregnancy complications. 

"The mother may not have any symptom of malaria and the reduction of the growth of the foetus is relative, not easily detected by ultrasound for individual cases [versus a large-scale study where the trend is more apparent]. The malaria infection nevertheless increases the risk of miscarriage [ http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2898%2909247-2/fulltext ], affects foetal growth and may hinder the child's development later in his life," said Nosten. 

Detected early enough, it is possible to prevent the worst impacts of malaria, said Heidi Hopkins, a medical officer at FIND in Uganda. 

"We can't necessarily 'reverse' the damage, but the earlier we diagnose and treat, the less time the foetus and mother are exposed to the infection, so the less impact it has." 

With timely detection, "perhaps the growth of the foetus can catch up to compensate", added Nosten. 

The challenge with early detection, noted Hopkins, is many women do not know they are pregnant until several weeks into the pregnancy. 

FIND and the multi-agency Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) are testing new rapid diagnostic tests on pregnant women in Uganda and Burkina Faso, where malaria is more prevalent than in most parts of Southeast Asia, to learn whether earlier and affordable detection is possible during pregnancy. 

"A preventive and safe medication [ http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241596114_eng.pdf ] to women from the beginning of their pregnancy should be evaluated where malaria is endemic," concluded Nosten. 

Due to limited safety data, the WHO does not recommend the anti-malarial medication artemisinin during the first three months of pregnancy unless the "treatment is considered lifesaving for the mother and other treatments are considered unsuitable". 

More than 50 million pregnancies occur in malaria-endemic areas annually, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the WHO. 

An estimated 10,000 of these women and 200,000 of their infants die as a result of malaria infection during pregnancy, and severe malarial anaemia contributes to more than half of these deaths. 

sb/pt/mw 

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=95009</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201203051505560800t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BANGKOK 06 March 2012 (IRIN) - Malaria infection during the earliest months of pregnancy stunts foetal growth even when the mothers do not have any malarial symptoms, according to a large-scale study conducted along the Thai-Burmese border.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>BURKINA FASO: Government wants more aid for Malian refugees</title><pubDate>Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202290730580442t.jpg" />]]>OUAGADOUGOU 29 February 2012 (IRIN) - With nearly 20,000 Malian refugees now in Burkina Faso, according to Burkina Minister of Communications Alain Traore, and up to 800 more crossing the border each day, the government says it urgently needs more help.</description><body><![CDATA[OUAGADOUGOU 29 February 2012 (IRIN) - With nearly 20,000 Malian refugees now in Burkina Faso, according to Burkina Minister of Communications Alain Traore, and up to 800 more crossing the border each day, the government says it urgently needs more help.

The most urgent need is for “shelter, food and medicine” in the country’s northern Sahel Region, said Denis Ouedraogo, coordinator of the National Commission for Refugees.

"The government has done everything it can and the local authorities have used up all their resources," he added.

Since 10 February, the government has provided blankets, kettles, mats and tents to some 4,000 refugees. Now, with the increased numbers, it is fully stretched.

Ouedraogo said measures such as increasing the number of wells, and preventing cattle theft by providing security, were needed to prevent tension between the host population and refugees. Local people rear their cattle on the same land being used by refugees. 

On 24 February, a group of 600 refugees living in a Ouagadougou soccer stadium were relocated temporarily to a Ministry of Social Welfare and National Solidarity training centre at Somgande on the northern outskirts of the city. The government is providing them with food and water. Some 200 refugee families (about 1,000 people) are in the capital. The chairman of the Committee for Assistance to Mali Refugees, Ousmane Ag Dala, said more aid would be sent to the camp at Somgande.

"This is the first time that these refugees have been cared for," said Al Mansour Ag Mahmoud, an independent researcher on health and social anthropology and currently a refugee working for the Committee.

"Our children need to go to school, and there are big families who are packed in houses in Ouagadougou," he added.

Forgotten?

Mahmoud said over 800 refugees in western Burkina Faso “were being forgotten”. Some have been sheltered by host families while others are trying to cope on their own but have little or no money.

''We really need more food to assist the most vulnerable [in the Sahel Region] because they are helpless,'' said Modeste Konkobo, humanitarian officer with the Burkina Faso Red Cross.

Konkobo spoke from Inabao, 10km from the border with Mali in the Sahel Region, where he was distributing food to refugees being relocated to Serelio transit camp, Oudalan Province. He said more food was needed; non-food items were being brought up from Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

Roger Ebanda, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Burkina Faso based in Ougadougou, said a three-person team from the agency had just completed registration of refugees in the city and had moved on to two camps in the north (Ingani in Soum Province, and Goudebo in Seno Province) to continue the process. UNHCR was recruiting more people to help with the caseload. Ebanda added that it would take "millions of dollars" to rehabilitate the two camps.

Pressure

Burkina Faso's Sahel Region is hosting 16,000 refugees, mainly in the provinces of Soum and Oudalan, said Boureima Yiougo, governor of Sahel Region. He said the area was beginning to feel the pressure of the refugees, now arriving at a rate of 800 a day.

"There are a large number of people arriving yet relief efforts are weak," he added.

He said vaccination campaigns against meningitis had been conducted and Vitamin A had been given to an unspecified number of children. 

Meanwhile, Bibata Sankara, humanitarian officer with the World Food Programme (WFP) sub-office in Dori, capital of Sahel Region, said WFP had set up food distribution centres in 723 schools and 74 health centres in the region. WFP is working closely with the Burkina Faso Red Cross to help refugees too weak to reach health centres.

Ansare Mohamed, WFP officer in charge of refugees at the Mentao site in Soum, which has 1,250 refugees, said a Médecins Sans Frontières-France team had just brought in medicines.

''Things are moving slowly but in the far north they have not received anything yet,'' Mohamed said in reference to Inabao and Tinakoff close to the Mali border.

bo/oss/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94986</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202290730580442t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">OUAGADOUGOU 29 February 2012 (IRIN) - With nearly 20,000 Malian refugees now in Burkina Faso, according to Burkina Minister of Communications Alain Traore, and up to 800 more crossing the border each day, the government says it urgently needs more help.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>MALI: Refugee, IDP numbers rise as fighting continues in north</title><pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202241433270905t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 24 February 2012 (IRIN) - Refugee numbers are rising daily in countries bordering Mali as fighting rages between the Malian army and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which is fighting for greater autonomy for the Tuareg.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 24 February 2012 (IRIN) - Refugee numbers are rising daily in countries bordering Mali as fighting rages between the Malian army and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which is fighting for greater autonomy for the Tuareg.
 
There are also tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Mali.

A US$35.6 million appeal is being launched today, said Helene Caux, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) senior regional public information officer on 23 February, to deal with “the Mali displacement”. 

Burkina Faso

The Burkina Faso Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Cooperation said that by 21 February there were 16,299 Malian Tuareg refugees in the country. By 23 February that figure had reached 17,499. 

The bulk of arrivals entered the country at Tina-koff, Inabao and Deou in the northern province of Oudalan. The rest are in nine other provinces. They are being hosted by individual families or by communities, and some by families in the capital, Ouagadougou. However, the ministry says, most are in sites in the Sahel Region: at Mentao in Soum Province and Inabao and Gandafabou in Oudalan Province. 

The government has identified two sites in the regions of Goudebo and Ingan to set up refugee camps. 

Initially, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has distributed energy biscuits, kitchen kits and blankets; the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization are providing medicines and water purification; UNHCR has provided 500 tents drawn from stockpiles in Douala, Cameroon, and is coordinating the response. 

Niger

By 23 February, 28,858 refugees had arrived in Niger since the fighting began in January. These include citizens of Niger, some of whom had lived in Mali for several years. Here, too, locals have been helping the refugees. The government has provided food and local NGO PLAN Niger has also been providing support. 

“There has been an initial response from the Niger government that has been quick,” Caux said.

Forty tons of non-food items have arrived from UNHCR’s stockpile in Accra, Ghana. The first distribution took place on 22 February in Ayorou District, Tillaberi Province. UNHCR has made distributions to 302 households at a site in Gaoudel, Ayorou. 

“This is mostly blankets and plastic sheeting because it is cold right now,” Caux said.

On 16 February, UNHCR received 2,000 family tents which will be distributed as soon as the refugees are encamped. Each tent can accommodate six people.

Initial distributions were made at the border. Right now some refugees such as those at Sinegodar village are just 8km from the border. The UNHCR standard is to have people at least 50km from a border. 

Sinegodar hosts some 8,000 refugees, many of whom crossed over from nearby Malian villages. They are housed in makeshift shelters. Mangaize village also hosts refugees, many of whom know it as it is a large cattle market they used to frequent. 

Ayorou and Abala districts are hosting refugees. All these places are in Tillaberi Region. 

The government has indentified a site for the refugees at Ouallam, about 100km north of Niamey, but it will take two weeks to finish setting up the camp. 

“We might need one or two other sites,” Caux said. 

The initial condition of refugees is not bad but the fear is that if the situation lasts, problems could arise because of the makeshift nature of the shelters. Children could suffer from respiratory and other ailments. 

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the region and is, like several Sahel countries, affected by a severe drought. Aid agencies require more for their operations in this region - a fact that is often overlooked. 

“We need funding because the crisis unfolded so quickly. It’s hard to attract funding because we are competing with places like Somalia,” Caux said.

UNCHR will begin registration of refugees today at the border village at Mangaize, and will then move to other areas.

Mauritania, Algeria

Thousands of people fleeing the fighting in Lere, west-central Mali, are being cared for in the Mauritanian centres of Fessala and Hodh el Charghi. A camp at Mbera established for Tuareg refugees in the 1990s is being rehabilitated. UNHCR says the site has several water points and structures designed to serve as schools and health centres. 

Fighting has been reported recently in the northeastern Malian areas of Tessalit and Tinezewadern. Refugees have been reported in Algeria. 

Mali IDPs

The International Committee of the Red Cross [ http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/update/2012/mali-update-2012-02-17.htm ] says in northern Mali people have abandoned their homes and fields and lost their livestock. Many families are living under trees or out in the open.

At least 61,400 have been displaced from Menaka, Aguelhoc, Tessalit, Inhalid, Niafunke and Lere. Because of the drought in the Sahel, food supplies are limited in markets and prices high.

ICRC says the greatest need for the displaced is access to safe drinking water. There is also a shortage of pasture. In Menaka, in Gao Region, the main activities are animal breeding and farming. 

Fighting

The fighting began on 17 January with battles in Inhalid, Tessalit, Tin-Zaouaten, Aguel Hoc, Menaka, Anderanboukan, Hombori, Nyafunke and Lere - all in the northern half of Mali.

The MNLA says it wants “to free the Azawad people from the illegal occupation of Azawadan territory held by Mali” and hold a referendum [ http://www.mnlamov.net/projet-politique/37-projet-politique/102-consultation-populaire-portant-sur-lauto-determination-de-lazawad.html ] to determine if Azawadians want a separate independent republic. 

The Malian government [ http://www.primature.gov.ml/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8274:executions-sommaires-de-aguelhoc--la-commission-denquete-remet-son-rapport-au-chef-de-letat&catid=5 ] says it is fighting the MNLA and elements of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb to keep its territorial integrity. The MNLA and the Malian government each say atrocities were committed by the other side.

Algeria, France and the USA have called for an end to the fighting. However, at a two-day summit in February the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Mali is a member, condemned the MNLA rebellion and expressed full backing for Mali in defending its territorial integrity. 

On the humanitarian front, on 16 February ECOWAS [ http://news.ecowas.int/presseshow.php?nb=022&lang=en&annee=2012 ] and the UN Security Council approved US$3 million for victims of the food crisis and rebel attacks in the Sahel-Sahara region of West Africa.

oss/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94944</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202241433270905t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 24 February 2012 (IRIN) - Refugee numbers are rising daily in countries bordering Mali as fighting rages between the Malian army and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which is fighting for greater autonomy for the Tuareg.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SAHEL: Thousands of Touaregs flee into Burkina Faso</title><pubDate>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2008/200802114t.jpg" />]]>OUAGADOUGOU 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - At least 8,000 Touaregs fleeing fighting in neighbouring Mali have found refuge in Burkina Faso, having arrived “in a dire humanitarian condition”, the government said yesterday.</description><body><![CDATA[OUAGADOUGOU 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - At least 8,000 Touaregs fleeing fighting in neighbouring Mali [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94803 ] have found refuge in Burkina Faso, having arrived “in a dire humanitarian condition”, the government said yesterday.

It said it would set up a coordination committee to bring the refugees - currently spread between the western and Sahelian parts of the country - to a centralized location and provide education and sanitation. 

“The humanitarian situation is alarming because most of them are sleeping in the open air despite the hospitality of their host,” said Modeste Konkobo, humanitarian officer with the Burkina Faso Red Cross.

“With the current bad weather [harmattan winds] this means looming health problems when added to the precarious food, sanitary and drinking water situation for such a huge group,” Konkobo said. 

He said the refugees needed immediate “survival assistance” since they had arrived empty-handed. Other needs included blankets, cooking materials, mats and tents. The Red Cross is deploying some 40 volunteers.

Konkobo said refugees were still arriving in “large numbers” in Inabao and Deou (Oudalan Province), and Mentao (Soum Province). Some 4,000 refugees arrived in the region on 8 February.

“We are afraid this will aggravate the already bad food situation with the deficit we are facing,” said Boureima Yiougo, governor of Sahel Region.

The government said 146 of the country’s 350 communes had experienced much lower rains this year and could face “famine”, and that it would subsidize cereals to lessen the impact on residents of the region.

The National Commission for Refugees and the local UNHCR office are due to conduct a joint assessment mission in Sahel Region, which borders Mali.

“They urgently need shelter since they caught us by surprise. We have only five tents,” said Hima Barke, a UNHCR official in Soum Province. “Just a week ago there were 40 refugees in the province, now there are 1,127.” 

Mali

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [ http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/update/2012/mali-update-2012-02-08.htm ] reported on 9 February that at least 30,000 displaced people in Mali were in a dire condition because of fighting in the north of the country since mid-January.

In Aguelhoc (150km northeast of Kidal in northeastern Mali), it said, fierce fighting had forced some 4,000 people to flee their homes. Most had little food and were living in improvised shelters in the semi-desert region. A few have been sheltered by host families. 

The ICRC said it and the Mali Red Cross were preparing to distribute millet, rice, oil and salt; as well as tarpaulins, blankets, sleeping mats, buckets, kitchen utensils and hygiene items to the displaced. 

“The Mali Red Cross has already made an emergency delivery of food for 600 displaced people whose situation was particularly worrying,” the ICRC said.

In Ménaka, Gao Region, clashes prompted almost 26,000 people to flee their homes in search of safety, both within and outside the town, according to ICRC and Mali Red Cross estimates. The ICRC is also assessing the situation in Tessalit (Kidal Region) and Léré and Niafunké (Timbuktu Region), which have also been affected by fighting in the north of Mali. ICRC quoted “local sources” as saying there could still be 20,000 displaced people in these areas.

The fighting that took place in Ménaka and Andéramboukane [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94803 ] also prompted over 15,000 people to seek refuge in Niger, in the northern Tillabéry Region just across the border from Mali.

bo/oss/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94829</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2008/200802114t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">OUAGADOUGOU 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - At least 8,000 Touaregs fleeing fighting in neighbouring Mali have found refuge in Burkina Faso, having arrived “in a dire humanitarian condition”, the government said yesterday.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SAHEL: Donors learning funding lessons - slowly</title><pubDate>Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202061151210348t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 06 February 2012 (IRIN) - This year donors are stepping up more quickly to meet Sahel’s humanitarian needs compared to 2010, when they were slow to respond. However, they are still at fault for taking a quick-fix approach rather than addressing long-term disaster prevention and resilience needs, say aid groups.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 06 February 2012 (IRIN) - DAKAR, 3 February 2012 (IRIN) - This year donors are stepping up more quickly to meet Sahel’s humanitarian needs compared to 2010, when they were slow to respond. [ http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?indepthid=81&reportid=89910 ] However, they are still at fault for taking a quick-fix approach rather than addressing long-term disaster prevention and resilience needs, [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94082 ] say aid groups. 

As of now, over US$150 million has been pledged to respond to food insecurity, drought and nutrition needs in the Sahel, whereas at the same point in 2010 donors were doing “almost nothing”, said Amadou Sow in the Africa coordination division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

As early as December 2011 aid agencies and national governments campaigned for aid, while OCHA released its emergency appeal - whereas in the 2010 crisis this was not released until April, far later in the lean season.

The European Commission (EC) has directed $138 million to the region, according to Cyprien Fabre, head of ECHO (EU aid body) in West Africa, who says there is “great commitment at the EU level”, with the development and humanitarian commissioners working closely together on the Sahel crisis. The EU is also expected to release longer-term funding soon.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) meanwhile, has channeled $67 million to the crisis, $25.5 million of it to the World Food Programme in Niger and Chad; France and the UK Department for International Development have each directed $10 million towards five Sahelian countries without yet specifying what is going where; the UN Central Emergency Response Fund has released $16 million of start-up funding; while Sweden, Germany, Austria and other donors have allotted smaller sums. 

Most of these figures are not yet reflected in the OCHA financial tracking system [ http://reliefweb.int/sahel-food-insecurity2012 ] which currently states that the Chad and Niger appeals are respectively 7 and 15 percent funded. 

While such pledges are welcomed, the EC Humanitarian Commissioner, Kristalina Georgieva, recently said a conservative estimate of the needs over the next six months would be 500 million euros [US$654 million], “so there is clearly a considerable gap to fill,” noted Stephen Cockburn, West Africa campaigns and policy manager at Oxfam. 

Avoid repeat mistakes

Donors may fear repeating the mistakes of the Horn of Africa, where everyone responded too late, and may also want to show that they have learned the lessons from past Sahel crises, say aid workers. 

“Donors are more interested in the Sahel now,” said Fabre. “They probably want to make sure they don’t miss the opportunity to have a correct, coherent, quality response this time.”

However, some fear donors are waiting too long to specifically allocate their aid by country, positing they are waiting for more detailed figures on needs to be published. An OCHA Sahel strategy paper with specific needs in each country will be launched imminently.

Donors must not fund Chad and Niger to the neglect of other affected countries, including Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal, warns OCHA’s Sow.

Longer-term still under-funded

While pledging has been swifter, the long-term aid that Sahel experts have been pushing for for years is still not prioritized, say Sahel experts.  

“The argument [for longer-term resilience-oriented aid] has “not been won yet”, said Fabre. 

A number of aid agencies are involved in longer-term resilience work, such as Oxfam’s project to give people cash transfers or cash-for-work to help vulnerable families cope with high food prices. “Some donors [the European Union and DFID] are beginning to fund this work, but as an approach it remains under-prioritized,” said Oxfam’s Cockburn.

The prevention and treatment of moderate acute malnutrition is one chronically under-funded sector in the Sahel: While over one million children are expected to face severe and life-threatening malnutrition this year, in a “normal” year the figure hovers around 800,000. 

West Africa UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) nutrition specialist Robert Johnston told IRIN: “It is still difficult to ensure funding from government agencies for long-term preventative activities when there are critical life-saving interventions that they can respond to immediately. It’s much easier [for them] to justify life-saving than long-term.” 

Likewise, it can be hard to get national governments on board: “In areas with low levels of education and poor healthcare systems, it is hard to plant the seed of prevention as an idea.”

However, donor attitudes here are slowly changing, he said. UNICEF programmes now come from the point of view that emergency treatment and longer-term prevention of malnutrition are two sides of the same coin. “Everyone is starting to get the message,” he said. 

Aid agencies and donors should see their response to the Sahel drought as an opportunity to change their approach, said Kazimiro Rudolph-Jacondo, head of OCHA’s West Africa office in Dakar. “This is a window of opportunity to build on lessons learned from the past and to resolve these problems over the long term,” he told IRIN. 

aj/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94799</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201202061151210348t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 06 February 2012 (IRIN) - This year donors are stepping up more quickly to meet Sahel’s humanitarian needs compared to 2010, when they were slow to respond. However, they are still at fault for taking a quick-fix approach rather than addressing long-term disaster prevention and resilience needs, say aid groups.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>WEST AFRICA: Call for more coordinated approach to child protection</title><pubDate>Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201041152580355t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 04 January 2012 (IRIN) - A new report on child migration in West Africa says thousands of children are being sold, exchanged or transported out of their communities each year in violation of internationally-recognized rights of the child, and calls on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to persuade governments to better protect these children.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 04 January 2012 (IRIN) - A new report on child migration in West Africa says thousands of children are being sold, exchanged or transported out of their communities each year in violation of internationally-recognized rights of the child, and calls on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to persuade governments to better protect these children.
 
 Among the recommendations identified were: the need to align social norms, national laws and international standards of protection; the need to improve the development of children within their locale; the promotion of community mechanisms for child protection; the inclusion of children’s views in any protection regime; and joint initiatives to protect children from unlawful cross-border movement.
 
 The 79-page report [ http://www.tdh.ch/en/documents/which-protection-for-children-involved-in-mobility-in-west-africa ] drawn up by representatives of several national and international NGOs, entitled Quelle protection pour les enfants concernés par la mobilité en Afrique de l’Ouest? (What Protection for Child Migrants in West Africa?) looked at the problem in Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Togo in 2008-2010.
 
 “At the governmental level measures are generally limited to passing national laws. Joint action might simply amount to police intercepting and repatriating children,” said Moussa Harouna, programme coordinator for NGO the African Movement of Child and Youth Workers, stressing that greater unity of action was required by governments and international organizations to support village development initiatives and set up child protection measures. 
 
 The report calls on states and development agencies to integrate child migration into their development and child protection strategies. It wants any future ECOWAS action on the movement of people, particularly children, to be an essential part of a “coherent and pragmatic policy” against human trafficking and child labour.
  
 In addition, it calls on individual states to boost their ability to find victims of child trafficking and to differentiate this practice from other forms of mobility. 
  
 Push factors
 
 Children may leave their communities because of conflict within the family, or the desire for education, apprenticeships or job opportunities to help their families. Some parents force their children to leave, but often departure is voluntary and motivated by the quest for a better life.
  
 Zelmet Fatimah and Zeydata Amina from Niger, two girls who beg along the Teteh Quarshie Interchange, a busy highway in the Ghanaian capital Accra, say they left home because of hunger. “There is no food there,” said Zeydata, “I come here every day with my sisters and my parents to beg for money. I beg because we don’t have money and I am hungry.”
  
 However, push factors are many and varied: “The children’s motivations are rooted in the current changing world… It is misleading to believe that a state, civil society and development partners have the capacity and sufficient legitimacy to end, simply, this many-sided practice of child mobility,” said the report. 
  
 Positive outcomes
  
 While no one knows the precise scale of child migration, the report says outflows of children are generally from Mali, Niger and Guinea-Bissau, and their destinations are Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo.
  
 Outflows north are less intense. The report says just 10 percent of the total number of children seeking to reach the Maghreb and Europe are from West Africa. Many are seasonal travellers, leaving for short or medium periods at the end of the farming season. 
  
 The migration of children is not always a negative phenomenon: migrant children send money home. Those from the same community might collectively fund a project. 
  
 Harouna said this had been the case in some villages in the Niger region of Makalondi, near the border with Burkina Faso, where migrant children had jointly paid to build a school for their community. The effect had been to encourage those who were too young to migrate to remain in their communities, at least for much longer, and others to return. 
  
 “The objective is no longer to stop migration at all cost,” Haround said. “It is also to improve conditions in the communities so that children do not have to leave to seek fortunes and a better life. Yet, even if they do, then organized protection must be provided within their host states or new communities in their own countries.” 
  
 oss/cb
 
 ]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94582</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2012/201201041152580355t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 04 January 2012 (IRIN) - A new report on child migration in West Africa says thousands of children are being sold, exchanged or transported out of their communities each year in violation of internationally-recognized rights of the child, and calls on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to persuade governments to better protect these children.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>TECHNOLOGY: IRIN&apos;s pick of the year 2011</title><pubDate>Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2007/2007080636t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 29 December 2011 (IRIN) - Computers and mobile phones are already essential to humanitarian planning, and 2011 saw the growth of technology-based humanitarian interventions, from the use of GPS (global positioning systems) to provide early weather warnings to real-time health reporting.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 29 December 2011 (IRIN) - Computers and mobile phones are already essential to humanitarian planning, and 2011 saw the growth of technology-based humanitarian interventions, from the use of GPS (global positioning systems) to provide early weather warnings to real-time health reporting. 
 
 Here is a round-up of IRIN articles on important humanitarian technology in 2011: 
 
 Humanitarians in Libya used the Ushahidi [ http://www.ushahidi.com ] initiative to map the crisis [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92686 ] and plan their interventions. 
 
 An electronic voucher scheme [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94024 ] is being used to fight malnutrition by providing nutritious food to HIV-positive Zimbabweans on antiretroviral therapy and their families. 
 
 EpiCollect, [ http://www.epicollect.net ] developed by Imperial College, London, allows the geospatial collation of data [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93675 ] collected by mobile phone; Kenyan vets are using it for disease surveillance, monitoring outbreaks, treatments, vaccinations and animal deaths. 
 
 The Nepalese government and World Health Organization are mapping health facilities using GPS to help the country [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92413 ] plan disaster response in case of a major earthquake. 
 
 Tennis ball-sized mud balls [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94224 ] were thrown into flood water in the hope of improving the quality of stagnant water following weeks of flooding in Thailand. 
 
 Using FrontlineSMS [ http://www.frontlinesms.com ] - an open-source software enabling users to send and receive text messages with groups of people - village malaria workers [ http://irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93662 ] in Cambodia can now report, in real time, all malaria cases in their villages to the Malaria Information and Alert System in Phnom Penh with a simple text message, including the patient's name, age, location and type of parasite. 
 
 The "Kenyans for Kenya" [ http://www.kenyans4kenya.co.ke ] initiative used mobile cash transfer services to raise more than US$7 million [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93633 ] during the drought which affected northern and eastern parts of the country. 
 
 Tweetback, an Egyptian fundraising campaign [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93495 ] to help slum-dwellers, raised $218,855 within 10 days of its formation in July. 
 
 In Bangladesh, Airtel, a private mobile operator, has teamed up with the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, the Centre for Global Change and two international NGOs (Oxfam and CARE) to provide early weather warnings [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93914 ] to fishermen at sea using GPS. 
 
 A handheld, battery-powered device [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94483 ] which can take a drop of blood, urine or sputum and tell a community health worker in a remote village whether a feverish child has malaria, dengue or a bacterial infection is in development by Canadian scientists. 
 
 The Burkina Faso Red Cross sends bluntly worded text messages to government officials, employers, traditional leaders, teachers, business owners and housewives several times a year in an effort to reduce the widespread exploitation of domestic workers [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92708 ] by raising awareness of their rights. 
 
 As part of efforts to reform the mining sector, an initiative in the Democratic Republic of Congo [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94465 ] aims to map artisanal mining sites, transportation routes, and mineral trading points, reflecting the security and human rights situation on the ground, using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. 
 
 The Map Kibera project, [ http://www.mapkibera.org ] which uses hand-held global GPS devices to collect geographic information in Nairobi's largest slum, is providing vital information [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=91545 ] on the availability and location of health, security, education and water/sanitation services. 
 
 kr/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94565</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2007/2007080636t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 29 December 2011 (IRIN) - Computers and mobile phones are already essential to humanitarian planning, and 2011 saw the growth of technology-based humanitarian interventions, from the use of GPS (global positioning systems) to provide early weather warnings to real-time health reporting.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SAHEL: Act now to avoid another crisis, say aid agencies</title><pubDate>Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201008191536230203t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 14 December 2011 (IRIN) - Aid agencies are warning donors to act now to avert another drought-related food crisis in the Sahel that could mean over 11 million people sink into further food insecurity, poverty or malnutrition.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 14 December 2011 (IRIN) - Aid agencies are warning donors to act now to avert another drought-related food crisis in the Sahel that could mean over 11 million people sink into further food insecurity, poverty or malnutrition.

Millions of farmers and pastoralist families have still not yet recovered from a drought and poor harvest [ http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?indepthid=81&reportid=89910 ] which destroyed their livelihoods and eroded their food security in 2009. 

Governments, UN agencies and NGOs estimate six million people are highly vulnerable to food insecurity and possible related impoverishment and malnutrition in Niger; 2.9 million in Mali; 700,000 - over quarter of the population - in Mauritania; and over two million in Burkina Faso; while in Chad 13 out of 22 of the regions could be affected by food insecurity. 

Poor rains in parts of Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso - as well as pockets in other countries in the Sahel - have led to poor cereal production. That, combined with other factors mean for many, the lean season, which traditionally starts in March or April, could come as early as January. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94081 ]

Contributing to Sahelians’ vulnerability are: very high regional food prices - the cost of cereals in the region is 40 percent higher now than the past five years’ average, according to NGO Oxfam; a drought as recently as 2009 which meant despite good rains in 2010 poor farmers and herders had sold off all of their food or animal stocks and not had time to rebuild them; and lost remittances not only from returnee workers from Libya, [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93098 ] but also potentially from Europe.

Re-stocking can take a decade

“The intervals between these crises are getting smaller, so there is a very small amount of time to recover in between them,” Thomas Yanga, regional director of the World Food Programme (WFP), told reporters at a press conference last week: 

Poor herders in 14 areas of Niger lost 90 percent of their livestock in the 2009 crisis, according to a government study. Oxfam’s Niger country programme director, Mohamed Aly Ag Hamana, told IRIN it takes at least three years to rebuild a small stock of sheep and goats, and up to 10 years to build up cattle stocks.

The Sahel is chronically vulnerable to malnutrition, [ http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?indepthid=81&reportid=89734 ] food insecurity and drought - even in good harvest years one third of Chad’s population is chronically undernourished, according to the Sahel Working Group; while in 2010, despite very strong harvests, 250,000 children in Niger were acutely malnourished, said ECHO (EU aid body) head in West Africa, Cyprien Fabre. 

“This year the harvest was poor-to-average, not catastrophic, but the region could still face crisis,” said Remi Dourlot, spokesperson at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

While cereal production overall in West Africa is 25 percent down on 2010, according to the Permanent Inter-State Committee to Prevent Drought in the Sahel (CILLS), Chad and Mauritania face 50 percent drops on 2010; and drops of 28 and 38 percent respectively compared to the past five years, according to Oxfam’s economy justice campaign manager Eric Hazard.

Already in crisis

Some Sahelians are already facing crisis conditions, said Oxfam’s joint Mali head Marietou Diaby.

According to her, some herders in Kayes in western Mali are already starting to sell off their stocks, while pastoralists in Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania started to move in search of pasture one month ago, which in good years, they only begin to do in January.

Such early movements could lead to overgrazing and an upsurge of conflict in places like the Niger Delta, Gourma in northern Mali, Lake Chad, the northern Gulf of Guinea, southern Chad, and other areas, warn WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in their monthly food security review.

If immediate interventions do not take place, livestock prices will plummet, making it more and more difficult for herders to buy grain. About half of all the livestock in Mauritania and Chad lack sufficient pasture, according to Oxfam’s Hamana, who stressed: “We must help pastoralists destock now, before prices drop.”

Even with stable livestock prices, high grain costs are already barring many herders from purchasing food, said Diaby.

And food is becoming scarce in some markets: for instance, scarce millet and sorghum stocks in Mali mean the only cereal available from wholesalers in the capital Bamako’s Bagadadji market, is grain, according to WFP and FAO.

In Tilabéri in northwestern Niger, children are already being kept away from school and young men have left in search of work. 

This should be a time of plenty, said Yanga. “We should not be seeing these market conditions at this time of year,” he said.

What is needed

As well as timely destocking, investment in water projects [ http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?indepthid=81&reportid=89432 ]; better distribution and storage of animal feed to save livestock [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=90754 ]; income-generation, social protection activities and efforts to boost nutrition in the Sahel are needed, according to the Sahel Working Group in their paper, Escaping the Hunger Cycle in the Sahel. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94082 ]

If governments, aid agencies and donors act fast when an acute food crisis occurs, they can prevent the immense damage to livelihoods and the loss of productive assets by vulnerable households, they say.

The more-frequent droughts hitting the Sahel point to the need for a different kind of response, said WFP’s Yanga, encompassing early warning, addressing root causes, and chronic nutritional problems. “These crises are recurring more frequently… We don’t know if this will last, but it’s a trend that we’re also seeing elsewhere." 

More long-term investment is needed in the region, said Oxfam humanitarian advocate, Stephen Cockburn. “Even after the crises of 2005 and 2009 there has been a lack of investment in sustainable agriculture and programmes to reduce poverty,” he told IRIN.

There’s still time

There is still time to avert wide-scale crisis, said Oxfam’s Hazard, citing some positive factors: “Early warnings are coming very promptly; affected governments are acting early this year… and some donors have also responded early to avert crisis.”

Niger was the first country to launch an emergency appeal, in early November, and map out its response plan; Mauritania and Burkina Faso are both currently mapping out their responses, which will include subsidizing cereal sales, distributing food, replenishing national cereal stocks and in Niger’s case, launching a livestock investment programme. 

ECHO announced a US$13 million intervention last week to mitigate disaster in the region, while the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund has released US$6 million to WFP, FAO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to build up their responses. 

Other donors must follow suit, said Cockburn. “We have no excuse to make the same mistakes as in the past,” he told IRIN.

Early action is cheaper than emergency response, stressed Oxfam quoting ex-UN emergencies head Jan Egeland’s figures that it would have cost US$1 per day to prevent acute malnutrition among children in the Sahel in 2004 but by 2005 the cost of saving a malnourished child’s life was US$80 per day.

Fabre hopes other donors will shift their approach to focus on resilience both pre- and post-crises. After all, “we can’t do emergency responses every year - it’s unsustainable,” he said.

aj/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94466</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201008191536230203t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 14 December 2011 (IRIN) - Aid agencies are warning donors to act now to avert another drought-related food crisis in the Sahel that could mean over 11 million people sink into further food insecurity, poverty or malnutrition.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HIV/AIDS: A deadly funding crisis</title><pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2007/2007070412t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - This World AIDS Day on 1 Dec should have been a much more joyous event: the global HIV/AIDS response has turned a significant corner, with record numbers of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and fewer new HIV infections. But the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, cancelling its next funding round, has cast a shadow over any celebrations and highlighted the precarious nature of HIV/AIDS funding.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - This World AIDS Day on 1 Dec should have been a much more joyous event: the global HIV/AIDS response has turned a significant corner, with record numbers of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and fewer new HIV infections. But the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, cancelling its next funding round, has cast a shadow over any celebrations and highlighted the precarious nature of HIV/AIDS funding. 
 
 That money for HIV/AIDS efforts is not as plentiful as in previous years hardly comes as a surprise. UNAIDS notes that the global economic crisis appears to have put an end to a decade of funding increases by donors - after flattening out in 2009 for the first time, international AIDS assistance fell by 10 percent in 2010. [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93521 ] 
 
 Nandini Oomman, director of the HIV/AIDS Monitor, which tracks AIDS spending at the Washington-based Centre for Global Development, admits that “we are in a bad situation” and faced with “less money and more [health] priorities”. Moreover, non-communicable diseases have overtaken HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of death worldwide. Global and national leaders are now confronted with a “set of tough choices”, she noted. 
 
 Zimbabwe’s Minister of Health, Dr Henry Madzorera, believes it is still too early to gauge the full impact of the global funding decline. “We do anticipate that [this] will have a negative impact on our universal access goal… that the consequences of this global economic meltdown will be catastrophic to our programmes… [and] will take us back many years,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. 
 
 The big squeeze 
 
 As the world’s largest donor to HIV/AIDS efforts, the United States contributes 54 percent of international AIDS financing, but the Centre for Global Development warns that in America’s current political and fiscal climate, this level of support for AIDS funding may have reached a “tipping point” and “will be increasingly difficult to maintain in coming years”. 
 
 Oomman pointed out that the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was protected by legislation until 2013, so cuts in the funding mechanism may not be as deep as feared. “The real questions [about the future of PEPFAR] will open up in two years, when the US is faced with reauthorizing PEPFAR,” she noted. 
 
 In the meantime, the US global AIDS budget has been cut for the second year running - funding for PEPFAR in 2012 will be US$90 million less than the current allocation - and support for the Global Fund has flat-lined. 
 
 The cost implications are huge, particularly for countries such as Uganda that rely heavily on PEPFAR. According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), less than half of the people needing treatment in Uganda get it, and PEPFAR currently supports 75 percent of all patients receiving ARVs in the country. International donors are increasingly requesting that Uganda look for domestic funds to support its response. 
 
 Although South Africa is better resourced and funds more than 80 percent of its treatment costs, it still receives substantial amounts from foreign donors. PEPFAR’s shift from direct service provision to technical assistance has caused hospices and institutions that were providing ARVs to close down, and patients have been referred to a public health system that is overstretched and poorly equipped to deal with the growing numbers, Nokhwezi Hoboyi, district coordinator for the Treatment Action Campaign, told journalists at a press briefing. 
 
 The UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) is also cutting bilateral aid for HIV/AIDS projects in developing countries by 32 percent, from £59.9 million ($92 million) to £41 million ($64million), between now and 2015. 
 
 Bailing out of the Fund? 
 
 With many donor countries preoccupied with the economic crises on their doorsteps and slowly starting to reduce their HIV/AIDS funding, the Global Fund remains a crucial player despite its latest setback. The amount of money that the multilateral body has made available since it was created in 2001 was “absolutely unprecedented” said Dr Eric Goemaere, head of MSF South Africa’s medical unit. 
 
 On 28 November, MSF warned that many low-income countries with a high HIV/AIDS burden were relying heavily on money from the Global Fund to continue providing treatment as well as to scale up their programmes. Some countries have been unable to implement the most recent World Health Organization guidelines, which call for earlier initiation of treatment and better first-line drugs. 
 
 The Global Fund has also been hit by a crisis in confidence in recent months, after reports of grant mismanagement found by the Fund’s Office of the Inspector General and the findings of a high-level independent review panel that recommended major changes to its accountability structures. 
 
 Oomman told IRIN/PlusNews that rather than “buckling down” to fix the Global Fund model, however, donors were “bailing out” by failing to live up to their commitments. “This doesn’t absolve the Fund of the responsibility to fix itself and reform… but it was created by the donors and should be fixed by the donors,” she commented. 
 
 High-burden nations need to do more 
 
 With its future at stake, the Global Fund has been encouraging emerging markets to pick up the baton, but the reality is that financial backing from traditional donors such as America and the European countries is still vitally important. “If I were an emerging market government, would I put my money in [an organization] which Western donors are pulling out of?” Oomman asked. 
 
 Activists agree that although some countries with high HIV prevalence rates still can’t afford to put a lot of money into their AIDS response, they cannot be completely absolved. 
 
 “Sustainability depends on domestic funding. Even in this hard economic environment, countries can at least lay down the enabling instruments that will grow over time and take over from donor funds when these funds dry up,” Zimbabwe’s Madzorera acknowledged. 
 
 “African governments are not doing enough at this stage,” he said, “and it cannot be allowed to be ‘business as usual’ in the face of this global economic crisis.” 

Read more on the impact of the HIV/AIDS funding crunch: http://www.plusnews.org/IndepthMain.aspx?Indepthid=93&amp;reportid=94341
 
 kn/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94354</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2007/2007070412t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - This World AIDS Day on 1 Dec should have been a much more joyous event: the global HIV/AIDS response has turned a significant corner, with record numbers of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and fewer new HIV infections. But the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, cancelling its next funding round, has cast a shadow over any celebrations and highlighted the precarious nature of HIV/AIDS funding.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>BURKINA FASO: “Blue revolution” needed to boost dry-season harvest</title><pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2006886t.jpg" />]]>OUAGADOUGOU 17 November 2011 (IRIN) - The Burkina Faso government is attempting for the first time to implement a nationwide dry-season agricultural campaign to counteract possible food insecurity in areas that received poor or erratic rainfall this year. But the government, alongside others in the region, also needs to invest in a “blue revolution” - small-scale irrigation systems to help farmers grow crops in drought-prone zones - says the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)</description><body><![CDATA[OUAGADOUGOU 17 November 2011 (IRIN) - The Burkina Faso government is attempting for the first time to implement a nationwide dry-season agricultural campaign to counteract possible food insecurity in areas that received poor or erratic rainfall this year. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94081 ] But the government, alongside others in the region, also needs to invest in a “blue revolution” - small-scale irrigation systems to help farmers grow crops in drought-prone zones - says the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) [ http://www.ifpri.org/ ]
 
Some 146 out of 351 communes across 10 of Burkina Faso’s 13 regions were affected by low grain outputs, according to the government’s provisional estimates. The regions most affected by poor rains were the northern millet-producing zone, the Sahel, the Centre north, the Centre west, the East and the Centre east. 
 
“At the moment the food security situation is not alarmist, but there are pockets spread out across the country that could be in a critical situation, and that need to be closely monitored,” the Deputy-director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Burkina Faso, Ariane Waldvogel, told IRIN. 
 
Government projections put this year's harvest at 3.8 million tons - 16 percent lower than last year's - with millet down by 21 percent and sorghum down by 18 percent. The rice harvest is estimated to be more or less the same as in 2010, though some 44 percent of the nation’s needs (200,000 mt) would still have to be imported. 
 
However, WFP noted that 2010 delivered a bumper crop and the above results are just one percent below Burkina’s five-year average production. Waldvogel said a more in-depth study of the harvest and food insecurity will be conducted imminently, and a nutritional survey is about to be completed. 
 
The government must nevertheless look ahead and prepare now to try to minimize the risk of food insecurity in the 2012 lean season, said Laurent Sedogo, Minister for Agriculture and Water. His department will invest 1.2 billion CFA (US$2.4 million) to distribute high-yield seeds and give a stipend of $150 to each farmer who participates in the dry-season campaign. 
 
''We are inviting all producers who have access to water [Burkina Faso has some 1,000 small reservoirs] to start producing,” he told reporters at the campaign launch. The money will also be used to repair water points, and to purchase surplus food and transport it to deficit areas.  
 
“Blue revolution” 
 
Oxfam humanitarian project officer Sosthene Konate told IRIN that “It is in itself a victory to admit that the situation is difficult," and the government is headed in the right direction by thinking ahead and facing reality.
 
“It is a good thing they are talking about dry season harvests,” IFPRI senior research fellow Ephraim Nkonya told IRIN. “But this needs to translate into investment in irrigation by government. We need a blue revolution” to make the scheme work.
 
Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest investment in irrigation and water storage structures in the world, according to IFPRI, while agricultural think-tank Future Agricultures [ http://www.future-agricultures.org/ ] notes that just 7 percent of Africa’s arable land is under irrigation, compared to 33 percent of Asia’s. 
 
In Burkina Faso and its northern neighbour, Mali, some 30 percent of the water used for irrigation from the Niger River, [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94203 ] is lost, said Nkonya. The government and partners need to help smallholder farmers to set up simple irrigation systems to diminish this wastage. Treadle pumps - foot-pumps designed to lift water - can cost just $100 each, while bucket and drip kits and collector wells are also relatively cheap. 
 
Think small

The governments of Burkina Faso and Mali should apply some of the lessons learned from Nigeria, said Nkonya. In the 1970s the World Bank invested heavily in large dams, which now produce just 30 percent of Nigeria’s irrigated agricultural output, whereas 70 percent is linked to small-scale, farmer-led irrigation schemes using water towers, simple pipe systems, and also drip irrigation. “Irrigation schemes in these areas work best when they are small-scale, and are run by farmers themselves,” he pointed out.
 
In the dry season farmers often turn to short-season crops such as fruit and vegetables. In IFPRI studies, those who use irrigation to grow such crops - even on small plots - produce up to 10 times the output of rain-fed production, said Nkonya. 
 
Irrigation is key to making the dry-season harvest work, agreed an agriculture analyst, but ultimately food insecurity in Burkina Faso’s Sahelian band will only be stemmed if governments and partners address the problem at the level of production - irrigation, high-yield seeds, drought-resistant strains - as well as at the level of trade, ensuring the food produced reaches citizens at prices they can afford.  
 
bo/aj/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94223</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2006886t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">OUAGADOUGOU 17 November 2011 (IRIN) - The Burkina Faso government is attempting for the first time to implement a nationwide dry-season agricultural campaign to counteract possible food insecurity in areas that received poor or erratic rainfall this year. But the government, alongside others in the region, also needs to invest in a “blue revolution” - small-scale irrigation systems to help farmers grow crops in drought-prone zones - says the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>CLIMATE CHANGE: Soon every African village will know what the weather may bring</title><pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2008/2008091519t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 02 November 2011 (IRIN) - Information about how climate change may affect any city, town or village in Africa until the next century will be available by mid-2012 as scientists localise global climate data.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 02 November 2011 (IRIN) - Information about how climate change may affect any city, town or village in Africa until the next century will be available by mid-2012 as scientists localise global climate data. 
 
 The Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX), [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=91170 ] an initiative of the World Meteorological Organization is now able to render the data from regional climate models to the scale people live in, and decision makers work at. The information will not only help countries but also communities in their efforts to adapt to changing weather patterns, and to tailor their disaster risk reduction plans. 

The effort is geared to feed into the next assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be released in 2014. 
 
Although CORDEX aims to “downscale” the data for all regions of the world, Africa has been identified as the most vulnerable by the IPCC and a priority for the initiative. Historically the continent has been under-researched, but for the next two years will be a focus for the programme. 
 
Chris Lennard, a scientist at the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa, which has one of the only two climate modelling groups downscaling the projections in Africa, said by mid-2012 climate data for people living within 50 kilometres from each other will be available across Africa. 
 
 The other African group, also in South Africa, is based at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria. 
 
 "There are climatologists outside the project who are downscaling up to a 22 km resolution as well," said Lennard. “Although this means data at the scale of cities will be available, when assessing vulnerabilities to climate change in a place like Johannesburg there are many other factors that need to be considered external to the city such as water and food security and power provision for example.” 
 
 How it works 
 
 Projecting the impact of climate change is a complicated process that takes into account changes in the long-term averages of daily weather patterns and many other factors. Climate models are used to simulate processes that occur in the atmosphere, such as the movement of moisture and heat as well as the possible impact of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases on these processes. 
 
 During two meetings in 2011, over 20 African climate scientists met to analyse CORDEX produced data. They decided to divide Africa into three regions for analysis - Southern, East and West. They then sub-divided the regions according to the common characteristics of the rainfall patterns in them. For instance, West Africa has been split into a Southern and Northern region because the south has two peaks per rainy season and the north has only one. 
 
 Climatologists often split regions according to common rainfall patterns because the variables that affect rainfall - movement of air, pressure, temperature, radiation, moisture content - also drive climate change. 
 
 Unfortunately, not all African countries can be assessed because of a lack of adequate scientific support and observational data. 
 
 During the first stage of CORDEX, scientists tested the ability of the various regional climate models to generate data based on actual climate statistics for the period 1988-2010. "The selected historical timeframe is too small to look at any long-term trends," said Lennard. "We wanted to see how the regional climate models simulated the past so we can say something about how they might simulate the future." 
 
 The 14 regional climate models also include factors like the level of small-scale convection, and the interaction between the land surface and the atmosphere. The scientists then work on a consensus position based on the results generated by all the models. 
 
 "We have completed this stage and are busy writing up our results so they can be included in the IPCC 5th assessment report," said Lennard. 
 
 The teams are now awaiting results of global projections of climate change from 12 global climate modelling groups already at work in Europe, the US and elsewhere. 
 
 These groups - including the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy; the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute; the Danish Meteorological Institute; and the Iowa State University - are among the world's foremost global climate modelling institutions. They have simulated the earth's climate as far back as 1950 and look as far forward as 2100. 
 
 "Once the global climate model data become available we will start downscaling them, and the downscaled results will be shared with the African teams for analysis. We expect to have the first downscaled model data early in November," Lennard said. 
 
 Making sense of the numbers 
 
 The projections are critical for communities that must adapt to a moodier climate with limited resources. Initial IPCC assessment reports tended to focus on global climate models and predictions that did not factor in underlying socioeconomic conditions or the vulnerability of communities, writes Saleemul Huq, one of the IPCC’s lead authors. [ http://pubs.iied.org/17103IIED.html?c=climate ] "So, for example, model-based physical impacts in the Netherlands look similar to those in Bangladesh - in part because the two countries share a similar topography, both being low-lying deltas - but in reality the impacts on people, and the options for adapting to these, are likely to differ widely,” Huq notes in a briefing paper for the International Institute for Environment and development (IIED). 
 
 “The Netherlands is technologically and financially rich and can adapt to rising sea levels by raising dykes. Bangladesh, on the other hand, cannot afford to build dykes around its entire coast, even if that was the best adaptation solution." More recent IPCC reports have gone for a "more rounded picture of which countries and regions are at highest risk from climate change". 
 
One of the unique characteristics of the CORDEX Africa campaign is that African climatologists will meet with other African scientists who study vulnerability, adaptation and the impact of climate change on people, to translate the model numbers into meaningful, usable information. Experts from countries that include Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe will analyse the data.

"These scientists [who study humanitarian impact of climate change] know for example what thresholds, which, if crossed more frequently would impact detrimentally on communities, so whether the people in a certain area are more vulnerable to five days or eight days of continuous rainfall,” said Lennard. 
 
“We are coming together so that the impacts scientists can ask climatologists their questions, who will then analyse the model output with these questions in mind and provide them with information they can use."
 
 Their answers will also inform the analysis included in the IPCC's fifth assessment, which is devoting four chapters to adaptation. The previous report, in 2007, carried just one chapter on the topic. 
 
 jk/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94127</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2008/2008091519t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 02 November 2011 (IRIN) - Information about how climate change may affect any city, town or village in Africa until the next century will be available by mid-2012 as scientists localise global climate data.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>WEST AFRICA: Sahel the danger zone for food insecurity</title><pubDate>Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201109241342030732t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 27 October 2011 (IRIN) - Erratic rains and high imported rice and wheat prices against a backdrop of chronic food insecurity and malnutrition in parts of the Sahel, will leave millions of people at risk of food insecurity, according to the latest crop assessments.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 27 October 2011 (IRIN) - Erratic rains and high imported rice and wheat prices against a backdrop of chronic food insecurity and malnutrition in parts of the Sahel, will leave millions of people at risk of food insecurity, according to the latest crop assessments.
 
“We are definitely going to have a difficult year,” said Patricia Hoorelbeke, West Africa head of NGO Action Against Hunger (ACF), adding that the NGO is considering expanding its food and nutrition programmes in the region.
 
Food production
 
Food production is expected to be lower than usual in parts of western Niger, Chad’s Sahelian zone, southern Mauritania, western Mali, eastern Burkina Faso, northern Senegal and Nigeria, according to a report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and a separate assessment by USAID’s food security monitor FEWS NET. [ http://www.fews.net/Pages/region.aspx?gb=r1&l=en ]
 
Tahoua and Tillabéry in central and northwestern Niger respectively are expected to see significantly reduced outputs, according to FEWS NET.
 
In most of the above-affected areas the rains either started too late or too early, or were unevenly distributed.
 
Cereal production is expected to reach 43-52 million tons for the region, near the 2009 average, according to FEWS NET. More precise figures will be known in mid-November once the harvest is collected.
 
Pastoralists
 
Pastoralists are expected to fare better than they did last year, when hit by drought in the Sahel, but in some agro-pastoralist zones, rains have been delayed, which could lead to poor pasture levels, according to the WFP/FAO report. 
 
“We are worried because these irregular rainfalls have occurred in very vulnerable areas where people’s resilience is already very weakened,” said livelihoods specialist at WFP Jean-Martin Bauer. Many Sahelian households live in a state of chronic food insecurity, he said. “They are the ones with no access to land, lost livestock, without able-bodied men who can find work in cities - they are particularly affected by a decrease in production.” 
 
A government-NGO April 2011 study in 14 agro-pastoral departments of Niger noted that pastoralists with small herds lost on average 90 percent of their livestock in the 2009-2010 drought, while those with large herds lost one quarter. Those who had lost the bulk of their assets have already reduced the quality and quantity of food they are consuming. 
 
The Niger government and partners are currently studying the food insecurity situation, so more will be known soon, he said, adding that it is clear the government will need to carry out some kind of emergency food distributions and food subsidies imminently. 
 
Nutrition
 
Parts of the Sahel year-on-year experience global acute malnutrition rates that surpass emergency thresholds. A third of the population of Chad is chronically undernourished, regardless of the rains or size of the harvest; and more than 50 percent of the population in Niger suffers from food insecurity, with 22 percent extremely food insecure, according to the World Bank in 2009.
 
Global acute malnutrition [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93701 ] in parts of the Sahelian zone of Chad was on average 15-20 percent over the past five years, and could reach 25 percent this year, according to ACF’s Hoorelbeke.
 
Returnees from Libya
 
The return to Niger and Chad of migrants from Libya who previously sent money home to help mitigate crop deficit is already pushing some families into further food insecurity, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “These returns have aggravated extreme poverty and hunger which is affecting more than half of Niger's 2.5 million people threatened with food insecurity this year,” said IOM.
 
While international attention and government involvement has been relatively high in Niger compared to the devastating drought of 2005, Oumarou Lalo Keita, principal adviser to the prime minister, said international agencies have been slow to respond to government appeals for increased aid over recent months as a result of the return of some 90,000 migrants from Libya. “There is clearly cause for concern,” he said. Following the 2009-2010 drought, the country does not have sufficient emergency food stocks, he said. “We experience difficulties year-on-year, and there is still a gap between needs and the support we receive.”
 
While governments and aid agencies in West Africa are for the most part well-versed in responding to food insecurity, readiness and capacity is still low in some areas. 
 
Part of the Chadian Sahel and eastern Burkina Faso are not receiving as much international attention, said ACF’s Hoorelbeke. “Chadian Sahel is hardly covered - there are not enough agencies there… If there is a situation that we hear very little about, it is eastern Burkina Faso, where we are likely to see a real problem this year,” she told IRIN. 
 
However, even were more money available, many Sahelian governments lack the capacity to absorb it, notes a report just out by the Sahel Working Group entitled Escaping the Hunger Cycle: Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel. [ http://www.groundswellinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/Pathways-to-Resilience-in-the-Sahel.pdf ]
 
Some Sahelian countries, such as Mali, have built up decent emergency buffer stocks following a good 2010 harvest, according to food security analysts. But region-wide, more food security stocks are needed as promised in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agricultural policy, says the Sahel Working Group.
 
Some governments, such as Senegal, are trying to reduce dependency on international rice markets by boosting their own self-sufficiency. However, boosting agricultural production is only one of many interventions required to boost food-security. Intervening to improve access to food, is equally important, particularly for those who do not work in agriculture - the very poor, pastoralists, urban dwellers and others.
 
Costly food imports
 
Some 40 percent of West Africa’s rice consumption is imported, according to WFP’s Bauer. The Thai government’s recently-issued policy to raise the minimum price guaranteed to farmers has produced tensions on the international rice market. One ton of top quality Thai rice, which is a reference on the food market, has already gone up from US$380 dollars in September 2010 to $495 in September 2011. With the terrible floods currently affecting Thailand, prices should continue to rise, say experts. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94021 ]
 
Most likely to be affected in West Africa are Senegal, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and other coastal states. 
 
International wheat prices have also risen since June 2011 because of poor wheat prospects in the USA. The cost of US wheat was up 24 percent in August 2011 from its August 2010 level, according to FAO’s September Global Food Price Monitor. [ http://www.fao.org/giews/english/gfpm/ ]
 
Imported wheat counts for two-thirds of grain consumption in Mauritania: in the capital, Nouakchott, prices have risen by 50 percent since this time last year; while in the desert town of Ouadane in the central-north, wheat prices are at record highs. Even before wheat prices shot up, one in five households was food-insecure in the south, according to the Commission for Food Security and humanitarian partners, and 8 percent had already reduced the amount of food they were eating.
 
Regional markets also require close monitoring, say market analysts. High rice prices in Guinea this year, for instance, drew many of Liberia’s and Sierra Leone’s rice producers to export there, leaving significant grain deficits in Liberia, and a 38 percent price rice since 2010 in urban areas. 
 
The Niger government is working hard to ensure that its local harvest stays predominantly in-country so as not to repeat the problems faced in 2005 when the strength of the Nigerian currency (the naira) against the CFA franc meant Niger and Chad sold more cereals to Nigeria. The naira rose against the CFA in September. However, government interventions to protect markets are also a “double-edged sword”, said adviser to Niger’s prime minister Keita, as it encouraged neighbouring states to do the same, stagnating the market. 
 
Existing safety nets and food aid are inadequate to cope with the spikes in food prices caused by droughts or international markets that the region has experienced in recent months, says the Sahel Working Group. A far more robust regulatory framework is needed to help protect food security, despite market volatility.
 
cb/aj/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=94081</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201109241342030732t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 27 October 2011 (IRIN) - Erratic rains and high imported rice and wheat prices against a backdrop of chronic food insecurity and malnutrition in parts of the Sahel, will leave millions of people at risk of food insecurity, according to the latest crop assessments.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>FOOD: Rumpus over GM food aid</title><pubDate>Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201108011245250824t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers. 
 
 On 18 August a drought-affected Kenyan government fired the head of its National Biosafety Authority for expediting the process to import milled food aid which might have contained genetically modified organisms (GMO). In the weeks preceding and after the incident, public debate on the issue was distorted by extreme positions either for or against GM food. 
 
 “When you have people starving in your country you don’t simply turn your back on food at your door-step just because it is labelled GM - it is expected that biosafety risk assessments should have been conducted before the importation of the food to see whether it does indeed pose a threat before taking a decision. Taking this decision so late in the day could have serious consequences for the suffering people,” says Diran Makinde, director of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (NEPAD’s) African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE), a pool of scientific experts set up by the African Union. 
 
 There have been different degrees of resistance to GM food and GM food aid in Africa. 
 
 In 2002 Zambia announced it would not accept GM food aid in any form. Positions were polarized to a great extent after a quote from a US state department official, “Beggars can’t be choosers”, hit the headlines. It prompted the then president, Levy Mwanawasa, to say hunger was no reason for feeding his people “poison”. Since then Zambia has become a poster-child for the anti-GM lobby. 
[ http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/28948/1/African%20perspectives%20on%20genetically%20modified%20crops.pdf?1 ]
 
 Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique said they could allow imports of GM food aid in its milled form as this eliminated the risk of the germination of whole grains and limited possible contamination of local varieties. [ http://www.eoearth.org/article/Genetically_modified_crops_in_Africa ]
 
 Lesotho and Swaziland allowed the distribution of non-milled GM food/grains, but warned people that it was for consumption not cultivation. 
 
 In 2004, Angola and Sudan announced restrictions on GM food aid. 
 
 Cautious approach 
 
 Most African countries approach GM technology applied to crops with caution. 
 
 “Why shouldn’t we be wary of this technology and its possible long-term health impacts, if the EU [European Union] is. If it is not good for them, why should it be good for us?” said Tewolde Egziabher, Ethiopia’s director of the Environmental Protection Agency. 
 
 Egziabher was one of the main architects of the Cartagena Protocol, the international law on biosafety which came into effect in 2003 and which allows countries to impose bans on foods containing GM. 
 
 The Protocol’s cornerstone is “precaution”, notes a UN Environment Programme briefing. [ http://www.eoearth.org/article/Responses_to_genetically_modified_crop_use_in_Africa ]
  
 It gives governments the discretion to impose bans even where there is insufficient scientific evidence about the potential adverse effects of GM crops. The USA has yet to ratify the Protocol. 
 
 GM technology injects foreign genes into a crop that can improve its appearance, taste, nutritional quality, drought tolerance, and insect and disease resistance. There has been cautious optimism about the new technology in some quarters. 
 
 “As crop yields drop because of weather shocks, GM technology is not the panacea, as Africa will feel the impact of climate change in the long-term. But it is potentially yet another tool in our fight to improve production,” said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, 2001 World Food Prize laureate and the author of a book on the politics of GM food. 
 
 Most critics of GM food, however, argue that foreign genes can produce toxic proteins and allergens, even possibly transfer the genes to bacteria in the human gut; or transfer these traits to other crops with unknown consequences. 
 
 Global divide 
 
 A deep mistrust also prevails in Africa, given the fact that two power blocs - the EU and the USA remain divided over GM. 
 
 Only one strain of GM maize, Monsanto 810, and one modified potato, have been approved in the EU, and most countries grow neither commercially. Spain accounts for about 80 percent of GMO grown in the EU in terms of land under cultivation, but Austria, France, Greece, Hungary, Germany and Luxembourg have banned all GMO cultivation. [ http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/07/eu_parliament_votes_to_allow_r.html ]
 
 On the other hand, in the USA, where 70 percent of maize is GM, GM food need not be labelled. Some food experts say both the EU and the USA have vested interests in promoting their respective views in Africa, which is seen as a potential market and supplier of either GM or non-GM products. 
 
 In Africa, the production of GM food is still in its infancy. South Africa (70-80 percent of its maize, soya and cotton production), Egypt (maize) and Burkina Faso (cotton) are the only African countries commercially producing GM crops, according to ABNE. 
 
 Traditionally the USA has been the biggest donor in kind to the World Food Programme (WFP). But the aid agency is trying to broaden its source of food aid. In 2010, WFP said 36 percent of its food aid, or two million out of 5.7 million tons disbursed globally, was procured in developing countries. [ http://www.wfp.org/content/food-aid-flows-2010-report ]
 
 While wheat accounts for more than 50 percent of WFP’s global cereal component, GM wheat does not figure as it is not grown commercially. According to data from 2006, at least 38 percent of cereal food aid to Africa was wheat and wheat flour, said Christopher Barrett, a food aid expert. Though wheat tends to be a less important part of the African diet than maize, aid agencies sometimes offer wheat instead of GM maize in emergencies. [ http://faostat.fao.org/site/485/default.aspx#ancor ]
 
 Possible solutions 
 
 Milling the grain is an obvious solution, said Julia Steets, an aid policy expert at the Global Public Policy Institute. "Milling either at source or in the port of arrival or in the prepositioning warehouses - it would of course also help to know in advance which governments take what positions on that, so that the food aid agencies are prepared." 
 
 The stance of recipient countries has to be respected. When a country prohibits GMO, sourcing alternative commodities and routes can “obviously impact delivery times and costs but those are the parameters in which we work,” said David Orr, WFP spokesman. “We always abide by the laws and regulations of recipient countries.” 
 
 If a country is not receptive to GM food - “give the country the money for procurement of the food from an African country with a surplus (local procurement is better than shipping food all the way from the US any way),” said Pinstrup-Andersen. 
 
 Food aid agencies in Africa usually turn to South Africa for surplus maize. The country has systems in place to segregate non-GM from GM, says Thom Jayne, professor of international development at Michigan State University. 
 
 Farmers in South Africa certify non-GM content by conducting a basic test, which detects specific proteins produced by a GM plant. The non-GM grain is separated from the rest before being shipped. 
 
 Another way of separating GM from non-GM crops involves contract-farming schemes first set up in 2004-2005. The process involves the purchaser identifying farmers who buy non-GM seed. Tests are conducted on their field for any traces of GM before they are offered a contract. 
 
 But all these measures involve extra costs. 
 
 Legislation 
 
 In 2001 the African Union drafted the African Biosafety Model Law but taking an even more cautious approach than the Protocol, allowing countries to adopt more stringent measures to assess the safety of GM food. 
 
 National biosafety laws exist in 17 of the 54 African countries. In most countries, the legislation is a work-in-progress. 
 
 Labelling and verifying the content of a crop on a day-to day basis is an outstanding issue. South Africa, the first country in Africa to put biosafety laws in place (in 1997), has yet to develop a labelling process. 
 
 More public education and debate around GM food needs to happen, said Pinstrup-Andersen. “Almost all GM-food varieties have been through stringent testing for health safety, which non-GM food has not undergone ever. People need to engage with the science and not the politics.” 
 
 jk/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=93991</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201108011245250824t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HEALTH: Keeping a measure on malaria</title><pubDate>Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201011010852150003t.jpg" />]]>NEW YORK 22 September 2011 (IRIN) - The African Leaders Malaria Alliance has launched a scorecard to improve the fight against malaria on the African continent. “This,” said Agnes Bingwaho, Rwanda’s Health Minister, holding up the laminated scorecard, “is something that will help Africa make progress.”</description><body><![CDATA[NEW YORK 22 September 2011 (IRIN) - The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) has launched a scorecard to improve the fight against malaria on the African continent. 
 
 “This,” said Agnes Bingwaho, Rwanda’s Health Minister, holding up the laminated scorecard, “is something that will help Africa make progress.” 
 
 Updated quarterly, it provides information from each country on policies formulated, preventative measures initiated, money spent, lives saved and lost. 
 
 The latest scorecard, launched on 21 September, describes, for example, how Angola and Burundi removed taxes and tariffs on anti-malarial commodities such as mosquito nets, medicines and insecticides. It tells how Côte d'Ivoire distributed 8.9 million nets in 2011, bringing the country closer to achieving universal net coverage. The scorecard also tracks tracer indicators for maternal, newborn and child health. 
 
 “The scorecard is very important,” said Raymond Chambers, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Malaria, “because it gives us the lens to see what’s happening but more importantly gives African countries the chance to compare how they are doing with peer countries and to improve where improvements need to be made.” 
 
 Founded in 2009, ALMA includes 40 African countries, all pledged to eradicating a disease that has no regard for borders. 
 
 Tanzania’s President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, ALMA’s chair, said the evidence proved the disease was “receding steadily”. Eleven African countries have slashed malaria cases by more than 50 percent, he said. Among the preventative measures he highlighted were the distribution of 229 million long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, providing coverage for 84 percent of Africans deemed at risk. 
 
 But he also worried about sustaining the gains. He acknowledged how deadly malaria remains to the continent’s inhabitants and how profoundly it hinders development. It is estimated that Africa experiences a 2 percent loss in GDP each year due to the effects of the illness, which forces people out of work and requires them to spend precious money on treatment, he said. 
 
 One issue central to the malaria fight is funding. It is necessary to both protect existing resources and identify new sources of revenue, Kikwete said. “There is a US$3 billion gap in funding that we are trying to mobilize,” he said. 
 
 “Ownership” 
 
 Rwanda’s Bingwaho – whose country has seen as precipitous drop in malaria cases – noted that “we have made progress by an approach based on community, based on integration and, also a word we like to hear, based on country ownership”. 
 
 “Everything that we can do to help move ownership and responsibility of these issues back to the African countries and at the same time provide them with investment instead of subsidy is clearly a step in the right direction,” said UN Special Envoy Chambers. 
 
 Panellists also emphasized the necessity of cooperation between African nations, a particularly important issue since malaria travels easily. Kikwete said Tanzania, which he said has succeeded in eliminating malaria, was thought to have been clear of the malady twice before. But malarial mosquitoes, he said, travel by bus and on “ships, boats and ferries”. The disease has the ability to re-emerge if not contained in surrounding countries. 
 
 “More than 50 percent of all our cases last year were in one district of our country – the border,” said Bingwaho. 
 
 “The fight will not be won by any single country,” added Christian Chukwu, Nigeria’s Health Minister. “We need to work across borders and let’s all of us get more committed.” 
 
 Kikwete concluded that in this “interdependent world” a malaria-free Africa “is in the best interests of humanity. It means increased productivity, more income for our people, more trade.” 
 
 Then he added on a lighter note, “And there’s no more hassle of swallowing malaria pills every time you travel to Africa.” 
 

------------------------------------------------
Malaria update  

 The battle against the anopheles mosquito and the malaria it transmits has been a long and painful one. Recently there have been signs the tide could be turning:
 
 The sterilization of male mosquitoes, which compete with wild males for wild females, is among the techniques being studied. Sterility can be induced by radiation or chemical application. 
 
 There are also studies under way on the genetic manipulation of mosquitoes, which produces the same effect. Other approaches include the production of male-only sterile mosquitoes, notes a study in the Malaria Journal, Transgenic technologies to induce sterility. 
 
 A possible malaria vaccine, merozoite surface protein 3 (MSP3), was also recently tested in Burkina Faso with promising results.  

 pd/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=93796</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2010/201011010852150003t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NEW YORK 22 September 2011 (IRIN) - The African Leaders Malaria Alliance has launched a scorecard to improve the fight against malaria on the African continent. “This,” said Agnes Bingwaho, Rwanda’s Health Minister, holding up the laminated scorecard, “is something that will help Africa make progress.”</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>In Brief: Civil society studies West Africa &quot;counter-terrorism plan&quot;</title><pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/1181t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 09 August 2011 (IRIN) - Journalists and civil society members in West Africa analysed a “counter-terrorism plan” drawn up by the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) at a 4-5 August meeting in the Senegalese capital Dakar.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 09 August 2011 (IRIN) - Journalists and civil society members in West Africa analysed a “counter-terrorism plan” drawn up by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) at a 4-5 August meeting in the Senegalese capital Dakar. [ http://www.ecowas.int/ ]
 
 Main issues that emerged were the need to strengthen regional cooperation and to address root causes of terrorism - poverty and lack of education, said Biram Diop, director of the African Institute for Security Sector Transformation, who facilitated discussions. “If people are poor and cannot satisfy their basic needs they are fragile and easy to recruit,” he told IRIN. “Teaching literacy [is important] so people are empowered to think independently.” [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=90703 ]
 
 “It’s important to have media and civil society involved because they play a more and more important role in our countries’ stability,” Diop said, adding that these institutions can “serve as a bridge” to communicate information to the public, and “pressure politicians to make the right decisions at a national and district level”. 
 
 Issues discussed at the meeting are to be incorporated into the plan, which ECOWAS is to present to member countries. Experts say “terrorist” activities and organizations know no borders and a regional approach is needed. 
 
 wb/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=93458</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/1181t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 09 August 2011 (IRIN) - Journalists and civil society members in West Africa analysed a “counter-terrorism plan” drawn up by the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) at a 4-5 August meeting in the Senegalese capital Dakar.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SLIDESHOW: The power of local foods in Burkina Faso</title><pubDate>Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107271155100121t.jpg" />]]>DORI 27 July 2011 (IRIN) - In remote villages of northeastern Burkina Faso families are using and selling vegetables and dairy products well past gardening and milk-production seasons thanks to some simple methods being promoted by NGO Eau Vive.</description><body><![CDATA[DORI 27 July 2011 (IRIN) - In remote villages of northeastern Burkina Faso families are using and selling vegetables and dairy products well past gardening and milk-production seasons thanks to some simple methods being promoted by NGO Eau Vive.

The techniques allow people to preserve for longer, and do more with, the food they have. Eau Vive’s European Union-backed project, which is being reviewed at a forum 27-29 July in Dori in Burkina’s Sahel region, also includes training women to monitor children’s nutritional status and teaching health and hygiene to fellow villagers.

For Juste Hermann Nansi, the head of Eau Vive in Burkina Faso, education and proper use of local foods, along with improved roads and access to water and sanitation, constitute the only path out of recurrent nutrition crises. “The repeated emergency responses from outside, every time a community faces a difficult year, undermine rural communities’ local strategies and capacity.”

This IRIN slideshow [ http://www.irinnews.org/photo/Default.aspx?id=27 ] looks at how people are using available foods to improve health and livelihoods.

np/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=93344</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107271155100121t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DORI 27 July 2011 (IRIN) - In remote villages of northeastern Burkina Faso families are using and selling vegetables and dairy products well past gardening and milk-production seasons thanks to some simple methods being promoted by NGO Eau Vive.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HEALTH: Ancient wisdom, new knowledge</title><pubDate>Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107120318570944t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 11 July 2011 (IRIN) - No one can tell 64-year-old Fatoumata Kané anything new about the plants and tree bark around her town of Banamba in western Mali, but the traditional healer recently learned how to measure a child’s upper arm to detect malnutrition.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 11 July 2011 (IRIN) - No one can tell 64-year-old Fatoumata Kané anything new about the plants and tree bark around her town of Banamba in western Mali, but the traditional healer recently learned how to measure a child’s upper arm to detect malnutrition. 
 
 Scores of families bring ailing children to Kané each week. She is renowned in the region for her healing powers, but now refers suspected malnutrition cases to the public health centre. The collaboration, initiated by local health agent Oumou Sangaré of Helen Keller International (HKI), is an example of how NGOs are tapping into the influence of traditional healers and local elders to fight under-nutrition. 
 
 Across sub-Saharan Africa health experts commonly train traditional healers to detect conditions needing something other than indigenous medicine; the fact is that when illness strikes many people’s first move is to go to the local healer. 
 
 “It is always people’s first choice here,” said a doctor in Sierra Leone who requested anonymity. “It’s a custom people are addicted to.” 
 
 It is custom, but often it is also the only health care people can afford or physically access. In some countries in Africa and Asia 80 percent of people depend on traditional medicine for their primary health care, according to the World Health Organization. [ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs134/en/ ]
 
 Often traditional medicine is the answer. Africa has tens of thousands of plant species, many therapeutic, and the basis for effective remedies. Kouamé Koffi Samuel, a chauffeur in Côte d’Ivoire, said he has first-hand experience of women who are expert at healing closed fractures with massage, herbs and incantations. “I’ve seen it - it’s far more rapid and effective than a cast.” 
 
 But child under-nutrition is one of the conditions untreatable by such means, health workers say. If a parent does not understand the signs, symptoms and causes, various conditions could be suspected. The Sierra Leonean doctor said some families think immediately of a spell. 
 
 “When a child is malnourished people think it’s a witch. When a child is very anaemic they say a witch has drawn all the blood from the child.” 
 
 He added: “We need to do more education on this.” 
 
 Health experts say one strong conduit for that education are the traditional healers and elderly women who already have people’s confidence. 
 
 “If [Banamba healer Kané] were to tell a woman not to take a child to the health centre, the woman wouldn’t do it, no matter what,” HKI’s Sangaré told IRIN. “Such is the women’s trust in her.” 
 
 Sangaré said she first approached Kané when she noticed that too many malnourished children in Banamba were not getting the medical attention they needed. 
 
 Collaborating with local healers 
 
 She said initially Kané, who makes her living as a healer, was hesitant but then agreed to talk. They met several times to talk about children’s health; Sangaré explained to Kané the role she could have in detecting malnutrition and helping children get the care they need. “Now she’s had training and she’s helping us detect cases of malnutrition.” 
 
 Kané, from her home in the Hamdallaye neighbourhood of Banamba, told IRIN traditional and modern medicine can function well together. “I have practiced for more than 20 years now; the gift I have for healing is not going anywhere. But modern medicine can complement it, and vice-versa.” 
 
 Vanessa Dickey, senior nutritionist with HKI Mali, said collaborating with local healers means more children who need medical care will get it. 
 
 “Targeting just mothers can get us only so far,” Dickey told IRIN. “People are going to listen to a traditional healer or a grandmother.” HKI also has a project in Burkina Faso to boost maternal and child health through the influence of older women, to whom young women invariably turn for advice on pregnancy, motherhood and feeding their families. 
 
 “Our object is to screen as many children as we can to see who needs attention,” Dickey said. “And traditional healers and grandmothers are the first-line healers in a community.” 
 
 Traditional plus modern 
 
 Nurses and doctors told IRIN it is common to see families consult both a traditional practitioner and a doctor. 
 
 Soro Awa, holding her nephew whose mother had recently died in childbirth, talked to IRIN at a Côte d’Ivoire nutritional centre in Korhogo: “Without this centre my sister’s son would not be alive,” she said. Still, she plans to see the local healer once she returns to the village “to protect the child from sorcery”. 
 
 “Often, people assume someone has cast a spell on a child, not knowing that a child is malnourished or has an illness that can be easily treated at hospital,” said Soro Pènè, from Korhogo’s Waraniené village. “Anyway, I am all for traditional healers because they do have their place in our customs and they are very effective in some cases.” 
 
 Salimata Koné, who runs the Korhogo centre, says some parents bring their children in directly without going to a local healer. But as the Sierra Leonean doctor explains, family pressure often weighs in later. “A parent could have a child treated at hospital, then a friend or family member will come round advising that it’s best to also consult the traditional healer.” 
 
 “It can be OK if people go to both,” he said. “But only if the traditional healer is competent and knows the limits of his or her capabilities.” 
 
 It is not a question of ruling out traditional practitioners, said Dickey. “They can continue to do follow-up. We do urge them not to give malnourished children herbs or teas to consume. The body of a malnourished child is really in chaos; these kinds of plants, which might not harm another person, could be dangerous for a child in this state.” 
 
 As in so many circumstances, the hard evidence of a healthier child is the most powerful message, Koné in Korhogo told IRIN. “It’s important not to condemn the practice of going to a traditional healer; we don’t want to frustrate people. But the fact is once a malnourished child regains health after proper diagnosis and treatment, that recovery is concrete proof and has a huge influence on others.” 
 
 Recovery is the common objective. “My role is to lighten mothers’ hearts, by helping heal sick children," said Kané. "When a child is healthy, the mother is relieved and things go better in the household.”
 
 np/ao/sc/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=93199</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107120318570944t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 11 July 2011 (IRIN) - No one can tell 64-year-old Fatoumata Kané anything new about the plants and tree bark around her town of Banamba in western Mali, but the traditional healer recently learned how to measure a child’s upper arm to detect malnutrition.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>COTE D&apos;IVOIRE: Barakissa Ouédraogo, &quot;We must talk, otherwise we’ll keep killing one another&quot;</title><pubDate>Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107040950380421t.jpg" />]]>OUAGADOUGOU 04 July 2011 (IRIN) - As Ivoirian and international officials discuss truth, reconciliation and trying those suspected of war crimes, Barakissa Ouédraogo, one of more than 100,000 Burkinabé who fled Côte d’Ivoire for Burkina Faso during the post-election violence, says helping families rebuild destroyed homes would do more to foster stability.</description><body><![CDATA[OUAGADOUGOU 04 July 2011 (IRIN) - As Ivoirian and international officials discuss truth, reconciliation and trying those suspected of war crimes, Barakissa Ouédraogo, one of more than 100,000 Burkinabé who fled Côte d’Ivoire for Burkina Faso during the post-election violence, says helping families rebuild destroyed homes would do more to foster stability. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92130 ]
 
 Ouédraogo said she regularly received death threats and that Burkinabé friends in Côte d’Ivoire were killed and maimed. “The violence just got to be too much - so many killed, so many injured. We had to flee.” She said presidents come and go, and that it is the people who must decide not to let politics lead to killing. Ouédraogo was born in Côte d’Ivoire, where Burkinabé have lived for generations. Having fled to Burkina in January, she recently returned to Abidjan’s Abobo District to assess the damage at her shelled home. 
 
 “I think these truth and reconciliation processes are just theatre, decoration. If you ask me, the money that would go into organizing such things could be used to fix holes in roofs, to help families who are really destitute. If you see your home repaired, you get some relief. Whatever your ethnicity, whatever your politics, that would ease your pain. There are still people living outdoors. 
 
 "You're going to go to talk to a commission, tell them how your family was killed and you want to forgive, then what? You return to the street because your home is flattened. 
 
 “Economic activity is at a standstill… It’s too early to say that things are OK now in Côte d’Ivoire. Those who are saying that are not living the reality. Ask anyone in Côte d’Ivoire and they’ll tell you things have not yet returned to normal. 
 
 “For those who phoned me with death threats because I’m Burkinabé, all that was solely politics. Were it not for politics they wouldn’t have threatened me. They don’t know me, I don’t know them. It was politics alone that [led to all of this]. 
 
 “We are all human beings with the same blood flowing through our veins. We must be together, live together and pardon one another… Even if we cannot forget everything, we must forgive. We will inevitably meet in the marketplace, in the street. We must talk to one another again, otherwise we’ll keep killing one another, even when 1,000 presidents have come and gone. 
 
 “We didn’t think the violence could reach this point in Côte d’Ivoire. When I made the trip back a friend showed me the remains of people who were burned alive in Yopougon [district of Abidjan]. Despite all the rains, the traces are still there. A human body does not simply disappear. 
 
 “We cannot know yet how things are going to evolve… There are people who support Gbagbo. We cannot erase that. Gbagbo left but his people are there… The new president is in place and people are going about their business and acting as if they accept that, but we can’t know what’s deep in everyone’s heart.” [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92443 ]
 
 np/cb 

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=93131</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2011/201107040950380421t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">OUAGADOUGOU 04 July 2011 (IRIN) - As Ivoirian and international officials discuss truth, reconciliation and trying those suspected of war crimes, Barakissa Ouédraogo, one of more than 100,000 Burkinabé who fled Côte d’Ivoire for Burkina Faso during the post-election violence, says helping families rebuild destroyed homes would do more to foster stability.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AFRICA: Malaria vaccine could have extra benefits</title><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2008/2008111814t.jpg" />]]>LILONGWE 20 June 2011 (IRIN) - The malaria vaccine that has eluded medical science for decades is now within reach, with the final phase of clinical trials underway in seven African countries, including Malawi, where the disease claims 6,500 lives a year, most of them children under the age of five.</description><body><![CDATA[LILONGWE 20 June 2011 (IRIN) - The malaria vaccine that has eluded medical science for decades is now within reach, with the final phase of clinical trials underway in seven African countries, including Malawi, where the disease claims 6,500 lives a year, most of them children under the age of five. 
 
 Tisungane Mvalo, head of the research team at the Malawian trial site, which is being run in partnership with the University of North Carolina's Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, said the current methods for controlling the incidence of malaria in Malawi have had limited success. 
 
 "We have had a moderate reduction in infant mortality from interventions like bed nets and insecticides but malaria remains the leading cause of infant mortality," he said. "There still needs to be an additional intervention." 
 
 The multi-country trial of the malaria vaccine RTS,S, made by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, is one of the largest ever carried out in sub-Saharan Africa. With funding from GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative - an NGO that develops research for malaria - 15,000 newborns and infants are being inoculated at 11 sites across the region. 
 
 The children are then monitored over a period of 36 months to assess the effectiveness of RTS,S, which in previous studies reduced cases of severe malaria in infants by 53 percent [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=82059 ]. If the results, due to be released later this, year confirm the vaccine's efficacy in preventing malaria, it could be made available as early as 2015. 
 
 "It's a very exciting time," said PATH Director Dr Christian Loucq, speaking from his office in Washington. "We have estimated in our models that a vaccine like this could save hundreds of thousands of lives a year." 
 
 The high cost of malaria 
 
 A malaria vaccine would not only save lives, it would also alleviate the great burden of the disease on health systems in economically stretched developing countries. 
 
 Dr Karl Seydel, a paediatrician at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, said the impact of the disease on the public health system was "overwhelming" - 5.5 million cases of malaria, equivalent to a third of the country's population, were reported in 2010. 
 
 "It drains the resources," he told IRIN. "We could use that money for other things; we could build more hospitals or hire more nurses." 
 
 He estimated that during the rainy season, when bites from mosquitoes infected with the malaria parasite are most common, about half of all admissions to the hospital's paediatric ward were due to malaria. The ward was designed for 150 patients but often has to accommodate twice that number. 
 
 Malawi has a good track record for immunizing children: 98 percent have received the standard vaccines recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The addition of a malaria vaccine, even at 50 percent effectiveness, could greatly reduce the number of children needing expensive hospital care. 
 
 Malaria prevention has been less successful than was hoped. According to the 2010 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey, about 70 percent of households have bed nets, but just half the children under five are using them. 
 
 Mvalo said the adults in a household often used the nets, even though children are most susceptible to developing severe malaria. In some parts of the country mosquitoes have also started showing resistance to insecticides. 
 
 "Each control method has its shortfalls," Mvalo said. "That is why a vaccine is a good alternative - not a replacement, but a good alternative." 
 
 Most researchers agree that a malaria vaccine will not substitute for current preventative measures, but could greatly reduce mortality from the disease and create huge financial gains for countries where malaria is endemic. Public health researchers estimate that in such countries, malaria directly absorbs one percent of GDP, excluding indirect costs like loss of work hours. 
 
 "Solving the problem of malaria would very much help in terms of economic development," said Loucq. 
 
 md/ks/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=93024</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://irinnews.org/images/2008/2008111814t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">LILONGWE 20 June 2011 (IRIN) - The malaria vaccine that has eluded medical science for decades is now within reach, with the final phase of clinical trials underway in seven African countries, including Malawi, where the disease claims 6,500 lives a year, most of them children under the age of five.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>
