|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
News Search
|
|
3-08-2005 Scotsman How could no-one notice as they slowly starved to death? By Gethin Chamberlain Chief News Correspondent A MONTH ago, the world tuned in to watch Live 8 and to hear a group of musicians tell them they were making poverty history. Eight powerful men met at Gleneagles to announce that they were doing their bit to achieve that goal. And across Africa's Sahel, millions of people edged a little closer to the brink of disaster. Yet only now has the world started to pay attention to their plight. Yesterday, Britain's aid agencies launched an GBP 8 million appeal to avert starvation in Niger. The inquest into how it was allowed to get to this stage has already begun. Aid agencies say they have been warning since last year that the combination of a plague of locusts and severe drought would prove impossible for the world's second-poorest country to overcome. Last month alone, at least 1,300 people are thought to have died of starvation in Niger, according to an aid worker in the country. The UN has expressed its frustration that its warnings were not heeded, while conceding that it too must share some of the blame for failing to react fast enough. Those behind the Make Poverty History and Live8 events say that drawing attention to one disaster and turning the political campaign into a fundraising effort would have been counterproductive. The tsunami, compassion fatigue, ignorance of Niger's plight - all have been blamed for worsening the crisis. And once again, it is the individual donors who are coming to the rescue to find the GBP 8 million the Disasters Emergency Committee says is urgently needed to save Niger's starving millions. It is not just Niger. Mali, Mauritania and Burkino Faso are in desperate need, too. Eight million people are at risk of hunger across the region. About 2.5 million people are suffering food shortages in Niger alone, with 800,000 children at risk of malnutrition. The response is familiar. A high-profile advertising campaign is being launched to encourage people to dig deep. Short films have been commissioned, fronted by the actor Dougray Scott and the presenter Jeremy Vine. A call centre has been set up to take donations, manned by minor celebrities. But the question that is being asked by those involved in the aid effort on the ground is this: how was it that in a year of Live 8 and Make Poverty History, no-one noticed that the Sahelians were starving to death? The finger is pointing at the western donors - including the members of the G8 who gathered at Gleneagles last month to congratulate each other for their largesse towards the debt-ridden nations of Africa. "All the signs were blinking red," said Johanne Sekkenes, the head of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Niger. "It's the international community that failed to set up an emergency response to this crisis." Niger donated to the tsunami appeal, but when its turn came to ask for help, its pleas fell on deaf ears. "All the donors' attention was on the tsunami crisis," said Karim Adgibade, the head of the UN children's fund UNICEF in Niger. "When we came back in March to ask for assistance, the money was not there." Kate Norgrove, from Global Call to Action Against Poverty, a coalition of groups including Make Poverty History, agreed. "All the agencies were saying that this was a serious concern and the UN was saying the same thing but until the pictures come up on the television, governments don't respond," she said. And she believes it would have been counterproductive to campaign at Live 8 on behalf of just one country. "There are just so many countries that you could plug at Live 8 and the G8, and focusing on one would not have been effective," she said. The UN, so often criticised for failing to act quickly and effectively, appears to have at least been aware of the growing crisis; though, as so often in the past, it failed to address the problem. In May, Jan Egeland, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator, railed against Western governments, accusing them of discriminating against Africa. Kristen Knutson, of the UN's office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs, could offer little in the way of explanation for the attitude of the donor countries: "We haven't had much response to the appeals. "As to why, it is hard to pinpoint something specifically. It is a landlocked country and there is very little knowledge about it in the wider world. And it doesn't have a history of news coverage. Ethiopia, for example, has in the past had a much higher profile." In May, the UN launched an emergency appeal for dollars 16.2 million, but two weeks later, there was still no response from governments. It was only when television cameras started to turn up in Niger and newspapers began to draw attention to the crisis that the aid begin to flow. But the attention now focused on Niger threatens to overshadow the problems faced by other African regions. According to the UN, the situation in other parts of the Sahel is rapidly deteriorating, with 1.1million people in Mali in need of food aid (including 5,000 children in the north of the country suffering from acute malnutrition), 500,000 people affected in Burkina Faso and 750,000 in Mauritania. Southern Africa is also in crisis, with serious food shortages already evident in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia - areas projected to deteriorate further in the autumn. The long-term prognosis for those countries is not good. Margareta Wahlstrom, of the UN, admitted the current system was too slow to react and was "quite unable" to focus on more than one or two big emergencies at the same time. "I think what is a bitter pill for all of us is that it's only when we are faced with images of starving children that the international system starts kicking in," she said. HOW TO DONATE By calling 0870 6060 900, online at www.dec.org.uk, by post to DEC, PO Box 999, London EC3A 3AA or at any bank or post office. Or by giving to charity shops run by Oxfam, Save the Children, British Red Cross and Islamic Relief.
|
|
||||
|
................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
|||||||
